Theology and Liturgy for Inner City Trauma

“…adopt theologies and faith practices responsive to inner city trauma and inspiring it to make community with inner city residents in life-giving ways. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Anne Kleinkopf Denver Inner City Parish Contact Me

About this pastoral study project

I am Senior Pastor at a human services organization that serves Denver’s inner-city, Latino/a community. Trauma, particularly from violence and abuse, is pandemic in our community but that trauma is largely unspoken and untreated. Worship offers a powerful vehicle for addressing the pervasive trauma in a community and for laying the spiritual groundwork for individual and communal recovery from trauma. My organization’s current liturgy and worship practices and the theology underlying them, however, do not engage the difficult but life-giving questions of trauma and trauma recovery. My pastoral study project will:(1) develop a practical theology of ongoing trauma and of new life in the midst of trauma that reflects the lived realities of my inner-city, Latino/a congregation; and (2) employ that theology to transform the liturgy and practices of our worship services so that worship becomes a safe and sacred place where trauma is addressed and where traumatized community members will find love, meaning, sustenance and hope. My project will weave together several strands of learning, in a year-long process of theological and liturgical development. I will: read books and articles that address the intersection of trauma, theology and liturgy; engage in dialogue with local religious leaders, with organizations experienced in the impact of trauma on pastoral care and worship, and with creative liturgists; attend a training workshop on trauma and recovery; write and revise liturgy for our worship; publish a weekly blog on the evolution of my studies and liturgy-writing; and continue my ministry at DICP. My project will transform the liturgy and practices of our worship services so that worship addresses a primary unmet need of the community and brings the community vital new resources of life and hope. I will also write papers that report the results of my project, for presentation at scholarly and church organization conferences and for publication in a journal.