MTM Board Members give high quality C.A.R.E.
by Patricia R. Turner, psychologist and MTM Board Member
As a newly elected member of the Board of Trustees, I have a lot to learn, as well as a lot to offer. After 27 years serving teachers, children and their parents, I retired in the summer of 1997 from Maryland's Baltimore County Public School Office of Psychological Services. I have a broad range of experience with children and their various problems, including the issue of loss.
During my years with the school system, I was one of the captains of the Crisis Intervention Teams which responded to school-wide crises due to a traumatic death. Thus, I learned about the issues involved in many different kinds of losses, as well as the implications of unresolved grief. I designed an in-service course for teachers to help them deal with children who have experienced loss in their lives.
The forced termination of a pastor from his/her position poses many of the same issues and emotions as do other types of losses such as death, divorce or the loss of a body part. I bring to the Board knowledge and professional experience in dealing with these issues.
I also helped to develop and taught in-service courses for over 20 years in the area of Interpersonal Communication Skills. Effective communications are vital in a stressful situation such as job termination or discord between a pastor and a church, not only for the pastor and parishioners but also within the family of the minister.
Perhaps, my greatest asset to the Board is the personal heartache I have known from having been formerly married to a minister who was forcibly terminated twice. Although we all, including my two daughters, have survived that trauma and worked through much of the grief, the scars remain as a permanent part of our psyches. Each time I hear of a brother or sister in Christ going through similar agony, I ache for them as they face the reality that even the Church can cause great pain and test one's faith. However, through that pain and testing, I've learned that Christ can teach us valuable truths.