Why Soul-Care Matters

Podcast Episode #1  Listening Link:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2551933/episodes/18234824

DISCLAIMER NOTE: This is not counseling or therapy. It is an educational, faith-based resource created for ministry and academic purposes. If you are experiencing distress or need immediate personal support, please contact a qualified professional, licensed counselor, chaplain, or crisis hotline.  

During this podcast we also had a licensed counselor and chaplain on standby to to talk with our podcasts guests if something triggered traumatic emotions.

This project is part of an academic research initiative in Pastoral Counseling within the Doctor of Ministry program at Liberty University.

                       QUESTIONS? Email host at ktjewell1@liberty.edu 

• **Please complete our LISTENER SURVEY  (~ 1 min) to help us improve our podcast!**   https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GC67L62

WELCOME to the very first episode of Restored on the Frontline, a podcast dedicated to Gospel-centered soul-care for first responders.

The uniform tells one story; the soul often tells another. In this introductory episode, we explore why this project exists, the heart behind it, and the urgent need for a gospel-centered framework for soul care for our first responders. 

We sit down with a veteran firefighter and a recently retired police officer turned therapist to talk honestly about the weight most people never see: cumulative stress, moral injury, and the quiet soul residue that follows you home after the sirens fade. No sensational war stories, just real talk about how the job can harden a tender heart and how grace can soften it again.

We connect the science of trauma with the hope of the gospel: pain tries to write our identity, but only the gospel can restore our true identity in Christ. 

METRO DETROIT FIRST RESPONDER RESOURCES

FAITH-BASED RESOURCES

Woodside Bible Church – 14 Metro Detroit Campuses
Pastoral care, chaplain support, groups, and recovery ministries
https://woodsidebible.org

Celebrate Recovery (Various Locations)
Christ-centered recovery for hurts, habits, and hang-ups
https://www.celebraterecovery.com

Reboot Recovery (Trauma & Faith-Based Programs)
Trauma healing for military, first responders, and families
https://rebootrecovery.com

Cadence Counseling — Sterling Heights
Christian counselors specializing in trauma-informed care
https://cadencecounseling.org

NON-FAITH-BASED RESOURCES

Oakland County Health Network (OCHN)
https://oaklandchn.org

Macomb County Crisis Center (MCCMH)
https://www.mccmh.net

Wayne County First Responder Support
https://fst5.org/

National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — 988
Immediate mental health crisis support  https://988lifeline.org/

Crisis Text Line
Text “HOME” to 741741 — 24/7 emotional support

If this episode resonates with you, follow the show, share it with a responder, and leave a review so others can find these conversations.

Podcast RSS Feed Link: (copy and paste into your favorite podcast app)
https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2551933.rss

Hosted by:
Travis Jewell — Chaplain, pastor, and first responder soul-care advocate

Transcript

Host: 0:11

Welcome to the Restored on the Front Line podcast where we explore gospel centered soul care for the men and women who run toward what the rest of us often run from. My name is Travis Chewell, former active duty military chaplain and now founder and owner of a veteran-owned pastoral counseling small business. And it's alongside my joy of being a member of Woodside Bible Church in Detroit, Michigan, where we have 14 campuses where we are one church family many locations. And this podcast is a part of my doctoral of ministry work. More than that, it's a safe space for first responders like yourselves to talk honestly about the weight that you all carry and where the hope of Christ meets them right in the middle of it. You see, the world sees the uniform on the outside, but God sees the soul on the inside. So before we begin, I want to make something really clear. So if you're listening right now, this podcast is not counseling, it's not therapy, and it's not a substitute for meeting with a trained mental health professional. Our goal is to create a safe, gospel-centered space to talk about the realities first responders face. And so that's really what the goal of this is. If anyone in this episode is feeling overwhelmed or triggering, please pause the podcast right now and reach out to someone equipped to support you: a counselor, a chaplain, or a peer support team. A licensed counselor and chaplain are present today during today's recording for the emotional spiritual stage our guests. And so, how would you get a hold of them? We will have some links at the end of this. And for those who are participating today, we also have opportunities for you to talk to somebody even at the conclusion of this. So we want to make sure everybody is safe, and if there's opportunities to leave, uh we want to make sure you're taken care of. At the end of this episode, we will share a list of resources available to you here in the Metro Detroit area, regional and nationwide. And here's the reality: you are not alone. I'm honored today to be joined by two frontline voices, a firefighter and a police officer. And I want to say thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time to do this. You could be spending your time doing a lot of other things tonight, but thank you for investing in people, because I guarantee you none of this is going to be wasted. Um recently on a well-known podcast on the Joe Rogan podcast, a lot of people have probably heard of the Joe Rogan podcast, it was episode 2357. There was a discussion about police trauma. They talked about the emotional weight responders carry, the pressures, the expectations, the silent wounds that people often do not see. It was an honest conversation. It was a very small clip in about an hour and a half podcast. But one of the things I noticed that they were they were what the what they did not offer was the hope that we're hoping to introduce here. A place to talk about the weight through the lens of the gospel and the hope that Christ brings. So let me ask you guys a question. And this is for any of you.

