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Suicide is Not Advocacy

Along with many of you, I was shocked and dismayed to hear of Jarrid Wilson’s death by suicide last week. Jarrid was an associate pastor and mental health advocate who was vocal about his own challenges with depression and suicidal thoughts. With his death, we have one less voice in the fight against stigma in the church.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the headlines to see how his death is portrayed. Most are helpful, some sadly equate suicide with an unpardonable sin, but one in particular causes me to pause. A USA Today headline: “Suicide of Prominent Pastor Jarrid Wilson Forces Church Leaders to Confront Mental Health.” No. Period. Full Stop. No. His death did not force us to confront an issue. Many have already been working to confront this issue (which the article details quite nicely). Jarrid was part of that work. We have a lot of work to do, but Jarrid’s death is not forcing us into doing it.

I react strongly to that in part because I have seen the ways that depression twists thoughts and causes people to believe that the world would be better with their death. I don’t know what Jarrid might have been thinking the night he died, but it is possible that he thought something like, “Nothing seems to be working. No one is paying attention. Maybe I can get them to listen more if they see what suicide is.” Again, I do not want to put any words into his mind that were not there. I simply raise it to say that leaders are at risk for thinking in that way when they are depressed. I’ve heard those kinds of words from others, and it’s a type of martyrdom that we need to reject outright.

Suicide is not advocacy work. We do not need tragedy to shine light on this issue. We need more voices, more workers in this fight, not fewer. Every death means we have one less person out there working to share their story or decrease stigma. We have one less person in our world to make a difference. For leaders, that is critically important. If we are going to do more to address pastors’ mental health in particular, we cannot endorse any lie that suggests suicide is an effective way to advance the cause. That lie just might kill someone else.

Check out my Twitter thread on this topic and join the conversation: https://twitter.com/ChurchTherapist/status/1173193467410964486

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Christian Mindfulness

The word “mindfulness” is defined as “a quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.” While this idea has Buddhist origins, the direction of one’s awareness is what can make this practice different between Christians and Buddhists. That being said, there are many aspects of mindfulness that would be the same regardless of religious belief. For example, relaxing your body and paying attention to your own thoughts as they come in to your mind is neither Christian nor Buddhist.

So why should Christians practice mindfulness and how is it best done from a Christian worldview?

Mindfulness Brings Awareness of God’s Presence

God is always with us, as he said he will never leave us or forsake us. Yet as Christians we are only partially aware of God’s continual presence. Mindfulness can help bring back a more full awareness of God’s presence as we connect to him in intentional and mindful prayer.

You can practice this by finding a quiet place with no distractions. Close your eyes and focus your thoughts on God. You can have 2-3 Bible verses memorized or on index cards that you reflect on. If your thoughts wander, simply bring them back gently to the verses you have selected. (Colossians 3:15 is a great example). After you have meditated on these verses, bring your awareness onto the presence of God. You can imagine sitting at his feet or you can picture him hugging you. You can also picture him dwelling in you. As you do this, you can relax your body and breathe more slowly, just resting in his awesome presence. When we are actively aware of God, we connect with the Kingdom of Heaven and we can experience greater levels of peace.

Mindfulness Helps Us Renew Our Minds

Romans 12:2 tells us that as a Christian you should “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Mindfulness is a skill that takes practice, as we mentally train ourselves to focus on God and his word. Our brains are constantly adapting to new experiences and changing through learning. Relaxation and mindfulness creates actual changes in the brain (a concept known as neuroplasticity). Focusing our attention on God through mindfulness helps renew our minds as we reduce stress in our bodies and bring healing to our brains.

Increased awareness of the presence of God, of our own bodies and of the thoughts in our minds helps us to be intentional. A lack of awareness brings more chaos as we fall into a trap of rushing through our day with little awareness of God or our own needs. Mindfulness, whether practiced alone in a quiet place or simply as a momentary check-in in the midst of a crowd, helps us intentionally refocus on God and his Kingdom. Mindfulness can also help slow our bodies down, which is quite counter-cultural for us Americans. Jesus was never in a hurry, and he was continually mindful of his Father and his mission.

Mindfulness Gives Us Grace For Ourselves and Others

A common struggle people have when beginning to practice mindfulness is that of cluttered or racing thoughts. The moment you close your eyes, your mind can be flooded with all the worries and stress of your day. Too often our reaction is to push those things away or become frustrated that they are in the way of focusing on God. In this process we can actually grow in the area of giving ourselves and others grace. We can pay attention to these thoughts without judgment as we observe the areas in which we need the most help from God. We can then invite him into those worries and cluttered thoughts and allow him to align our thoughts to his.

