Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. We have got another bonus episode of just the call to counsel conference twenty twenty six, just doing some track introductions.

And for this particular track introduction, I've got John Henderson with me. John, how are we doing?

Doing well. How are you?

I'm doing good. Doing good. So we just wanted to take a couple minutes guys to have John talk about the trauma track and just what to look forward to and to encourage you in the trauma track. So John, can you just share a little bit with us about the objective of the trauma track, who the speakers are going to be, and then just a little bit of what you guys are going to be capturing?

Yeah, that I have the privilege of serving alongside Darby Strickland and Curtis Solomon, again, twenty twenty six ABC conference, and really, again, to talk about trauma ministry of the word to men and women suffering the effects of trauma, and really building on the conviction that real healing, healing that lasts, healing that's deep, healing that affects the whole life and person, requires wisdom. It requires counselors who are compassionate, who are patient, who are equipped with the gospel of Christ and the Word of God, and learning how to apply God's Word to the complex effects of terror and horror on an embodied soul, a human being, someone made in the image of God. And so we're gonna get eight sessions together total. Curtis is gonna lead off with a biblical anthropology of trauma. How do we think biblically about a human being?

What it means to be an embodied soul made in the image of God living in a fallen world? And then I'll be following that up with just defining the nature and development of trauma. How do we understand what trauma is in biblical terms? How do we describe and think about it biblically? And how does it develop in a person's life when someone experiences terror and horror?

And then Darby Strickland will be following that up in session three with describing the experience of trauma and the expression of trauma. What is it like from the person enduring it and suffering beneath it? And then she'll follow that up with a fourth session on just entering their world marked by trauma. So that's equipping counselors to patiently, carefully, wisely enter into the world of that man or woman who has endured horror and terror. And then I'll come back for a fifth session to talk about remembering and reliving and retelling and reinterpreting because that's a lot of those early hours of ministry with one another is helping one another remember and in some ways dealing with the effects of reliving the horrors of the past, and how do you retell that story, but then begin to apply the lens of God's Word to reinterpret.

That the gospel equips us as followers of Christ uniquely to interpret our past in a a unique way compared to this world. And then Curtis is gonna lead us in a session on grief and lament and the mercies of God in Christ where, yeah, there's just so many Psalms, so many passages of scripture that are given to help us grieve sorrow and suffering and loss and affliction. And so how do we lament in a Christ centered way? How do we lament from faith and learn to depend on the mercies of God in Christ? Darby will lead us in a seventh session on guilt and shame and the covering of God in Christ because that's so much a part of the experience of trauma is the guilt and the shame that comes with being uncovered and exposed and humiliated and afflicted.

And how does God cover us in Christ? How do does the righteousness of Christ and union with Christ and actually be brought to bear in this counseling conversation? Then we'll have a final session just for some question and answer and discussion with the three of us together. So I think, yeah, bound to be by God's grace, an encouraging time together, a sobering time together, but the prayer is that it would be an equipping time together.

Yeah, that's really good. Thank you, John. And what's exciting about this particular track is it really, obviously for those who are coming in and maybe they're currently in level one, or they just finished level one and they're beginning to counsel and they're starting to get people and trauma keeps to be a reoccurring theme or something that's being brought up. So for those of you who are listening, this is probably gonna be a good track for you because it's really gonna help you demonstrate what developing a biblical lens rather of how do I understand trauma? How do I really approach trauma and care for those people that are dealing with trauma in the counseling room?

And so this is gonna be a great track. And so for those of you who are considering that, honestly, this would be a track that hopefully it makes its rounds to where this is a track that's a standard because it's a pretty reoccurring theme in our counseling today because it's culturally relevant. Any concluding thoughts on that, John?

Yeah. It's certainly relevant both at a popular level. You see it being talked about and discussed in on scales and in amounts that we haven't seen before. But also just at a personal level. There's more and more is it the lived experience and the personal experience and the that many men and women come into counseling and with where they've endured things and face things that they now want to talk about.

And so being equipped to minister God's Word wisely is important.

Yeah, so it'll be good. So this is definitely gonna be a good introduction to trauma and it won't be so overwhelming and maybe even a level of demystifying trauma where it just it doesn't feel as potent like you feel unqualified to speak to it to some degree, but as long as you come to help develop a build

There's certainly a prayer and a goal to make this conversation less intimidating. Yeah. And to show how the experience of life, the expression of life that we apply the word trauma to is that the Bible speaks to it, and that the Bible brings wisdom to it. And so there's certainly a way in which we wanna demystify and lower the sense of intimidation. At the same time, there will always be times where we're overwhelmed in this conversation.

There will always be a part of this ministry that is is beyond us. It's bigger than us. And so hopefully, we pray also to instill a sense of dependency on the grace of God in Christ and dependency on the spirit of God and learning how to let God and his word shape the conversation and provide the hope because the experience of trauma is full of grief and terror and anxiety and confusion and memories and guilt and shame and anger. And so many being human struggles. And yet time and time again, see that God through his word has much to say to us Yeah.

In those places. And Christ is a faithful and sympathetic high priest and his spirit is mighty to bring change and transformation and comfort. And that his word really does deliver riches for dealing with every aspect of what we would call trauma.

Yeah, that's really good. So again, guys, this is gonna be a really good track to just help develop a category of trauma and the way that the Bible really articulates trauma, the way God sees and understands it within the redemptive story of his. And so I hope you're excited for that. I know we are. John, thank you for leading this out.

We're excited for 2026, and we can't wait to see you guys. We'll see you guys there.