Host: 3:13

Okay.

Host: 3:13

What drew you into your particular line of work? What was the spark or calling behind it?

Firefighter: 3:22

Well, uh, my older brother was on the job in mourn, he was on the fireside. Um, I gotta be honest, in the beginning, it was uh it was a selfish reason, man. He got four days off in a row. I wanted to go fishing and hunting more. And uh then once I got into it, uh I just kind of got bit by the bug. Thank you, Steve.

Host: 3:44

Steve, you are our recently retired firefighter. I still got 22 months left. 22 months left, so forgive me. 22 months, so thank you. So I'm not on the road anymore. I'm in the front office. So how many years altogether? Uh 29. 29. So for those of you listening, you may need to be 29 years old. So think about that for a little bit, right? So 29 years. A lot's probably changed in 29 years.

Firefighter: 4:05

Too much. Too much. Yeah. Wow.

Policeman: 4:09

So I was um I was a pastor. And I was an inner inner city pastor. My whole undergraduate degree was in biblical theology, and I was doing that, working for inner city uh Detroit. And uh always wanted to be a police officer, though, even when I was younger, right? But when I turned 18, I went to Bible college. I thought that was my path. And um then I started working with a lot of the Detroit Police Department, uh, doing inner city events with them, social events with our ministry and stuff like that. And got kind of like, hey, why don't you look into this? And the ministry was kind of like up and down, the paycheck wasn't always there, it was kind of questionable. Insurance was always kind of like, eh. So they started promoting it from that side. Hey, it's a consistent pay, it's good insurance. I'm like, huh. All right. So I told the wife, I said, Let me try this for five years. And if I don't like it, I'll jump back into the puddle of the other stuff. So 28 years later, um, never jumped out of the puddle and uh just started at war uh Detroit police and kind of retired out of Warren PD.

Host: 5:12

And just this year, right?

Policeman: 5:14

Yeah, just three months ago I retired after over 28 years.

Policeman: 5:24

And now a licensed therapist. And so thank you for what you do. And he he has an organization, uh actually a counseling center called Cadence Counseling, where you find your voice. And uh that'll be in the resources page at the end. But I I've got some wonderful resources for those of you who may be looking for specific trained counseling for those of you in the first responder community. So thank you, Kevin. Yeah. So, you know, when you think about your calling, your purpose, and what got you in, what continues to give, you know, where you're at in your season of life meaning today? You did, you know, 29 years, 28 years. What continues to give your work meaning today? And you may be doing something completely different than what you did when you first started.

Firefighter: 6:03

Yeah, mine's I I hate to say it's it's pretty easy, but I have a son on the job as well. And he's been on for uh eight years now. And I'm the church chief of training. And my goal every day when I come in is to try and give everyone one little thing, and that's very, very selfish, that'll keep my son alive. Wow. Very selfish. Yeah, just a little bit of knowledge. I always ask the guys at the end of the training, you don't have to remember everything. Just remember one nugget. Just take one nugget out of it, and then over the years and and decades and uh of your career, you'll have a whole bunch of nuggets.

Host: 6:45

It's kind of like building a picture, right? Yeah. So as you can put a bunch of tools in there. Yeah. That has to take an emotional weight over time. It has to impact it in some way. Um what would you say the emotional weight of your old work has felt to you over time? Like how has that impacted you over time?

Firefighter: 7:16

Man, there's um there's only so many things that we can do. Right? And no one ever calls us and says, hey, come on over for coffee, right? They call us on their worst day, whether it's on the police side or the fire side. Um, so we're we're always fixing someone else's problems. Always, whether it's a medical problem, a fire problem, uh, extrication problem, uh, domestic, whatever it is, we're we're always called there to fix someone's problems. Um and what people forget is as as men, and and there's women in the the service as well, but we have our own problems. And so when someone I I remember this time specifically, someone called for a bloody nose, because we're paramedics as well. I had a bloody nose at the time at work, and I had a crimp on my nose to plug my nose, what'd you do when you have a bloody nose? And this guy about my age called us at two o'clock in the morning for a bloody nose. And I show up with this plug over top of mine, and he thought I was mocking him. Oh no. Yeah, I'm like, nope, this is this is just what men do, pal. I have a bloody nose, I'm not going home, I'm just putting a plug on it.