One important aspect of mindfulness is acceptance of yourself in a non-judgmental way. Christians can sometimes get nervous with this language because they fear that in reducing judgment on themselves they will give into their sinfulness or stop growing in Christ. “I’m okay, you’re okay” feels like lying to ourselves and simply covering over sin. But at the heart of the Gospel is the idea that we are loved and accepted as we are. If we are in Christ, then he alone is our judge and he chooses to love us. We can align our perspectives with his in this way, and while practicing mindfulness become more aware of God’s unconditional love and acceptance for us. Allow his love for your to bring peace and healing into your mind and soul today.

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Exciting News!!

I am thrilled to announce that I have launched a new non-profit, Church Therapy Associates, in order to provide low-cost mental health counseling services in churches and Christian college settings. The idea builds on the Church Therapy model, embedding professional counseling directly into churches where services are accessible. The presence of a counselor helps decrease stigma as well, changing the church culture towards one that embraces mental health treatment as a positive option.

Church Therapy Associates will use a subscription model, in which both churches and clients pay a subscription fee. The services are provided by Master’s-level counseling students, graduates working towards licensure, and licensed clinicians. This non-profit creates opportunities for training and supervision for mental health counselors, increasing the number of qualified mental health professionals committed to serving within the church.

Here’s how it works:

  1. A partner church subscribes, outsourcing the clinical mental health care needs of their congregation to Church Therapy Associates. Their subscription fee is based on the number of client slots they want to have (based on church size). The subscription level can increase as the need increases over time. The church also provides office space and emergency on-site support.
  2. A Master’s-level counseling intern is placed at a new site. Clients pay a co-pay level subscription fee weekly or monthly, and this is automatically billed to them.
  3. Licensed counselors provide weekly supervision. Emergency on-site support is present at every site whenever the counseling interns are seeing clients.
  4. When the counseling intern graduates, they can continue at their site to accrue hours towards licensure. They are working for Church Therapy Associates throughout the process, creating a seamless transition and continuous services for the partner churches. As they grow professionally, they will become licensed and will begin to supervise others.
  5. All fees, liability, regulatory oversight, record keeping, and phone systems are centralized under Church Therapy Associates through a HIPAA-compliant electronic health record, so that churches do not have to worry about any of these details.

To start we will be focusing on the Boston area, but I believe this model can expand around the country. Our expansion will focus on areas near Christian seminaries and graduate schools that offer licensure-based mental health counseling programs. If you are a pastor interested in this model or you are part of a Christian counseling Master’s program, let me know!

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Why Women Don’t Report Sexual Abuse

As a counselor I have sat with countless women who have experienced sexual abuse. Only one had reported her assault, because she and a friend were able to report together on the same man. Most women do not report, and if they do it is rarely right away. In many cases, I was the first person they ever told, years later. I thought about ways to write about this topic, increasingly in the news as more women do speak out and raise awareness on the frequency of sexual abuse and assault. I felt the best approach was to make a list of the reasons women have directly told me that they did not tell anyone about their abuse.

Here are the reasons why women I know did not report (#WhyIDidntReport):

  1. “I knew it would tear apart my family.”
  2. “I thought it was my fault.”
  3. “I didn’t know it was rape because it wasn’t violent.”
  4. “No one would have believed me.”
  5. “He told me not to tell anyone or he’d hurt me again.”
  6. “I didn’t remember the attack at all until years later.”
  7. “I didn’t remember all the details.”
  8. “I was a child and he was my parent.”
  9. “I didn’t realize it was wrong.”
  10. “I felt ashamed.”
  11. “I didn’t want to ruin his life.”
  12. “My family didn’t talk about serious things.”
  13. “The first person I told blamed me.”
  14. “Good Christian girls don’t talk about that.”
  15. “He was my brother who was favored by my parents.”
  16. “He was my boyfriend and I wanted him to love me.”
  17. “It was a while ago, there is no evidence so it’s my word against his.”
  18. “I was afraid I would get taken from my parents.”
  19. “I was too scared to talk to the police.”
  20. “I didn’t want to go to court and tell strangers what happened.”
  21. “I was frozen with fear and could never get the words out.”
  22. “I wanted to just try to forget about it.”
  23. “I didn’t think my parents would handle the news well.”
  24. “He was my pimp and he knew where I was at all times.”
  25. “I didn’t want to have to see him again in a courtroom.”

