Recommended Resources to Educate Your Church on Domestic Abuse

This book seeks to offer training to anyone who wants to help, regardless of their experience level. You will learn how to identify the toxic entitlement that drives abusive behavior and to better understand its impact on victims—including children who are raised in a home with domestic abuse. Ultimately, you will become equipped to provide wise and Christ-centered counsel and to empower and advocate for victims while navigating the complex dynamics of oppression in a marriage. This book is written as a manual with many inventories and provides other helpful tools, such as a safety plan.

In addition to existing in book form, this training curriculum can also be found as twelve free online video lessons (see www.churchcares.com). Taught by abuse experts, it seeks to teach church leaders (pastors, elders, and ministry or small-group leaders) the best practices for handling a variety of abuse scenarios.

This booklet looks at principles that Jesus gives us for addressing marriages that are broken by a chronically self-centered spouse.

This minibook summarizes how to detect abuse, explains the heart of an oppressor, and describes first steps to take to help oppressors and the oppressed. It is a short read and is written with church leadership in mind.

This book guides church leaders in how to deal with domestic abuse in their churches—starting with how they should initially respond when abuse is disclosed and continuing through how they can set up appropriate measures for longer-term care. The authors provide a biblical framework to help readers understand the dynamics of abuse and, more importantly, how to care for a victim, approach an abuser, and communicate with the church at large.

This book offers church leaders, counselors, and caregivers a compassionate and practical approach to supporting families impacted by abuse. It unpacks the complex realities of domestic abuse, providing biblical wisdom and actionable steps to ensure safety, offer meaningful care, and navigate difficult family dynamics. With a focus on both protection and restoration, this book equips the church to be a place of refuge and healing for those suffering in abusive relationships.

This minibook, which is written to the sufferer, provides clarity and encouragement. It aims to help victims see that God speaks into their situation, and it offers them steps they can take to begin to get help.

The aim of this book is to bring victims to a place of freedom, peace, and hope. There is a way out, and they can find real hope in Christ.

This is a resource for those seeking to support Christian women experiencing emotional abuse in their marriages. The book defines emotional abuse, examines its behaviors and impact, and offers a biblically grounded approach to care. Drawing on Scripture, it explores human nature, marital roles, and what it means for a woman to live in Christ amid abuse. Practical guidance is also provided for how the church can serve as a source of support and refuge for those suffering in emotionally destructive relationships.

Shame is a particular problem for those who have been abused. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to help bring the gospel to bear on a victim’s struggle with shame.

This book is both an autobiography and a guide for victims of domestic abuse. With knowledge and compassion, Joy points her readers to Christ—the ultimate source of true wholeness and healing. Her story is one of physical abuse and will resonate with victims. More online resources and victim-advocate training are available from Joy at www.calledtopeace.org.

Written tenderly to victims, this book speaks the gospel of grace into their hearts and situations while helping them consider steps they can take.

This book deals primarily with emotional abuse. Vernick helps her readers assess the presence of emotionally abusive behaviors and gives them practical advice on how to respond to these behaviors in light of biblical teaching.

This resource will help victims to document occurrences and evidence of abuse. Learn more here.

The Allstate Foundation Moving Ahead Curriculum: A Financial Empowerment Resource. This five-module education program is designed for survivors of domestic violence.

The Domestic Violence Danger Assessment Tool will help you to determine whether, and identify when, a victim’s life is in danger. Learn more here.

A brilliant book by a pastor, biblical counselor, and batterer intervention specialist on how to bring oppressors in the church to repentance.

Learn how to confront abusive people and respond to them with the heart of Christ by watching a counseling session along with teaching sessions. Available here.

This book can help the reader to set before an oppressor the way in which he is called to love others as Jesus does.

This book will help men to recast a vision for what it means to be a husband and father. It is filled with practical instructions for husbands on how to model Jesus’s servant love.

This secular resource is a photocopiable activity workbook to use with older children and teens that will support them and help them to recover from living in homes where domestic abuse has occurred.

Using a common sense approach, this secular resource tells parents which skills they should teach their children to help prevent them from becoming victims of sexual abuse. Find it here.

Parents can use this book to teach their younger children about God’s design for their bodies and about what is appropriate and inappropriate touch. A great tool for abuse prevention.

This well-researched and practical secular book teaches how children can stay safe outside the home, how you can notice warning signs of sexual abuse, and how you can talk to your children about risks without frightening them.

This book is not about abuse prevention, but it gives Christian women wisdom on how to assess their relationships and wait for the one who will be a blessing.

This book dives into research that explores the worldviews of Christian and non-Christian men. It seeks to carefully understand and wisely interact with the oversimplistic characterizations of conservative Christians in the area of abuse.

After forty years of counseling trauma survivors, Dr. Langberg teaches us how to help victims heal by revealing to them the heart of God while focusing on Christ’s restoration for his people.

This book was written after twenty-five years of academic research on domestic violence in religious families and emphasizes what religious leaders can do to help. This book speaks to victims/survivors, abusers, congregations, training religious leaders, and collaborative community.