Host: 8:27

Wow.

Firefighter: 8:28

What hospital would you like to go to? Those little things like that, it's like death from a thousand pinpricks.

Host: 8:35

It was interesting in that same podcast, there was a little clip, and uh one of the guys that Joe Rogan was talking to said that the average first responder over the life of their career will see, on average, around 200 like major crisis, like death, like things that most people never ever see. And the average average human will see maybe five in their whole lifetime. The average first responder anywhere from two to three hundred. Oh, I think that's that's a low number.

Policeman: 9:03

That's probably three to eight hundred. Three to eight hundred. I mean, it's so all those studies are all over the board. Wow. But from the lowest of three hundred to the highest of eight hundred that I've heard, just all over the board. And you look at it, it depends on a lot of logistics, right? The size of the apartment, the size of the city, all manpower. Um so up to 800, right? I mean, where I've heard the civilian side is three to eight. So three to eight on both sides, right? But just three to eight, not the eight hundred, um that they'll experience.

Firefighter: 9:38

So it is definitely there there's always that um there's a not a rivalry, but there's a jesting between the police and the fire side. And uh, you know, the cops would always make a comment about us sleeping at work because we're there for 24 hours, right? Um and you only work 10 days a month. We just sleep up, right? And right, we we just we always have to make sure that we we clarify that that we work 10 days, 10 afternoons, and 10 midnights, and that we're up three, four, five, six times after midnight. And uh so there's always that that night's bantering back and forth. And e even at the residents, sometimes when the the tax dollars back in 08, 09, when when the economy was going pretty bad, and uh and you know cut or not I shouldn't say customers, but citizens would make comments. We'd be out with the briggs shopping for for dinner. Um and uh citizen would make a comment, and it's like, man, oh man, really? Um everybody wants our job until it's time to do our job. You know, until someone hands you a baby that's not breathing and says, Here, fix this.

Policeman: 10:42

Or a hand. Yeah. They just gave me a hand. Literally. And the other guy is I mean, the guy that belonged to the hand was somewhere else. Yeah.

Host: 10:54

Think about all those pressures that you all deal with that the average person never sees. You know, and we only see what we see on YouTube or on TV or on somebody's body cam or somebody's phone that they pulled up. And even how social media has changed people's perception of first responders, either in a very um Hollywoodized, you know, kind of glamour, or or very cruel. It's almost like the extremes, right? But and and I want to kind of take a little transition now. Um thinking about your faith, right? Because this is what this podcast is about. Where has your faith been strengthened or stretched because of your work?

Firefighter: 11:34

Well, uh I don't know that it ever got stretched. Um strengthened, yes. Um every day when you when you walk out, and and not every day at the firehouse is is harrowing, and I'm sure not every day on the police force is harrowing either. Um But there are those times when you're just you feel helpless and and hopeless, and and our hope only comes from one place and from one man, the God man. Um and I I my heart breaks for the guys that don't know who Jesus is, and it's our job to tell them who he is, right? So there's different guys, and I'm sure there's uh plenty on the PD side and plenty on the fire side that um um they just give uh give Jesus a glancing nod. And when stuff hits the fan, um scubulon hits the fan, right? Yeah, right, um when that hits the fan, they have no eye, they have no hope, right, other than what they rely on their training for. So I I guess to be strengthened would be it never really been stretched, um, but it gets strengthened on a daily basis.