These are the reasons that immediately come to my mind that I can directly link to someone’s story. I’m sure there are more, and certainly other women have other reasons besides these. The fact that I can create a list of 25 different reasons in about 5 minutes troubles me. Our world should not be this way.

Pastors, let me speak to you directly. With hashtags like #MeToo and #ChurchToo, I have heard some troubling responses to the discussion about sexual abuse against women. Many pastors and Christian men have responded with a focus on how the world is no longer safe for men with accusations becoming more prevalent. Please, when you think on this topic, and even more so when you speak on this topic, focus on women. Focus on believing them. Focus on their safety. Focus on the ways this can teach us about how we contribute to fear and suppression of information. If you are concerned for all the men when you hear these women’s stories, you are fundamentally beholden to a dangerous system that looks nothing like the Kingdom of God. Jesus drove away the men with the stones, he listened to women, and he valued them. Now more than ever, we need you to do the same. Thank you to all those who have listened, believed, and responded with compassion.

 

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Guest Post by Barry Pearman: How’s Your Vision?

They had put him in a box and gave it a label – ‘No hoper’. None of his fellow church goers had a vision of him beyond his addiction. Subtly their limiting beliefs were limiting his belief in himself.

How often do we do this? We see the problem and not the person. We see the pain and not the presence of God calling us to think beyond.

Cutting, crying and confusion

The townsfolk were scared of this guy. He was wild, angry and full of demons. They had tried to constrain him with chains, but he simply broke them off. His home was now the local cemetery where at night he would yell and scream. He was covered in scars from cutting himself. No one would come near him. That was until someone did come and see beyond his present struggle to a time where he would be the greatest evangelists in the region.

Jesus prayed, and pigs flew.

This is the story of Jesus healing the demon-possessed man of Gerasenes. A man that had been given up on by his neighbors.  You can read more in Mark 5:1-20. The most exciting part of this story is the final verses:

“As Jesus was getting into the boat, the demon-delivered man begged to go along, but he wouldn’t let him. Jesus said, ‘Go home to your own people. Tell them your story—what the Master did, how he had mercy on you.’ The man went back and began to preach in the Ten Towns area about what Jesus had done for him. He was the talk of the town.” Mark 5:18-20

Jesus isn’t constrained by limiting beliefs.

A compelling vision

Jesus had a compelling vision that could see beyond. It drew him towards the man and not away Dr. Larry Crabb writes this:

“What would it be like if we had a vision for each other, if we could see the lost glory in ourselves, our family, and our friends? What would the effect on your sons or daughters be if they realized that you were caught up with the possibilities of restored glory, of what they could become— not successful, talented, good-looking, or rich but kind, strong, and self-assured, fully alive.

“When people connect with each other on the basis of a vision for who they are and what they could become; when we see in others what little of Jesus has already begun to form beneath the insecurity, fear, and pride; when we long beyond anything else to see that little bit of Jesus develop and mature; then something is released from within us that has the power to form more of Jesus within them. That power is the life of Christ, carried into another soul across the bridge of our vision for them, a life that touches the life in another with nourishing power. Vision for others both bridges the distance between two souls and triggers the release of the power within us.”

Larry Crabb, Connecting

The difficult person

What is your vision for the most difficult person in your life? Is it a compelling vision that has been birthed in prayer and nurtured in patient silence. Pray for a pulling back of the curtain of your limiting beliefs to see how God sees them – fully alive. It will most likely lead you to ask for forgiveness from God for such a chained up perception. Then pray again and ask God to keep this vision ever before you as listen and love. You may like to read my post Do You Have A ‘Mind To Work’?

May the vision God has for the others fill your life and strengthen it when all that can be seen are cuts, chains and confusion.

~ Barry Pearman

Barry lives in Auckland New Zealand and has a deep passion is to empower people with Mental Illnesses to find recovery and hope. In former years he has had roles as a Mental Health Support Worker and then as a Community Chaplain pastoring people with Major Mental Illnesses.

Visit him at his blog Turning the Page and follow him on Twitter

 

 

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Why is Mental Illness a Hot Topic in the Church?

The Church is supposed to talk about the Bible, right? Sing songs to Jesus, study the Word, talk about God and debate theological constructs. Why would we spend time talking about mental illness? What does that have to do with Jesus or the church or theology?

