Pastors try to reach out to veterans with PTSD

I started to read this article hopeful but soon found that there is reason to be skeptical. I can't help but remember the days of working for the church and finding two pastors reluctant to even listen. I could see their eyes glaze over as I tried to explain they needed to get involved. Ever Pollyanna I attempted to gain support from other churches in the area. The Orlando area has some really enormous churches with huge congregations. I went to over twenty of them but only heard back from one church. The pastors was really interested in what I had to say but there was a reason for it. He was also a Chaplain.

This leaves me wondering why Chaplains and the Clergy have to be in competition with each other instead of joining forces? After all, I don't have a pulpit and I'm not about to start a church. I'm only doing what God called me to do and working with veterans as children of God. I have no personal choice to get them in the door of one house of worship over another, but just to return them to the faith they already had. Many Chaplains are ministers as well, so they are able to understand the work a Chaplain does is different than that work a Minister or Priest, or any other spiritual leader does. We are just there in a time of need to take care of the need in the moment. The members of the clergy need to be there for them the rest of the time and they need to get it into their own brains that PTSD is real and it strikes the soul. Isn't it their job to try to mend broken souls? So we really need to be asking why it is they will not turn out in force to help our veterans and their families. Is it because they can't understand them or what they went through? Well, if it is then they are also failing the police officers and firefighters along with the veterans and National Guardsmen. They are failing every other soul sent to them after tragedy and trauma entered into their lives as well.

The members of the clergy getting involved are heroes to me. As for the rest, they will have to answer to God why it is they turned their backs on the men and women willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this nation in their hour of need.

THE PULPIT: Pastors try to reach out to veterans with PTSD
May 29, 2009 - 5:00 PM
MARK BARNA
THE GAZETTE
Helping people who don't seek or want help can be tricky.

Some Colorado Springs pastors are struggling with this as it relates to military people in their congregation suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury.

What are the symptoms to look for, they ask, and what degree of intervention is appropriate for clergy?

A series of Colorado Springs seminars that began in October have addressed these issues by teaching religious leaders how to recognize combat-related stress disorders, then refer sufferers to trained combat therapists.

"Many troops worship at local churches, and pastors need to know of the challenges the troops returning from Iraq and their families face," said Brian Duncan, an organizer of the seminars and a psychotherapist at Pikes Peak Behavioral Health.

Interest in the six-month-old program remains, as evidenced by about 60 church leaders attending a combat-stress seminar this month.

But the program has run into an unexpected stumbling block: Pastors aren't convinced PTSD and traumatic brain injury are issues among troops in their congregation, said Khan McClellan, senior pastor of Calvary United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs.

"A lot of pastors need to get past the bump of denial," McClellan said.

"There is a stigma about mental health issues in general that stops pastors from asking members of their congregation if they are suffering from PTSD."
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