Sunday May 28 was Pentecost Sunday within the Christian Church in 2023. During my church’s worship service, our guest speaker shared experiences from a large worship service of an African Independent Church she attended that echoed of the first Pentecost episode described in the Bible. As I pondered her modern day Pentecost experience, it occurred to me that the strange but profound events she witnessed in that African worship service reminded me of responses that people experience as they release their trauma. In this blog, I want to explore this connection between the strange phenomena that can happen during church healing services that are often compared to the first Pentecost and how it might be explained through the lens of trauma. It has made wonder if part of the purpose of worship services is to help people process trauma. Within Church tradition, Pentecost Sunday occurs 50 days after Easter each year, the day when the church celebrates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Christian tradition teaches that the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples many times after his death beginning with Easter morning. During his last appearance, before the resurrected Jesus ascended into Heaven, Jesus instructed his followers to “not leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promised coming of God’s Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4). On the day that came to be known as Pentecost, the followers of Jesus were all together in one place when ‘suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine”’ (Acts 2: 1-13). Our church guest speaker, Susan Allison-Jones, for this Pentecost Sunday, shared an experience she had while attending a large African Independent Church yearly healing conference. The African Independent Churches is a group of Christian denominations in Africa that take seriously their African context. Rather than accept Western forms of Christianity based on missionaries, they seek to develop a Christian Church that reflects their history and context. For example, many of these churches hold the practices of polygamy, chieftaincy titles, traditional religious habits, and belief in traditional African cosmology in a more graceful way than Western-based Christian churches. Furthermore, prophecy, visions and dreams are allowed in these churches. (A Review of African Initiated Churches and Their Contributions to the Development of Education in Nigeria Dr Tiwatola Abidemi Falaye Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Olabisi Onabanjo University, PMB 2002, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State , Nigeria) (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234690013.pdf). Susan described how African Independent Church services are not calm and orderly like Western Church services. When people sing, they use their whole body. And when the pastor preaches, strange things can happen in their services. And this is exactly what happened during this worship service. Over 3000 people had travelled to attend this yearly service, a service that many seek to attend each year. They met in a new unfinished church building. This building had been built larger to replace the old church building, but even this building could not begin to hold the crowds of people who came. While the roof was on, the walls were not fully completed which was a blessing in disguise. The walls only reached 4 feet from the ground which meant that people could gather around the building and still hear and experience the worship service. Being a guest Westerner Christian worker, Susan sat at the front of the church sanctuary along with other church leaders. She sat beside the wife of the preacher. She had a good view of everything. They first sang and then the preacher got up to preach. The preacher spoke in the language of the Botswanan people, a language that Susan did not understand. In talking to the preacher afterward, she learned that the preacher had preached a basic Christian sermon, nothing that made it different from a standard Christian sermon. As the pastor preached, suddenly someone toward the back of congregation shrieked…and then arms moved uncontrollably and a group of praying people gathered around them. And then commotion happened in another area of the worship space…more strange behavior, noises, and movements. Again, a circle of praying people circled this person. Throughout the preaching, these strange episodes kept happening throughout the worship area. Susan noted that she was glad she was up front away from all this strange behavior when suddenly the preacher’s wife began to shake and make noises. Soon a group of praying people gathered around her and she witnessed this phenomena firsthand. Susan has come to see this healing service with all these strange phenomena as an example of a Pentecost experience, an event when God’s Holy Spirit moves in strange and mysterious ways among the people of God, just like God’s Spirit did during the first recorded Pentecost episode some two thousand years ago. As I heard Susan described her Pentecost experience, it occurred to me that what she was witnessing was the release of trauma. In saying this, I am not discounting that these strange phenomena were not caused by God’s Spirit. In fact, I am saying the opposite, that when people’s psyches and bodies can deeply surrender and relax into the Presence of God’s spirit, this is exactly what I would expect to happen. Before you write this off as a crazy idea, it is important to understand how trauma works and how it is released within people. Peter Levine, PhD, a psychologist, researcher, and developer of Somatic Experiencing, wrote a landmark book, Waking a Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997). In it, he explores the question, “why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of trauma is revealed” (book cover). His research has led to him to develop the psychotherapeutic modality of somatic experiencing. Typically, when humans are threatened, two responses happen. We either fight the threat or we flee from it. But there is a third response, a response that happens when fight and flight responses are not possible. This response is freeze or collapse. Levine says that "the freeze response is one of the body’s involuntary defense responses to threats”, “an armor against an unacceptable feeling” (https://www.nicabm.com/experts/peter-levine/). Here are a few key signs that a person is in freeze:
