Why choose Team Room: War, Hope, and Growth?
There is a lot of information on posttraumatic stress and moral injury available today. Praise God! May the research, treatments, and ministries continue in these areas, especially for our combat veterans and their family members. But why choose Team Room: War, Hope, and Growth to speak on these topics for your organization?
Simple.
Our focus is on equipping your organization to understand the changes our warfighters can experience after returning home from war and how those changes can impact the warfighter's family.
Besides being a Certified Trauma Professional (see credentials in bio), Dr. Davis is a combat veteran who has been diagnosed with service-connected posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and rated with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). In addition to numerous deployments during his twenty-year military career, Richard has six combat rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq as a Special Forces Green Beret. War changed Richard and his family. Yet it took Richard seven years after his retirement to admit he needed help with the flashbacks, dissociation, night sweats, and anger.
Although he has undergone multiple counseling sessions, including eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), the residue of war remains. While treatments have been valuable, Richard continues to focus on his relationship with Jesus Christ for true hope, growth, and his new story with Team Room: War, Hope, and Growth.
While serving as the Military Pastor at First Baptist Clarksville, Tennessee, Richard's dissertation focused on developing integrated trauma-care ministries at a local church to care for military spouses. During his doctoral studies, Richard developed a directed study on Psychological Trauma and Discipleship to focus his project. He also became a Certified Trauma Professional through Evergreen Certifications for ordained clergy to better understand traumatic stress. Richard has maintained his certification since 2018 to stay abreast of new research, topics related to military service, and the efficacy of evidence-based treatments to encourage veterans and spouses to seek proven and effective treatments.
Richard is not a clinician, licensed counselor, or therapist. Richard is a Christian and a combat veteran who seeks counseling for his own struggles, as he desires to understand the changes that occurred in himself and his family. Part of Richard's new story of hope and experiencing growth is helping his own tribe (military community) and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Thus, the focus on educating others by sharing his story, applying biblical rationale, and sharing lessons learned as a certified trauma professional to encourage local churches in developing an integrated approach to trauma-informed ministries.
His wife, Tina Davis, travels with Richard to share her own story of living with a career soldier and Green Beret who was frequently deployed after the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Tina speaks with spouses by sharing biblical principles, lessons learned, and hope as a military spouse who has walked the same journey.
This is Team Room: War, Hope, and Growth.
Personable, Informed, Practical, and Christ-focused!
Proverb 18:15, ESV
An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
What others are saying…
“I want to personally thank you for the training I received from you. You were the first to introduce me to the topic of the military mindset and laid the very foundation of my ministry. I will never forget the moment at the end of the course when we were thanking you and giving you a gift. I said: ‘It’s such a pity that it will take many years before veterans in our country can heal and start helping others. We need people like you so much!’ To which you replied: ‘You don’t have to wait for veterans to help veterans; you can already do this, you have enough strength within you. Because for people like me to exist, we need people who will support them—people like you.’
I held onto those words, and they never left my mind. They became the starting point of my ministry to veterans and their families. Today, we are already on the fourth cohort of the program and have graduated 100 students, including veterans with amputations, active-duty service members, former prisoners of war, and families of fallen or missing heroes. I have witnessed so many of God's miracles through this program. He has healed souls, saved families, and brought reconciliation.”
— Anna Vataman, Institute of Leadership and Coaching, Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary, Lviv, Ukraine