Here’s why: the Gospel is centered on suffering. The whole of humanity began a steady decline the moment we stepped out of the Garden, and that suffering got worse and worse. Jesus came, and instead of ending it all right there he entered the suffering. His victory over death was achieved through suffering. He continually demonstrated compassion to those who were suffering and he entered their pain. If we as Christians are to imitate him, then we must also voluntarily enter another person’s world of pain.

Mental illness is a hot topic because people are suffering. And not just non-Christians. Right here in our church’s four walls there are those who are suffering with symptoms of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, attention-deficit disorder and many more. Too often we preach a works-based Gospel we don’t even believe theologically. “Just do _____ and you won’t feel bad anymore!” Our solutions are often so wrapped up in all that we can muster for ourselves that people walk away saying, “I tried ‘Jesus’ but it just didn’t work for me.”

The only guarantee that we have is that this suffering will end in the end. I can say to anyone with a mental illness or cancer or a heart condition, “You will be healed because in God’s kingdom this doesn’t exist.” But that’s eternity (except for the very real but rare divine moments in which God heals instantly here and now). And it’s a very real hope, but it ends up sounds like a hopeless message when we say it and then walk away from those who are hurting and leave them to bleed. The only thing that can follow up an eternal hope message is a commitment to walk alongside that person with compassion and support for the rest of their days of suffering. Without that, we fail to imitate Christ who entered in with us as a co-participant in our suffering.

Who are the people you are walking alongside through the suffering of their mental illness? Are you leaving the “quick fixes” at the door or do you find that you are exasperated by all the things they are not doing that would (in your mind) solve everything? Are you a safe person to turn to when they need support? In what ways can you live out the Gospel in the midst of another’s pain? If the person is not healed on this earth, are you willing to walk with that person all the way to the gates of Heaven? These are the questions we as the Church must answer or we will decline into a social club for insiders only. Some would say we are already there.

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Perfectionism Versus Excellence

I once attended a church conference in which I was struck by the church’s culture of excellence. The leaders and staff had a quality about them that was striking — they all gave their work everything they had while maintaining a humility that was authentic. While they were proud of their ministries and put on the conference in order to share all they had learned, it was not about their own efforts or an ego-boost.

This experience got me thinking about the differences between perfectionism and excellence. First of all, perfectionism and excellence are on opposite ends of the pride-humility spectrum. Perfectionism is rooted in pride because ultimately it is all about striving to be the best. But my best can never be the best. If my best were the best, then I would be the standard-setter. And if I were the standard-setter, I could also be the judge of others who failed to meet that standard. It is here we see that in perfectionism we are taking God’s place as the standard-setter and judge. He alone is perfect.

Excellence, on the other hand, is rooted in humility. It is cultivated in a system in which there are clear roles, expectations and authority structures. Excellence is driven by one’s character — the end result does not matter nearly as much as how you got there. Hard work, dedication, calling and team-building are all central to a culture of excellence.

Matthew 5:48 says, “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Perfectionists for Jesus! But wait a second… This statement comes during the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is contrasting the outward acts of law-following with the inward heart of Spirit-following. Here Jesus is saying, “Guys, if you want to get to heaven relying on your law-following, then perfection is your only option because God is perfect. The only way to get to Him through the law is perfection.” The obvious implication is that being perfect is impossible, just as relationship with the God based on our own works is impossible. We cannot be perfect and we are in desperate need of a Savior.

Are you striving for perfection? Is your Christian walk rooted in pride or in humility? May we become a Church that is deeply humble, devoted to our Father, and excellent in all we seek to do for His kingdom.

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The Impact of Trauma on Relationships and Spiritual Growth

Throughout my career as a counselor, I have worked with many people who have experienced trauma, some of whom suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When we think of PTSD, we sometimes assume these are veterans or victims of violent crime. Less obvious, and certainly far less often disclosed, are victims of sexual abuse by family members. Sadly, this is a common occurrence and as a result  many in the Church suffer with lasting affects of this quiet type of trauma.

I have seen commonalities in the responses of those who have been hurt or traumatized by family members. Their relationships with God and with other close, seemingly “safe” people are affected by the trauma of their pasts. This is especially true in a church context, in which the family environment can be triggering for those who have experienced abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to be trusted authority figures.

I created a worksheet that helps explain these patterns, which disrupt one’s relational and spiritual life. It also shows a way to break the cycle using mindfulness of the present.

Click here to view the worksheet: Trauma Response Cycle

Please feel free to share this worksheet with others, and check out my books on Amazon for other helpful resources on mental health and spiritual growth.