Imagine a gazelle grazing on the Sahara. From close behind, a lion stalks this prey. Suddenly, the gazelle notices it’s being followed. To protect itself, the gazelle freezes. Perplexed by this abnormal behavior, the lion loses interest in the gazelle and wanders off in search of other prey. So as you can see, the gazelle was able to escape this predator thanks to its freeze response. (https://www.nicabm.com/experts/peter-levine/) (Click here to see a video that shows this freeze/collapse response in the wild) Now, while this freezing can be adaptive in the moment, where it becomes harmful is when it persists even after the threat has passed. (https://www.nicabm.com/experts/peter-levine/). People can become stuck in their traumatic freeze/collapse response. While animals are capable of returning to a regulated, healthy state relatively quickly, “humans, on the other hand, tend to remain stuck in hyper-vigilance after experiencing trauma far more than animals do. Peter concluded that this happens because moving out of a trauma response often involves coming back into contact with painful sensations. For more primitive animals, this is a process they can’t resist. But as humans with higher-order thinking, we’re capable of avoiding those uncomfortable experiences. The goal of Somatic Experiencing, therefore, is to help a client reconnect with their inherent ability to tolerate distressing emotions” (https://www.nicabm.com/experts/peter-levine/). This involves getting in touch with their body through breathwork, body sensing, or through re-entering postures that help people connect with the shame and pain of the freeze response trapped in their bodies (https://www.nicabm.com/experts/peter-levine/) This is how trauma is realized in the counselling room with a therapist trained in somatic experiencing or other similar body-based therapeutic modalities that help clients process their trauma trapped in their bodies. My suspicion is that a similar trauma-release process is happening for those people in that African Independent Church service. Within that worship service, some people felt so safe within the community of God’s people and within the field of God’s loving presence that they allowed themselves to relax and surrender so deeply that the frozen trauma responses trapped in their bodies began to release. I think it is significant that worship within these African Independent Church often involves people being expressive with their bodies as they sing, pray, and listen to someone preaching. This intense body awareness and engagement sets up the right conditions for trauma to be discharged. I remember the Toronto Blessing phenomena that began in January, 1994 when similar mysterious manifestation happened here in Canada during worship at the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Blessing). The Vineyard church is an “international neocharismatic evangelical Christian denomination” (https:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Vineyard_Churches). Being a Mennonite pastor who pastored a church in Markham-Stouffiville north of Toronto during this time, I was quite curious and so I attended a worship service to understand for myself what was happening. During that service, there was an invitation to come to the front of sanctuary for prayer and anointing of God’s Holy Spirit and so I went forward. I witnessed firsthand people collapsing to the floor beside me as people prayed with them. Supporting staff would catch these people, and gently laid them on the floor. When my time came to be prayed over, I was surprised to notice the strength in my legs disappear, and while I didn’t collapse, I knew I needed to lay on the floor so I didn’t fall. All I can remember from that experience was how peaceful and relaxed I felt and the profound sense of love I felt internally. Knowing what I know now, I would conclude that such healing worship services created the right conditions for people to release aspects of the trauma they were carrying from their past. When I attend worship now, I regularly touch into a similar place, especially during certain congregational songs or when hearing others sing. During those times, I get so emotionally choked up, I can no longer sing. All I can do is just basked in the experience of love or gratitude that I am feeling in the moment. Last Sunday it happened again when a newer member to our church sang for the first time in our church along with his friend. I understand these moments as times when my soul is very open and receptive to the spiritual field where God’s spirit emerges, where I am in a deep place of surrender. But now, I wonder if some aspects of my past traumas are being released each time those sacred moments occur, what are often called corrective emotional experiences within the counselling office. In reflecting on this theme of worship and trauma, it has made me wonder if we, who attend worship services, need to approach this sacred time differently. Many of us come to religious sanctuaries in our best clothes and state of mind and praise God/Allah/Buddha/Creator/Life for the many blessings we have and hope to learn teachings that will help us in living a more fulfilled life. What if we approached worship like clients often approach their sessions of counselling, with a little fear and trepidation, but also with a deep longing to surrender into a mysterious Presence that allows Spirit to touch us at our deepest places, places where our frozen trauma parts are waiting to be freed a little more. I wonder how our worship services would change. Gord Alton MDiv RP CASC Supervisor-Educator
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