21.10.2016

Trauma Healing and Deliverance

This was the main recommendation of a think tank on “Trauma Healing and Deliverance” that brought together 19 participants from the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches in Rwanda, the CBCA in Eastern Congo, the Evangelical Church of Cameroon. Organized by the UEM Executive Secretary for Evangelism, Dr. Claudia Währisch-Oblau, and advised by a German psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Grabe, the think tank sought to bring into dialogue pastors and mental health professionals to see whether and how cooperation between the two fields could enrich the counseling work of the respective churches as well as their ministries of deliverance.

Participants met in Goma, DR Congo, and took time to visit deliverance services of the CBCA as well as of a local ‘revival church’, a psychiatric hospital run by the Catholic Church, and counseling ministries of the CBCA. In addition, participants reported about the counseling and deliverance ministries in their respective churches.

Discussing concrete case studies, the group soon realized that many people seeking deliverance from demons do not only have spiritual, but also mental, medical, and social problems. A holistic approach to assistance should therefore include psychological and medical help, pastoral counseling, and prayer for deliverance where appropriate. As prayer groups involved in the ministry of deliverance usually consist of lay Christians, the need for their training in basic psychology and counseling was deemed paramount, and the group committed itself to develop a curriculum for such trainings and implement them in their respective churches.

The encounter between pastors and mental health professionals was a first one for most participants, and generated much material for discussions that often lasted late into the night.

Please download the recommendations here.

(Claudia Währisch-Oblau)