At the 2014 Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) annual conference, and at the 2015 Faith Biblical Counseling Training Conference, I presented on:
Mental Illness and the Church: Developing a Compassionate and Comprehensive Biblical Counseling Response
Here’s a summary of my presentation:
As the Body of Christ and as a biblical counseling movement, God calls us to respond compassionately and comprehensively to individuals (and their families) suffering with troubling emotions and thoughts. To minister Christ’s gospel of grace to people compassionately and comprehensively, we need to reflect biblically and historically (church history) on several interrelated questions.
- How do we cultivate a gospel-centered culture of grace in our churches as we respond to sufferers struggling with deep, ongoing emotional distress?
- How do we become redemptive communities engaging in gospel-centered relationships with people diagnosed with mental illness?
- How do we respond to a Christian world that has, perhaps, accepted a definition of mental illness that is not always comprehensively biblical or fully compassionate?
- How do we speak wisely about mental illness and the complex interaction of the brain/body/mind/heart/soul?
- How do we address root causes of struggles (heart) without being heard to say that we are ignoring the whole person or lacking empathy for social factors (nurture) and physiological issues (nature)?
I’ve pasted the entire manuscript of this Mental Illness and the Church at the RPM Ministries Free Resources section of my site. You can download it by clicking here:
And here’s a shortened link if you want to make others aware of this resource: http://bit.ly/MIandChurch
Join the Conversation
How do we cultivate a gospel-centered culture of grace in our churches as we respond to sufferers struggling with deep, ongoing emotional distress?
How do we become redemptive communities engaging in gospel-centered relationships with people diagnosed with mental illness?
How do we respond to a Christian world that has, perhaps, accepted a definition of mental illness that is not always comprehensively biblical or fully compassionate?
How do we speak wisely about mental illness and the complex interaction of the brain/body/mind/heart/soul?
How do we address root causes of struggles (heart) without being heard to say that we are ignoring the whole person or lacking empathy for social factors (nurture) and physiological issues (nature)?
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
My answer to all of the questions above would be GET INVOLVED! You might call it on the job training. 🙂 Absolutely, read and be educated but jump in wherever there is a program or opportunity to serve those who by no fault of their own struggle with mental illness. There are many levels of involvement and one needs to determine what is right for them. I am personally involved as a biblical counselor, conducting Christ centered 12 Step recovery groups, and providing a safe home for 2 lovely ladies who need someone in their corner so to speak. If there is nowhere to get involved, pray and see how God could use you to be a support and encouragement and/or start a ministry to do that end. Lots to do in the Kingdom…………just gotta’ want to and then do the next right thing you see before you to do!
I appreciated this article so much! As a caregiver to a husband with paranoid schizophrenia for many years, I found that, except for a few close friends, the church was not well equipped to minister either to my husband or to me. Out of fear of not knowing how to act, they did not act at all. My book, Sanctuary in the Midst of Alzheimer’s, was the result of my experience based on a caregiver in hopes that helping congregations “walk in the shoes” of caring for someone who can be confused, paranoid, talking to themselves, etc. If we could get congregations to at least the place where they could feel less anxious around persons with mental illness that would be a big step. I will share this article with many ~ again, thank you!
I am the Director of Soul Care Ministries at Community Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Celebration, Florida. We lay-caregivers learn through Stephen Ministry training how to recognize situations with care-receivers – things such as levels of depression, suicidal tendencies, and similar situations associated with possible mental illness – that go beyond our skill sets . . . for the purposes of knowing when to refer them out to licensed counselors. This, along with on-the-job training and my graduate coursework in Pastoral Care at Fordham, have helped me realize the complexity of caring for souls, and in particular the gaping void in the ministry with respect to how we may actually be equipped to care for those with mental illness rather than just immediately referring. Dr. Kellemen’s initial conversational questions cause me to ask myself: Are we erring in favor of doing no harm . . . or are we copping out as Christian caregivers? Maybe the answer constitutes a both/and. Nevertheless, this is a precarious fence we’re on. When the tough situations arise, I often think with some trepidation: “What have we gotten ourselves into?”. Yet I believe we can do more, and are being divinely nudged to do so. Perhaps God is countering my fear-laced notion with another question: “As shepherds of My flock, what do you still need to get yourselves into?”. I recognize in Dr. Kellemen’s presentation elements of what we are striving to do in Soul Care Ministries, but am also convicted by his “comprehensive compassion” as to how much more could and should be done if we are truly desiring to fulfill God’s call to “strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, return the strays, see the lost” (Ezekiel 34:4).
As director of this ministry, it is my job to train lay-caregivers and grow our caring outreach. I can’t say I’m comfortable with just “diving in” (perhaps yet another fear-laced thought). Since I am only at the beginning of fleshing out this calling toward caring better for those with mental illness and their families, I wonder what specific new skills, training programs, and materials are out there that could help us provide more comprehensive Christ-focused soul care. I’d like to be able to answer well those initial questions.