Policeman: 12:48

And mine's the opposite. I've been very stretched, right? Very stretched, very strained, very um, even though my pretty much my teenage years, very solid in Christ, fell in Christ at a younger younger age. Um, my whole high school time was developing myself in the church and with in the school, Bible studies, stuff like that, and high school, going to Bible college. And then doing that switch from pastor in inner city, thinking everybody's good, everybody's you know, okay. Um, I remember we would do um Thanksgiving dinner for all the people in the project and or in the city or whatever. And all the leftovers, I would take it. I took it one time to the police department in Detroit and said, Can you please give all this extra delicious food? It was amazing, turkey, gravy, all that stuff. All to the prisoners, because we know they're locked up in um over the holiday weekend. Twenty-eight, thirty years later, I'm like, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? Because the officers were not with their family and they didn't do anything wrong. Right. They should have been with their family, right? I said, Can you please give this food to not that that's a bad thing, but it m my understanding was just oh, they're they're locked up in jail, right? Not thinking that the ones that didn't do anything wrong were there away from their family. Right. So a total shift. So going from a pa being a pastor thinking all this stuff to going into the third largest city in Michigan and it's bumping around all the time, it was always very active. That changed my whole psyche. And people said, You need to toughen up, but you're not gonna make it home. Wow. So then I had to go the opposite way, you know. And I wasn't ever physically that way, but man, my demeanor was bad. My I was condescending, I was mean spirited, I was just I'm like, Who am I? I'm not the same person. So it took several years to even recognize that. So I have all people talking to me with written paper. You know, telling me you get it. I do, I do. And uh saying, hey, you need to correct it. I'm like, yeah, what am I doing? You know, a lot of complaints, uh, he's condescending, he's mean. I'm like, who am I? And it just took a shift. Um and that even my kids in the last five years, they said, you're not the same person. You're not the same person. You know, you you've changed, you've you've we like this side. Because all their growing up years, they just saw me as in this irritable.

Firefighter: 15:29

You know what's funny is that I defend cops all the time. My younger brother's a cop in in DC, he's retired now. Um but when people see it, if a if a police officer does have an attitude, I would venture to say every interaction you have with the public, you get lied to. Do you know why I stopped you? You're doing 80 and a 40. Nope, nobody just stopped me. Come on. You knew you were doing 80 and a 40, right? Yeah. Um and no one likes to be lied to.

Host: 15:59

They don't.

Policeman: 15:59

It's intended. So when you get lied to every day, um, yeah, you you get calloused. So I would even tell my kids.

Policeman: 16:08

I trust you. I just don't put anything past you.

Host: 16:14

Trust but verify. Trust but verify. You know, much of what we've studied for this particular project from the workshop that Kevin was a part of uh uh last semester when we did a soul care workshop in here to right now with the podcast comes from people like Dr. Diane Landberg, who is uh Christian trauma psychologist. Dr. Kurt Thompson, who's done a lot of stuff on soul care. Uh he's a Christian psychiatrist who specializes in how shame and trauma affect the brain. Both of them show us that trauma reshapes our identity over time. But the gospel restores what trauma tries to take. And that's why this next part of our conversation matters. And so I want to say both of you, thank you, because you know we could go on for a long time, but for the sake of this, we want to be, you know, um kind of moving forward into the really the heart of this, which is the gospel. And so as you think about what keeps you grounded, right? You talked about things that strengthen you, you talked about how you changed over the years, and and and you have your kids noticed that. I'd love to talk for a moment about where your faith fits into that picture. You you um you think about what helps you reset, what keeps you grounded, what keeps you centered. Uh would would would would you all be willing to talk about how your faith supports you in those moments?

Policeman: 17:33

I'll start this one out. Yeah. For me, it's knowing how to forgive. Right? Forgiveness is huge for me. Huge, huge, huge. When I was 16 years old, I learned listen to a guy named Wick Whitney Winky Prattney, and he du he talked about the father heart of God. And it was phenomenal. So changed my life as a 16-year-old, and he talked about forgiveness. So I've always held on to, even when I was young, how to forgive, maybe not forget, maybe not trust that person the same way, but forgive them where that doesn't affect me, I don't hold it in here. And then when I got into grad school through counseling, I started really focusing on self-forgiveness. And those are two sides, right? It's easy for me to forgive you because I understand you might have had a bad day. It's hard for me to forgive me because I know me more than anybody else. And so forgiveness and self-forgiveness has been my pivotal point in my whole life, whether I was in that PTS part of my life, you know, or wherever.

Host: 18:41

You know, it's interesting if you said forgiving yourself. There's a great book by Lee Kasi, Lisa Tekeurst, called Forgiving What You Cannot Forget. It's learning how to forgive yourself. And as a you know chaplain for 12 years in the military, you know, I thought about all the times that I dealt with other people's stress, other people's trauma, listening to their stories and what's called secondary post-traumatic stress, that kind of and we would call compassion fatigue. Um it was actually coined uh in the mid-90s. And if you really what when you're a helper or a first responder caregiver in whatever capacity, dealing with other people's trauma over time affects you, whether you realize it or not. Books like Body Keeps the Score talk about that also. But we think about how the gospel offers a truer story than trauma or guilt or unforgiveness ever could. Um so I want to I I asked you this in the pre in the podcast intake form, but I want to think about it again. When you think about the word gospel, because that's such a church word, right? We talk about the church, the gospel. But for those who are listening, they may not have any idea what that word means. In your own words, what does God what does the gospel mean to you personally?

