FAITH-BASED MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

Christians and their churches in Canada have been learning about mental health—the various illnesses and how they present themselves in those who live with them. They learn to accept and support the individuals in their church who live with such challenges. They learn how to respond to their needs.

But have we asked such people about their needs? Have they had opportunities to tell us how the pain of stigma has affected them? Do they have people with similar problems with whom they can share their pain, so that they don’t feel so alone with it?

There is something important left out of the teachings the Church has been receiving. And that is an understanding of what people with mental health challenges can do for each other—the support they can offer their peers. There is no support as effective as the kind of support people can give to those who share similar needs—those who understand what it’s like to live with the problems they face in trying to live in this world. Those who need Jesus as he is shown in the gospel stories.

The most important way in which people with mental health challenges can support each other—better than anyone else can—is by helping each other find assurance in the great love God has for them and how he values them, despite the way the world treats them. Those who don’t know what it is to have lives like they do could never understand that message in the same way.

Those who live with mental health challenges, need spiritual support that differs from messages most frequently delivered in churches. More than anything, they need to hear how a radical Jesus tried to change the status quo by showing the love of God to those the world was rejecting.

This is the picture of Jesus that people with mental health issues most need to see and hear. Knowing such a Jesus is their unique spiritual need. And this is the kind of need that Christians who want to be supportive need to address. When that understanding of the love of Jesus is taught—and shown as well by fellow Christians—healing will occur. This is what Jesus meant when he called us to follow him.

And yet, such an understanding of Jesus can be hard to fathom by those who are emotionally healthy—those who don’t face rejection in the way people with mental health issues do. This picture of Jesus who was accepting, kind, and showed the love of God to the outcasts is best shared by those who, like us, are rejected by the world today.

This shows the importance of groups designed specifically for the support of people with mental health challenges. Nothing can compare to individuals sharing the pain they all understand and expressing the kind of need for Jesus they all long for.

Faith based groups are vitally important. There are few other places where individuals with mental illness can gather to talk about both: their emotional struggles and their trust in God. Those who don’t have lived experience can’t hope to empathize in the way peers can.

Peer support focuses on health and recovery rather than illness and disability.

marja