All Christians

Empathy is the “ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” For many people, we assume this is the same as sympathy, but it truly isn’t. In church, I see people have sympathy for the homeless, the widowed, the orphaned, the mentally ill, the physically injured, the locked up, the abused, and the addicted.

Sympathy is “we’ll pray for you” and then by the time you walk out the church doors you’ve forgotten that commitment. Empathy is being willing to drive that person home, pray for them when they leave, showing up at the homeless shelter to give them supplies, and sit to authentically listen to them weep over their fears and losses six months or a year after the event has happened.

If you have not read our previous post on how a pastor can make a referral for someone to go to counseling and what pastors need to do to help, check out the article here. So you may know how to make a referral, but what should Christians and pastors look for when referring someone to counseling?

Below are the steps you need to know to ask for not only finding a good counselor but one that will also keep your spiritual needs at the forefront of the counseling. Further, we do not go into specifics of the difference between Biblical counseling and having a Christian counselor but will write about that in the future.

Note: this will be useful whether you are going to attend outpatient or inpatient treatment. If this is a crisis situation, call 911, a crisis hotline (1-800-273-8255) or go to the nearest emergency room for immediate assistance.

Jesus heals. We know He does. We see it in the Bible, and we even see it today.

But He doesn’t always heal when we ask Him to.

I’ve been chronically ill since I was eight years old, and you bet I prayed, and still pray, to be healed. People laid hands on me (um, not my favorite), people prayed over me silently, people prayed for me out loud, people prayed for me without me knowing, people I barely knew prayed for me.
I’m just saying that I was and am, prayed for.

And I haven’t been healed.

I’m still chronically ill a decade later.

Barna Group, a Christian-based research group started by David Kinnaman, recently conducted a study on how marriage and parenting impact an individual’s understanding of forgiveness. Per the description of the product, this report covers:

• New data and infographics about prevailing attitudes and practices of mercy and justice in the Church
• An overview of how people define, offer and accept forgiveness in their daily lives
• Gaps between practicing Christians’ and pastors’ perceptions of how churches facilitate hope and healing
• Details about how life stage, generation and political ideology factor into expressions of compassion 

Through personal experience and hearing shared experiences of other people, I have concluded that in most cases of any mental illness, people, and more specifically Christians, don’t know what to say. This comes down to a lot of stigma surrounding overall mental health, in the Church and out, but I’ll save that for another post. I’ll just say that what you do or don’t say to someone can really change their life; the Bible isn’t kidding when it says that the power of death and life are in the tongue.

Below I have compiled a few lists of things that you should and shouldn’t say to someone who has just shared with you their struggle.

I’ve been on a search for a great book that addresses not only Christian faith, but how it intersects with mental health. We know there is way too much stigma within the church on mental health. Some books have been advertised as addressing this, but it missed the mark. Troubled Minds is by far the best book I have come across so far that fully and fairly addresses the issue of mental health in the church.

Money is a huge issue with regards to an individual. For some, it’s their ticket to freedom or barrier to success. It’s what shatters dreams of college, causes significant anxiety and grief with bankruptcy, and yet we can end up turning into gods instead of our focus on God the Father.

For others, money is an issue. My wife and I took the Prepare & Enrich Marriage Assessment and our biggest need for growth? Money. Dave Ramsey has a research company and last year reported this:

According to a new survey by Ramsey Solutions, money fights are the second leading cause of divorce, behind infidelity. Results show that both high levels of debt and a lack of communication are major causes for the stress and anxiety surrounding household finances.

For those of you who do not have a lot of experience or understanding of mental health symptoms and do not know what to look for or if you are a pastor at your church and want to do a quick five minute training for your volunteers on the warning signs of mental health, this is for you.

Mental health is a disease that has a silent and strong grasp on our culture. We don’t want to talk about it which is why we have to do events like May being Mental Health Awareness Month. There is a renewal in pop culture on removing the stigma, yet the church has more it could do.

As a Christian with mental health, it can be isolating and frustrating. Whether you are a missionary with depression, a pastor with bipolar, or someone wanting to attend church with social anxiety or ADHD, there are many barriers to attending Christian events and developing your own spiritual formation.

I don’t normally break the fourth wall and talk personally about experiences as I want this website to be a resource for mental health professions and churches to begin a dialogue on how we can unite together more. But this is one of those intersections where my personal experience can be an example, where my church is helping break the stigma of mental health.