Firefighter: 19:47

Man, um, first of all, gospel is the good news. Amen. And that's a good news that someone paid a price that we couldn't pay for a debt that he didn't know.

Host 19:57

Amen.

Firefighter: 19:58

Um and until you get to that realization that we're we're not good people. You know, Paul said our our good deeds are counted as filthy rags. That's right. Um but compared to you or you or you or you, I might be good. Or you you know, compared to each other, we might you might outshine the person next to you. Um but the gospel is is just that. Um we we can't pay the price. And the gospel or the uh the price was already paid 2,000 years ago. And uh to quote one of Joby's old lines was um he pushed up on his nail pierced feet and said, It is finished. Um and that's the gospel, plain and simple. He paid a price that we couldn't pay for a debt that he didn't know.

Host: 20:40

Amen. Thank you, Steve. Yeah. Any other anything you'd like to add to that?

Policeman: 20:45

No, it's it's beautiful. Again, I'm gonna summed up with just forgiveness too, learning the forgiveness of the Father as we forgive others. Um you know.

Host: 20:57

And I think when you think about the gospel, it's good news because we have to know what the bad news is. I think you talked about that, right? And we live in a fallen, broken world, and the effects of that brokenness are all around us, particularly in the first responder community, because you're dealing with people at their worst. Yeah. And when emotions are high, reason is low, all those things come in, and we have an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy and get us, you know, take all the good things that God has created in this world and put it into chaos. And that's where the gospel wants to bring order back to the chaos, to restore us back to the identity that God originally designed for us before the fall. That's the and then through that relationship with Jesus. One of the scholars we've studied so far in this project is Dr. Charles Figley. He's a leading researcher in compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress. Uh his work shows that repeated exposure to trauma takes a real emotional toll, even on strong responders. Dr. Kirk Thompson, I mentioned him before, he's a Christian psychiatrist, teaches that healing happens when we bring the hidden parts of our lives into the presence of God and save relationships that we trust. Right. There's an old saying, my grandpa has a lot of saying, he used to say, trust is lost in buckets, but it's built back up in drops. Right? So trust, but verify, right? And so I'm curious, how does knowing Christ shape the way that you face the parts of the job no one else sees?

Firefighter: 22:24

Man, um at the firehouse, you're there for 24, 24 hours at a time, right? So people see you at your worst. Um, and not just the public, your your fellow firefighters. They see you when you have a bad day and you bring it to work with you, um, they see that. Um there's nowhere to hide, right? And you you talk about family, and there's family in the firehouse, there's family on the police force. Um, but there's just nowhere to hide. You you have to be real. Um, and like any other families, sometimes it gets messy. Yeah, hurt people, hurt people. Always, always.

Policeman: 23:08

You brought something up there, Travis, about feeling safe. I think it's hard to heal even those those experiences, the tr the trauma, the first responders are going through that and they're facing maybe not PTSD, the disorder, but maybe PTS, right? Um, or acute stress disorder. They might be that level where they're just at the brink, but it's not the time frame, it's not long enough, not over 30 days, it might be right after. And they don't feel safe. They just don't feel safe. So for us as Christians, whether we're in the departments or we're a parachurch ministry reaching them, trying to build up a safe place and trying to teach them what a safe place is, what a safe support is, right? Your family, your your those around you. Because sometimes you go into work and you're not feeling good. They might be just, hey man, get over it. And and it could be in a week. Yeah, you can't just get over it. You need to do something about it. And so when you said feel unsafe, I think that is the key. Making people feel safe so they can get out there and share what they have going on.

Host: 24:18

That's interesting. Um in my research, as kind of walking through this, particularly from Dr. Kurt Thompson, he talks a lot about soul care as the process of being deeply known by God and others that build that safety, right? Being deeply known by God and others, that's soul care. That's his definition of soul care. So he connects neuroscience and spiritual formation in a very powerful way. And then we have Dr. Diane Landberg, I mentioned her earlier, she's a she's an author, uh, she's a psychiatrist, a psychologist, I'm sorry, who has spent decades caring for trauma survivors around the world. Uh she says this, I quote, soul care is not fixing people, it's being present with them in their suffering. You know, as I was a chap, and one of our coin models was uh being a minister of presence, being the bearer of the presence of God, right? Uh people are not problems to be fixed, they're people to be understood, right? And people don't care how much you know until they know you care. They know you care by how you spend time with them and you're fully present with them. So when you hear the phrase soul care, now that I've kind of said all that, what comes to your mind? Soul care for others or for yourself? For you. When you think of it as a first responder, what would that look like? Soul care for a first responder?

