All Christians

The book It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way is written by Lysa TerKeurst as well as president of Proverbs 31 Ministries, a ministry I love and believe you should check out if you haven’t before. This book looks at her life in the midst of heartache and looking to where God is in her life. For Lysa, she sees how her life has shattered, but in so doing, she may not have to suffer but be transformed.

This week, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on the topic of domestic violence and mental health to a women’s domestic violence shelter for the staff. The hope of the presentation from the shelter was to better educate staff on how the two are linked as well as give a laymen’s understanding of what mental illness disorders there are and the impact it can have on domestic violence victims.

I wanted to share some of the statistics and information I found in this presentation.

Trigger warning: This video does talk about suicidal thoughts. If you have any concerns for yourself, please seek help and talk to a professional about these feelings. If you or someone you love has suicidal thoughts and need to talk, please contact Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

What is it like to be in the foster care system? What happens when a person does not have a home? How does a kid get to a place where they honestly think about killing themselves?

Josh Shipp talks about how you as an individual in a youth’s life and make a difference. And you shouldn’t wait till they are an adult, start now.

Happy New Year everyone. It’s a season of new and exciting possibilities for you, your ministry, your team, and your community. What will the year hold, what will you do with the opportunities you are given, and how will you take on every week? One way to make the most of a new year with your resolutions and goals is to identify training and conferences you could attend to network and learn how your team and ministry can make an impact for the Gospel to all people, including those with disabilities and mental illness.

Trevor Noah is a comedy who took over the Daily Show, an American late-night talk and news satire television program which as through it’s legacy, not shied away from controversial topics that may not be funny.

One recent topic shared, passed along to us by our friend Blessing over at ChurchMag, talks about cultural sensitivity within counseling and how mental health stigma has caused serious issues for the black community with mental health. This call is not only needed, but churches and counseling agencies need to figure out how to respond. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the video and what could be done in the comments below.

Merry Christmas. We hope that this holiday season has been one of joy and hope. For those personally who have struggled with mental illness over this holiday, we hope you were able to not only manage your symptoms but found restoration and healing as well. As we enter into the final days of the year, we look towards what is to come with excitement and interest in what the new year has to offer. We also are looking to see what yearly goals and plans we can accomplish.

We wanted to start out the new year right with a solid foot forward with our engagement with others. The first and easiest route is to create great social media contact that might be shared, so we decided to start here.

We also have a heart for the beatitudes and so making the first content we produce here based on these Scriptures was a must. So use the images below, share Jesus with people, and let us know what other Scripture you’d like to see in this style.

Back in May, I talked about my church’s decision to fight mental health stigma, in order to better serve our congregation and community. Since then, we have created a fully running mental health team which is looking to focus on three areas to move our church forward: educating people about mental illness to empower individuals who are struggling as well as encourage those who may be able to be a support, equipping staff, volunteers, and the congregation with training events and referrals to counseling for those who have more serious concerns that pastors cannot directly serve, and create community through the sermons and small groups.

This last point, we will talk about more at a later date. For today, though, we are going to talk about the training opportunities we have had and plan to continue to have.

As the year is wrapping up, we wanted to share some of our top posts of the year that pastors, counselors, and other Christians have been reading on the topics of Christianity and mental health. We are excited for what happened this year as we were able to reduce stigma about mental health, educate and train pastors, as well as find further direction in our mission. We look forward to what 2020 has to offer.

We’ve covered topics ranging from developmental disabilities, using faith practices as coping skills, educating counselors on mental health risks, addressing specific problems for youth ministry or marriages, as well as many resources and free videos for all Christians. For now, enjoy our top 10 posts of 2019.

We have previously talked about improving communication in your marriage and given several worksheets you and your spouse could go through to help develop empathy and conversations. This article is a fun version of that which bore out of a previous article on 10 Tips To Improve Your Marriage where point 8 says “Be Interested In Your Spouse.” So below are 25 marriage conversation starters to help reconnect with your relationship with your spouse.