Trauma is extraordinary, she says, “not because it rarely happens, but because it swallows up and destroys normal human ways of living.” We have a choice. “We can flit from one cause to another or, like Jesus, we can leave our place of comfort and enter into the suffering.”

Abuse is a pattern of behavior, not a one-time event. The behavior is always intended to preserve the abuser’s power by controlling others. Typically, abuse falls into one of five categories: psychological, physical, economic, spiritual, and sexual.

A total of 1,616 commissioners registered, representing 827 churches from all 88 presbyteries.

Through the process known as “joining and receiving,” the RPCES agencies were folded into their PCA counterparts, except two: Covenant College and Covenant Theological Seminary.