After listening carefully to stories from people who suffered misogynistic, racist, or homophobic abuse at the hands of the church, Charles Kiser and Dr. Elaine Heath bring those stories into conversation with the death and resurrection of Jesus, and find in the gospel a God who shares the experience of the traumatized.

The result is their book Trauma-Informed Evangelism: Cultivating Communities of Wounded Healers, where they propose a new kind of evangelism—one based not on fear and coercion but on witnessing the unconditional love of God.

Charles Kiser is a pastor and theologian with Storyline Christian Community in Dallas, Texas, a network of missional communities he helped to form. He is passionate about creative expressions of Christian community, contemplative spirituality, and healing spiritual trauma. Kiser has a DMin in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary and serves as a faculty member of Neighborhood Seminary.

Elaine Heath is the author of eleven books and numerous articles, the most recent books being Loving the Hell Out of Ourselves (and Others) (Birch & Alder, 2021), coauthored with her sister, Jeanine Heath-McGlinn. She formerly served as Dean of the Divinity School at Duke University, where she was also professor of missional and pastoral theology, and the McCreless Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Heath cofounded two nonprofits: Missional Wisdom Foundation, and Neighborhood Seminary, a contextualized model of missional theological education for laity. Heath is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and served in pastoral ministry prior to her academic ministry. She currently lives with her husband at Spring Forest, an intentional Christian community and farm in rural North Carolina where she serves as abbess. You can connect with Elaine's work at elaineaheath.org.

Show notes

The retreat we talk about in the intro: A Bright Sadness - making space for grief and joy Aug 31-Sep 2.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact us at podcast@gravityleadership.com.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gravity-leadership-podcast/donations

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Just-Spices-CEO Verena Zander (#712)

OMR Podcast

Diskussion über Teamstandorte und digitale Masterclasses

The AI-powered Podcast Player