Collaborative Preaching for Collective Trauma Healing: A Model from Indonesia

Abstract

In this article, I propose a collaborative preaching model for healing collective trauma. It begins with the preaching context of a society in the grip of collective trauma after a traumatic event. Taking the May 1998 tragedy in Jakarta, Indonesia, as a case study and employing descriptive, historical, and analytical methods, this study argues that the Church is called to respond to collective trauma in its ministries as part of God’s mission. The research focuses specifically on the ministry of preaching and explores theories of trauma-aware preaching to affirm that preaching can indeed be a medium for healing collective trauma. I then present a collaborative preaching model for collective trauma healing by integrating a conversational preaching approach with the local Indonesian traditions of gotong-royong and musyawarah-mufakat.