"I lost my husband to cancer. I’m forever thankful he didn’t choose assisted suicide."
Good grief. This guy is a sodomite and a liar.
Here's another great article from him:
Posted on 09/25/2019 2:28:39 AM PDT by robowombat
I was a pastor when I nearly died by suicide. Churches should look more like psych wards
The death by apparent suicide of Pastor Jarrid Wilson stunned many of us, forcing us to try to answer the question: How do we deal with mental health in church?
I don’t know Jarrid’s story intimately, but I do know what it’s like to long for death when I feel hopeless. I was a pastor when I nearly died by suicide. If you had to read that sentence a second time, I get it. It’s pretty jarring to read. At 29 years old, my life had reached a point where I felt there was no hope, so I tried to die in a hotel room, with a Bible in my lap, as I feverishly wrote my suicide notes. I prayed I would never wake up. That was seven years ago this month.
Speaking of prayer, “I’m praying for you,” is not a solution, even though it feels like the right thing to say. I’m no longer in formal ministry and no longer a pastor, but I speak to congregations offering tangible changes they can make to help those of us who are struggling. After years of therapy, I’ve decided churches need to look more like psych wards. Here’s what I mean.
Radical acceptance, safe communities In group therapy, you sit in a circle, everyone looking at and supporting each other. At church, the congregation (or audience?) faces just one person. That’s a performance, not a community. My life was transformed by living in community with unstable people at the lowest point of their lives. We came together, finding support in a safe place, all with the goal of getting better.
Instead of spending countless hours and dollars creating showy performances meant to cultivate an image, church should work toward transparency in corporate worship, by investing in mental health support groups and hosting events encouraging open dialogue.
Looks can be deceiving: I have a disability everyone can see. My bipolar friend who died by suicide did not.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention lists six things you should do to have an honest conversation when someone is at risk. Christians with mental illness are desperate for authenticity. So how do we facilitate honesty in church? It could start by having a prayer box specifically for mental health concerns, and continue through messages from the pulpit.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-34, so include youth in that honest conversation. Talk about anxiety and depression in Sunday school, and offer practical and spiritual tips for getting better. My generation, millennials, in particular is known as the “anxious generation,” and anxiety and depression among young Americans have been trending higher and higher for decades. We have learned the hard way that isolation can be a death sentence for our mental health. It’s time to let our kids and young people know they are safe to speak about mental health.
Steve Austin in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in January 2018. Image copyright: Family handout One of the missions of the church is to help people grow. Our journey toward wholeness requires permission to be honest. When we feel safe to confess our mess honestly, evidence suggests our stress levels drop. The power of confession shatters shame.
Looking for more ideas? The National Alliance on Mental Illness has compiled a list of some model faith groups.
You can’t heal from what you won’t face. What if the church took that approach with neuro-atypical people and those with mental health challenges the same way?
Our laws pressure the vulnerable: I lost my husband to cancer. I’m forever thankful he didn’t choose assisted suicide.
Maybe it’s time to pull the AA group out of the basement and into the sanctuary. By including mental health struggles in regular conversation, we can fight the stigma that persists in many churches. This keeps us from telling a lie when the church sign says, “Come as you are.”
Helping people face their wounds doesn’t mean we can fix them. The church is naturally a fixing culture, but I’d challenge us to do better at practicing radical acceptance instead, through grace, love and listening.
Churches, bring in the professionals Pastors don’t graduate seminary as mental health counselors, so expecting pastoral training to give a pastor all the answers for someone in mental health crisis isn’t wise. You wouldn’t want your pastor performing open heart surgery, so why would you expect your pastor to be your psychiatrist?
Start by creating a list of local mental health professionals. Keep it at the office, pin it to the board with other church announcements, and save it in your smartphone for the next time someone from your community is in crisis. As a pastor, you can still sit with them, pray for them and share encouraging Scripture. But do that after you’ve called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or driven them to the hospital.
We’ll come to God our own way: Churches could win back teens like me if they were more welcoming and less judgmental
One way to bring in mental health professionals is by offering to house a licensed therapist in the church building. Allow them to work rent-free from your space in exchange for offering monthly therapy sessions for your staff and reduced therapy for church members in need.
Much like the psych ward, Christians with mental illness are looking for a spiritual community that welcomes their dysfunction, disappointment and exhaustion. In the same way Jesus welcomed people to come without pretense, it’s time for the church to provide a sacred place to lay down our burdens and rest.
This includes pastors. Pastors are humans before anything else, which means they need space to share their struggles, too. Find out whether a sabbatical is written into your pastor’s contract. If not, work to get that changed.
I’ve spent time in church pews and on the psych ward. In both scenarios, I have found that outward exercises are designed to lead us toward inward discovery.
It isn’t about raised hands on a Sunday morning any more than it’s about arts and crafts activities that help me describe my emotions. Exercises in therapy helped free me from unrealistic expectations, find joy in ordinary moments and give myself space to love, to belong and to constantly change. Shouldn’t this be the goal for all our congregations?
The church could learn a lot from the psych ward.
Steve Austin is the author of “From Pastor to a Psych Ward,” available as a free download at catchingyourbreath.com. Steve lives with his family in Birmingham, Alabama. Follow him on Twitter @iAmSteveAustin
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours a day at 800-273-8255.
