So stoked to have Joel Hollier and Steff Fenton return to the podcast! (If you haven’t listened to their previous episodes I strongly recommend you do so.)

Joel and Steff co-pastor New City Church and from its inception they have been seeking to create a trauma-informed faith community. We had a conversation about what that actually means.

What happens when churches are not consciously thinking about trauma and how to handle it? How do you approach bible and musical worship and prayer when the reality is that for some people, these are tied to traumatic religious experiences? And if you experienced trauma in a religious setting…is there hope of healing in one?

These are the kind of questions that ground this conversation. And obviously, it’s important to note that these are questions you journey with over the long term, rather than solve in one conversation. Having said that, there are definitely some really actionable and helpful thoughts and suggestions in this chat.

So for those of you who help shape church spaces — please listen and use this to inform your conversations and decisions.

And to those who have moved out of church spaces — I hope hearing this gives a glimmer of hope just knowing that there are people like Joel and Steff seeking to create safer spaces for faith and community.


Want more Joel and Steff goodness?

Listen to Joel Hollier on finding room at the table here.

Listen to Steff Fenton on gender expansive theology here.