Firefighter: 25:38

Man, I I hate to say that this is easy for me, but it is because God spoils me rotten. Every day He spoils me rotten. Um soul care to me is man looking out uh from a deer stand and seeing the sunrise, or sitting in deer stand and watching sunset. Um, or like my my son will sent me or sent me a picture yesterday from out duck hunting, knowing that and the sun coming up. Um no matter what, I I've never felt alone. Uh he's just always been there. So um even on those those hard times, they're they're hard, but I I just don't face them alone. I I couldn't face them alone.

Policeman: 26:20

So my question is to you is do you think other people in your same position, because there are other men that are in your same position, they can look down from their blind the same way, they feel the same way? Or do you think it's different? Do you uh it's way different. Because what I'm hearing is gratitude. And there's other I just met with someone today that they have a lot of incredible things going on in their life, like incredible, and they're like, I don't feel happy about it. I don't I don't feel grateful for any of it. And I'm like, what? Right. So I think gratitude is a huge part of so care, right? Because there's other people in your position looking down from a blind. I guarantee you there's thousands right now, right? Looking down, and they see the sunset or even in the morning if they get out there early enough, see the sunrise.

Firefighter: 27:14

Oh, they better get out there early enough.

Policeman: 27:15

Yeah, right. And they don't see it the same way. They look at it like a horrible season. I haven't I haven't shot one thing, I haven't gotten one thing. It's horrible. I wasted all this money. Right? Same situation, different lenses. Absolutely. Soul care gratitude. I love it.

Host: 27:35

I just wrote that down. So thank you for sharing that, Kevin. I think about some of the two of the tools that I've said this before in my ministry as a chaplain and and also in soul care is two tools specifically the enemy does is isolation, insulation. He loves to isolate you from God's people. He loves to insulate you from God's truth. You know, he likes to doubt the worth of God, the work of God, and the word of God. Did God really say that?

Policeman: 27:59

You know, and absolutely.

Host: 28:02

And and um we think about some of the things I've read research from Dr. Charles Figley. He explains that emotional residue builds slowly, but deeply for people in high-intensity work like first responders. Think about it. It's like a residue. It uh it sticks to them. And and if it's not and it can actually uh I would believe it it starts caking up the soul. Does that make sense? That residue. And there's only really one who can truly cleanse the soul, so to speak. Yeah. A soul care. You know, because you think about it, love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, all your soul. What does it mean to love God with your soul, right? And as we begin to continue to have these conversations, uh, we're gonna be able to hear experiences and and from researchers, but also share stories like yourselves and others. So it's not me coming in as the expert, it's really developing this as we go and allowing God's spirit to guide the conversations. That's really what this is about, gospel conversations. So from your own perspective, what do you think, what do you wish the church understood about caring for first responders?

Firefighter: 29:11

Very, very hard. Because unless you've ridden in a squad car, unless you've ridden in a fire engine, you just don't know. Um, they can try their best. They can they can try their their absolute best. I would equate it to um right before I got off the road, um, my partner at the time was a very dear friend, his son took his own life. And I was with him at the firehouse that night when he got the phone call. And um, you know, we walked through that horrible, horrible night. And I reached out to our pastor at the time, and um I reached out to my cousin, who's also a pastor of another local church, and I reached out to one other person in the firehouse who's our chaplain at the firehouse. And I said, Hey, I'm I'm gonna be walking with with this guy through this period. What don't I do? I I because I I can't say I know what you feel like because I've never been there. Same as riding in a car or a fire engine. Because I haven't been there. I I had that hasn't happened to me. So I can't I don't have empathy because I haven't been there. I have sympathy, but I don't have empathy. And all three people took me to the book of Job. Right? When Job lost everything and his friends came and they just sat and it said, I believe it was for five days? Several days. I thought it was, yeah, whatever it was, five, seven, whatever it was, and no one said a word. And I was introduced at that time to the to the Ministry of Presence. Just be there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Host: 30:38

I thank you for sharing that.  22 years ago, when I was getting my clinical pastoral education for chaplaincy,  I was at Baptist  Hospital East in Louisville, Kentucky, when I was in seminary, I um we had just gotten married. Um my wife had just lost our first baby to a miscarriage. So we were just I'm I'm still kind of going through all that. I'm also a uh chaplain on the mother baby unit in a hospital and intensive care. So what I get this ER call on my phone, right? Actually it was my pager back in the day, right? We had pager checks. And for those of you who are listening that are younger, pager is an electronic box that you could get numbers to, and then you would call on your phone. Anyway. So not from your cell phone, you had to find an action. Exactly. Call it here's a quarter, call somebody who cares, right? So I I made the phone call, went to the we had a horrible DUI accident. It was a drunk driving accident involving a young couple, her six-month-old child, and a drunk driver. And so they're all in the ER. One's the NICU, and the other three are in the in this here's one room, drunk driver. He's you know. For those of you who've been around drunk driving accidents, it's amazing how people who are intoxicated are a lot more flexible.

