Mental Health and the Church

May was Mental Health Awareness month. I tried to write this blog back then, but I didn't have the words. I think I may have found them.

So, Church, let’s talk for a minute about mental health.

It's okay if it makes you uncomfortable. Discomfort is, after all, the first step to growth and change.

But bear with me.

Mental health is a very stigmatized topic in our culture. We talk a lot about physical health. About the importance of diet and exercise. We hold up images of skinny women and beefed out men (neither which is actually healthy, fyi) as model examples of how we should be. We blast social media and TV commercials and billboards with ideals of health and how to be physically in shape.

But we don't talk about mental health.

No. Mental health is private. It's personal.

It's uncomfortable.

There are a lot of myths surrounding mental health, too. One of the most damaging myths is the idea that if you are struggling with mental health, it is because you are weak or flawed in character. You should be able to simply 'snap out of it' or 'get over it'. What's wrong with you? Pull yourself together!

In the Church, we have our own spin on mental illness. We blame it on spiritual weakness or sin in someone's life. We tell people who are depressed or anxious to pray more and read their Bible and seek counsel from the Holy Spirit. We tell people who hear voices they need an exorcism. Sometimes, and I have heard this myself, we even tell people it's wrong to seek counseling or psychiatric services or medication for mental illness because that's seeking "the world's counsel" instead of God's.

This is an incredibly damaging and dangerous message.

Thanks to advancements in neuroscience and biology, we know now the physical underpinnings of mental illness. We have evidence to show that mental illness is not related to someone's strength or weakness, but has actual connections to things like brain chemistry and development and childhood trauma.

Mental illness is incredibly common.

One out of five Americans will struggle with their mental health in any given year.

One out of twenty will have a long-term or chronic mental illness during their lifetime. This is higher than the rate of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes combined.

Those are staggering numbers. 

And, those numbers stay steady across ethnic and racial groups, across gender, across economic status, and even across religious affiliations.

Christians are just as likely as non-Christians to struggle with their mental health and to have serious mental illness.

Why does this surprise some of us?

We know - and accept - that Christians are just as likely as non-Christians to have cancer, heart disease, or diabetes.

We know and accept that if Christians have cancer, heart disease, or diabetes, it's not because they are spiritually weak or merely "need to pray more". We don't shame them for it. We don't tell the Christian with diabetes to stop taking insulin and not see their doctor because that would be seeking "the world's counsel" instead of God's.

So, why do we do this with people struggling with mental illness?

It breaks my heart to hear the number of stories of people who have gone to the church for help with their depression or anxiety or their child with trauma and are either being sent away empty-handed or are dealt with as though it's a spiritual problem only.

When Jesus was on Earth, He addressed not only people's spiritual needs, but their overall wellness. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, welcomed and loved the outcast.

We as a Church should be addressing people's needs holistically - body, mind, and spirit. 

We're not doctors, but we can visit people in the hospital, pray with the sick, comfort them, connect them and their families to appropriate services and supports.

We're not therapists, but we can still be a calming presence to those who are suffering from mental illness, pray with them, comfort them, and connect them and their families to appropriate services and supports.

We could do that. As a Church body, we could do many things to help those around us.

But the most important thing we can do for people struggling with mental illness is to stop blaming them for it.

Open the conversation about mental health. Address it head-on. Let go of discomfort or fear or whatever else holds us back and be prepared to be there for those who need it.

It should also be noted that most chronic mental illnesses start to show up between the ages of 14 and 24. This makes our outreach to youth and young adults even more important. We should be talking about mental health and mental illness with our young people.

We should be talking about mental health and mental illness from the pulpit, too. These issues should be normalized. Not as spiritual issues, or at least, not as purely spiritual, but as issues that people struggle with same as any physical illness or disease.

God does sometimes step in an heal people from cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, but often He does not, and those with those illnesses must learn to manage their symptoms and find ways to continue functioning.

Same goes with mental health. God does sometimes step in to heal people from depression, anxiety, and other mental illness, but often He does not, and those with those illnesses must learn to manage their symptoms and find ways to continue functioning. 

The Church should be a place where those suffering can find comfort, relief, and assistance. A place of community and connection and support.

Too often, it is not.

But...

It could be. 

It could be, if we are willing.