All Christians

I’m excited to let you know about this free summit that I get to speak at later on in May called Thrive & Cultivate: A Mental Health Summit for Church Leaders. This summit is all about how to care for yourself, supporting your team, and lending a helping hand to your congregation’s mental health needs. Mental health as a ministry is an incredibly important topic that I am grateful to be partnering with an organization that finds value in talking about the topic openly. Sometimes ministry is hard, and that’s a healthy and okay thing to admit. What’s not healthy is pretending that it’s a walk in the park all the time. We want to equip you with teaching and tools to help you on this journey of ministry. I’ll be giving a talk on “How Churches and Christian Counselors Connect.”

May is mental health awareness month, this week being mental illness awareness week, one of many awareness events this year. This is an important time to be able to understand through awareness, education, and prevention about mental health and mental illness before it becomes a problem. So to support pastors, counselors, mental health professional allies, family members of those who struggle with mental illness, and those with mental illness, we want to share resources for you.

There are times where we have a whole series of articles around a single topic that tying them into one central article to reference them all is necessary. Kind of like a table of contents for the series. Christian mindfulness is a topic that is being discussed more and more, many times without a clear understanding of what it is or how it can properly integrate faith and mental health.

Below is a list of articles we have written or referenced on the topic of Christian mindfulness from a variety of perspectives. The intent is to continue to update this list moving forward as more content is discussed and shared.

May is Mental Health Awareness month and within that on May 3-7, 2021 is mental health awareness week. One resource coming up during that week is the Church Mental Health Refresh, a live conference of five speakers giving five different talks for churches.

The topics of how churches can play a part if renewing their heart and mind include:

• domestic violence
• addiction
• mental health basics
• marriage
• ministry burnout

April is Autism Awareness Month to promote awareness around this specific issue. In the past, we have shared about Ability Ministry’s free and paid resources for churches and Nathaniel Hope’s Buddy Break program for respite care. But today we wanted to give you some awareness about what autism is.

Below I have two different videos, one a TED Talk that is great for adults on what autism is and the misconceptions that come with it. But I have included a second video for children because Sesame Street has done an amazing job in the last several years to help educate children about autism too. Please use both videos to help spread awareness for yourself and others.

In my clinical experience, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders is unlike any other treatment progress. Not because they are so different, but because the power of treatment can be done so well and you need to be very intentional about how you approach them. One specific part of treatment is how to work with someone who has psychosis while they are in a delusion or having a psychotic episode and may not be rational. Dr. Xavier Amador’s book I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! addresses how to minimize the impact of psychotic episodes and help the clients not have to be involuntarily hospitalized.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to give a presentation on co-occurring statistics for college age students to a university who has a specific focus on addressing domestic violence on their campus. I feel like young adult or college pastors could also greatly benefit from this as there are some startling statistics with it. There are no college age statistics for co-occurring within the Church but we can at least correlate between the statistics.

Lamar Hardwick has become known as the Autism Pastor and in his most recent book Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion, Lamar first shares his own story, both with coming into his diagnosis as well as his minority status as a Black man, and how that impacted his faith. He then transitions to how to move towards diversity within the Church and make an inclusion ministry

We are friends with Hope Made Strong who have been coming out with regular content on their YouTube channel. (You should go subscribe, for sure. We are.) Last month, she shared the 7 keys to building resilience. For those who need it, she defines resilience:

Resilience is the ability to bounce back or withstand adversity.  It isn’t the absence of struggle or pain.  It is the ability to come out of a time of suffering, quicker easier and perhaps with growth.

Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry by Amy Simpson is a book on the mental health topic it’s titled after. It explores as Christians how we are to respond to situation and personal stories of anxiety, noting that the easy “Christian quips” of “just pray more” are not helpful and then gives Scripture and practical advice on how to proceed. The personal nature of this book makes it feel authentic, giving insight into big concerns like her experience of coming toe to toe with a bear in Alaska, but also trying to control how her day or week may go in a stressful week.