Firefighter: 31:42

Yeah.

Host: 31:43

And and uh uh sometimes people who are not are a little bit more stiff. The uh drunk driver was in stable condition, and so was the husband and wife, but they were pretty bad shape. I'm going over very much wave tops here. The their small child, though, six months, died. And so I'm sitting with the doctor, and he's very technical, right? Bedside banner is not the greatest. And he under and he knew that because he was but here I am thinking I've got all this theological training, I've got everything that, you know, and nobody's gonna care at all about all the wonderful things that I could say, right? You know what they cared? They just wanted me to sit there and be quiet. And I did. I sat there after the doctor said what he said, and he left. I just sat there with him for about 15 minutes, and it was the most awkward at first, 15 minutes of my life. But I prayed in turn, I was like, Lord, calm me down, and I pray that your Holy Spirit would attend, you know what? We didn't say anything. And afterwards they said, Would you pray with us? And I mean it was a long, I mean, a long time. And I didn't really know what to say. I prayed a very simple prayer and I left. Did you know that they called back and and and thanked, you know, they didn't even know my name, that chaplain at the hospital. And I had already gone into another mode, going to the next scene, right? And I felt so inadequate, so ill-prepared, but just being quiet and letting God do what only God can do ministered more to them than anything that I could have said. So thank you for sharing that. What do you hope responders hopefully can take away from this podcast series? What are some of your hopes? You know, you know, you think about this, you know, where we're hoping to go in with this. We just talked just a little bit today, right? What do you hope responders would take away from this podcast series? Two things.

Policeman: 33:28

What they're going through is normal. And second thing, they're not allowed to do it. Amen.

Host: 33:36

Amen. What conversations do you hope the church starts having because of this?

Firefighter: 33:50

I I honestly don't know that there is a conversation to be had.

Host: 33:54

Okay. What do you mean by that? I'm not saying you're wrong. No, no, I I understand that. Um 

Firefighter: 33:55

I think it's just being present. They don't they don't have to know. I'm sure your wife probably did this when you first got on the job. Because my wife used to ask me all the time when I'd get home, what kind of crazy runs did you have today? What did you have to do today? And after a couple of times, she says, you know what? I'll just give you some space. I don't think I need to hear all that. Um I think sometimes people look and they want to hear those stories. We get tired of telling them. I don't know if you did on the PD side.

Host: 34:35

You know, you you get you get numbed or you get overwhelmed. You need to have a healthy outlet and and what would what would be our prayer for the church to come alongside and support our first responder community? You know, that's right.

Policeman: 34:50

So I think a conversation, if you're put in that predicament and that opportunity that you are speaking to the if this is going out to the congregations and and the leadership of the church, is to um not look at them differently. Because I think a lot of firefighters, uh a lot of police officers now, they some of them are undercover, but they're Christians too. And they don't look they don't look normal, they don't look quote unquote Christian. Right? So accepting them, accepting them that sometimes their their speech, their their communication is not uh always on par with what we think is is okay, right? So having that that clear understanding to them, like hey, they they've seen some stuff, give them the space they need, I'm gonna dribble on uh that space. Give them the space that they need. Um and don't I've had another clinician say, Why do they even need you to be a counselor for them when I was going through my internship? What do they need? All I see cops do is pull over people on the side of the road, they get their lights on, and they give people tickets and they go all the way. I'm like, Where have you been? Where have you been? Wow. And uh she goes, What do you think they really need counseling? I'm like, and this is a another therapist, well veteran, more veteran than me, as you know, my starting out. And I'm like, Oh, seriously, let me sit down just for a little bit. And I went through the whole 12 hour day. You guys goes through 24 hours, but from a my neighbor called on me because I took grass clippings to a domestic to a rollover accident to to something silly, right? There's a a barrel on the road and you gotta move it, and just all these just up and downs emotions. And she said, I I never thought about all that. And that was a clinician. Wow. So just bringing awareness to the churches, literally what an officer or what a firefighter, a first responder, a nurse, a doctor, a surgeon in the ER, any of those people in the ER. Because they're facing the same things. Chaplains in the jail, um you know, the dispatchers even. Correction officers and the corrections officers in the prisons. Everybody forgets that, right? Oh, that's true. Absolutely. So all of that, just bringing that awareness. I think a a conversation could be had of these aren't quote unquote normal professions. You know. Uh yours is probably more normal now because you're an admin, and so you're like, you know, you don't think about that. But when now you think about your boy, he's gonna be in the fires and all that stuff.