Written by: Steve Austin
Churches are probably the most underused institutions in the West. You should be able to go in one 7 days a week and it be like a community center to find jobs and whatever.
Dad was a pastor and threatened suicide often.
When “Steve Austin” says, “I lost my husband to cancer,” we should all realize he has ‘bigger issues,’ already.
Yep, I missed that one.
Quite a few black churches make a stab at doing that.
I believe that’s how it should be.
Almost all "therapy" is simply secular talk and self-indulgent navel gazing.
I have great sympathy for those who are desperate, and I have known suicide up close and personal in my family.
However, this former pastor is simply projecting his own problems onto other Christians and ministries because he thinks if everyone else is hysterical, then he isn't so bad.
"Mental health" is a 20th century invention based on the lies of Sigmund Freud, who created an entire industry that believes it can categorize the mind and the human soul with endless claptrap, "syndromes", "phobias" - and all "medicated" with poisonous cocktails of mind altering drugs.
The Bible has a lot to say about the status of our hearts, minds, and soul - it has nothing to say about supposed "mental health." Scripture has a lot to say about demonic forces and Satan, and nothing at all about taking drugs to "cure" our minds, or blathering on to a "therapist" about out situation or our past.
It isn’t about raised hands on a Sunday morning any more than it’s about arts and crafts activities that help me describe my emotions.
This guy is now mocking Christians and the joy and purpose that comes with worshiping a Holy God. Either he never understood that, or he was never a child of Christ to begin with.
He lost his husband to cancer.
It makes you wonder about his state with God.
"I lost my husband to cancer. I’m forever thankful he didn’t choose assisted suicide."
Good grief. This guy is a sodomite and a liar.
Here's another great article from him:
And I saw that love is too great to ever be labeled “worldly” or “godly”, “sacred” or “secular”. Love is just love.
As the night progressed, the music grew louder and the drinks stronger. The dance floor was filled with familiar faces, and my dearest friends spun, shook, and smiled, weaving themselves in a beautiful tapestry of peace and freedom. It was more than just a party; it was a spiritual experience.
My friends were living into their identity, knowing that in a few hours, they would return to straight America. Many would once again hold their true selves at a comfortable distance, not wanting to offend their neighbors, co-workers, or those who sit with them on more familiar pews.
I watched them dance, and thought this is life. I could feel Emmanuel, God-with-us. My friends were the most alive I’d ever seen them. They must have felt God too. With lifted hearts and heads, the room was filled with laughter, our entire beings, overcome with the joy of the Lord.
Outside that bar, my friends are judged, cursed, and worse by so-called Christians who are “preaching the truth in love.” But inside, they find a shelter from the storm, a community, peace, safety and love. There’s really only one word to describe what they find in that club — God. And I saw that love is too great to ever be labeled “worldly” or “godly”, “sacred” or “secular”. Love is just love.
As the night progressed, the music grew louder and the drinks stronger. The dance floor was filled with familiar faces, and my dearest friends spun, shook, and smiled, weaving themselves in a beautiful tapestry of peace and freedom. It was more than just a party; it was a spiritual experience.
My friends were living into their identity, knowing that in a few hours, they would return to straight America. Many would once again hold their true selves at a comfortable distance, not wanting to offend their neighbors, co-workers, or those who sit with them on more familiar pews.
I watched them dance, and thought this is life. I could feel Emmanuel, God-with-us. My friends were the most alive I’d ever seen them. They must have felt God too. With lifted hearts and heads, the room was filled with laughter, our entire beings, overcome with the joy of the Lord.
Outside that bar, my friends are judged, cursed, and worse by so-called Christians who are “preaching the truth in love.” But inside, they find a shelter from the storm, a community, peace, safety and love. There’s really only one word to describe what they find in that club — God.
“Helping people face their wounds doesn’t mean we can fix them. The church is naturally a fixing culture, but I’d challenge us to do better at practicing radical acceptance instead, through grace, love and listening.”
where in the bible does it say face your wounds?
I read suit up in armor of God and go proclaim the Gospel - Jesus came so you could be an overcomer, more than conqueror, not some fragile feelings flakey “christian”.
Looks like he’s trying to make a quick buck.
They were drunk, they were responding to the “sensual” not the “spiritual” and mistaking the one for the other. The music was aiding that mistake and they were reveling in their sin. A teenage rave feels the same way, which is why so many teens want that kind of “music” in the service.
It is not God honoring.
He looks different from when he was wrestling.
False Christian....
... Good grief. This guy is a sodomite and a liar.
I’d be suicidal if I knew I couldn’t enter into the Kingdom of God
Hearing the Truth, then Denying the Holy Spirit
We can rebuild him. we have the technology.
Good reading for pastors and anyone else: Reason in Pastoral Counseling
by Paul Hauck, a Rational Emotive Therapist. Out of print, it is available
at abebooks.com and other online book sellers.
RET saved my ass when I was suicidal for most of a year. Not only
the above book, but others by Hauck, Albert Ellis, Maxie Maultsby,
Windy Dryden and more.
I forgot about that Steve Austin.
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