Firefighter: 37:32

So uh mm, it'll be two years in March now, I believe, that uh the big fire happened on 15 Mile and Grossback with all those explosions. If you remember that's right, yes. Yes. Yeah. So as part of the command staff or part of the the admin, I get called in to be part of the command staff for a big incident like that. And I knew my son was working that night. And I get um probably three miles away from the from the site, maybe four, and I could still hear the explosions, or started to hear the explosions. As they get closer, I hear his battalion chief say, made a made a made. Right? And then they they call for a par, which is a personal accountability report. And you know, engine two has power with with three, engine four has power with three, engine three has power with two. And I'm thinking to myself, my son's on engine three, and they have three guys on the rig, and there's a probationary guy who always has to stay with the boss, and my son was not the boss. So you just said you had par with two. They just called mate. Where's my son?

Host: 38:34

Wow.

Firefighter: 38:34

And my heart just sank, and the the only prayer that I could even mutter at the time was just Jesus. One word. I I couldn't even get a prayer out. Um, so yeah, that's that's something that you not everyone has to deal with. And and that was uh the first time in my career that I've ever had to deal with that particular thing. Um but man, it could be anything. That's just a dramatic uh uh example.

Host: 39:02

And there's probably lots of other stories of listeners and other friends or peers who had to go through that. And so I want to say thank you. Thank you for taking the time. And we c uh as we kind of wrap up today, I want to thank both of you again for your honesty, your willingness to share from your experiences. Um and and thanks to everybody who's listening right now. Uh your time, your attention, and your openness means a lot. Uh this space was created for you, and we are honored to walk alongside you. And before we sign off, I want to give you a quick look at where this series is going. Each episode builds towards something deeper, a gospel-centered framework for soul care that speaks to the real challenges first responders face. So, as a preview, a couple of things I want to share. Uh uh. Here's what we can look forward to over the next several weeks and months. Episode two is gonna be kind titled Bearing the Weight: Understanding Hidden Trauma. We'll talk about the cumulative stress and how it builds over time and the emotional residue of the job, and how God meets us in the places where we usually stay quiet. Episode three, the gospel in the midst of chaos. We're gonna look at the moments that hit the hardest, those gut punches where it knocks the window via crisis, adrenaline, disorientation, and explore what it means for Christ to be our refuge when life is spinning. Episode four, where the when the job comes home. Job never comes home, does it? No. Never, right? We'll talk honestly about marriage, family, exhaustion, and how the pressures of the job follow us into the living room. We'll explore what reconciliation, forgiveness, and restoration looks like through the gospel. Episode five, moral injury, shame, and a search for peace. We're gonna dive into those moments when duty and conscience collide. Regret, guilt, second-guessing yourself, survivor's guilt, and how Jesus restores the inner shattered parts of our world. And finally, episode six, brotherhood, sisterhood, and ultimately biblical community on the front line. We're gonna end this series by looking at the power of community, peer support, and what the Bible says about walking together instead of carrying everything alone. So each one of these episodes are gonna build on the last, helping us create a fuller, deeper understanding of what gospel-centered soul care looks like for those serving on the front lines. And before we close, I want to remind you that we are not uh uh we're not in this alone. You, as the listener, are not alone, as my friend Kevin just said. And whether you're in Metro Detroit or somewhere else, whatever you're carrying today, I just want you to know this. You do not have to carry alone. There is always hope. See, it's not the amount of faith you have, it's the object of your faith, and that is Christ. Remember, Christ meets you in the places nobody else sees. Thank you for listening today, folks, and we will see you again in episode two. And before we close, I want to make sure that every first responder listening knows what help is available. We've listed both faith-based and non-faith-based resources in the show notes below. You can email me at KTJ W E L L one, the number one at liberty.edu. That's KTJUL1 at liberty.edu, or go to our podcast show URL or stored on the front line wherever you get your podcasts, either Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else. Um, whether whatever path you choose, folks, whether clinical support, peer support, or faith-based care, you do not have to walk this road alone. These organizations exist to support you and your family, and Christ meets you in those places where nobody else will. Thank you guys so much.