Marja Bergen

author, mental health advocate, follower of Christ

Category: Mental illness and the church (page 9 of 10)

Feeling alienated – social phobia

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  152  (April 18, 2008) Often I feel like an alien in the world, and even at church. As a teen I had social phobia, and it crops up again every now and then. In searching the internet I found that often social phobia is linked with mood disorders. Research published by Cambridge […]

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Message to church leaders (april 2008)

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  146   (April 4, 2008) Message for church leaders, people with mood disorders and supporters: You can give faith-based support to people with mood disorders. The first Living Room support group, with its home at Brentwood Park Alliance Church in Burnaby, BC, is now nineteen months old. This outreach ministry, in partnership with […]

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Mom dying and living room on TV

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  130  (January 27, 2008) I want to thank all of you who have been thinking about us and praying for us and for my mother-in-law. Life is complex for me right now, and yet I feel God’s presence in a very clear way. We’ve spent the past few days at home, traveling […]

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TV interview coming

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  105  (October 18, 2007) I’m excited, but a bit worried too, about an upcoming interview I’m doing with the national Christian TV show, 100 Huntley Street. They approached me a while back about discussing my life and my ministry with them. The reporter found me through the articles I had published on […]

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Helping a church become supportive

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES   100  (September 15, 2007) In their comments a couple of blogging pals say how they wish they could find a place of worship like mine. I’m hoping that this post will help you understand that this support has only grown gradually, over time. I had to educate members of the congregation and […]

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Faith-based support the best

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  97  (September 5, 2007) I’ve been meaning for a while to draw from Harold Koenig’s book, Faith and Mental Health, and share with you some of the treasures of thinking and understanding I have found there. Koenig tells of nearly 500 studies during the twentieth century that reported statistically significant associations between […]

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“What I wish my pastor knew about bipolar”

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  80  (July 10, 2007) Yesterday someone googled the above and found my blog. I thought I would write on this to see if I can help by letting this person know roughly what I told my pastor when I first started coming to the church I’m now a happy member of. My […]

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God is at work – big time

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  76  (June 20, 2007) I’ll be going to Bible study in a little while and I know that one question our facilitator told us she will be asking us to answer is, “How is your soul?” I would have to answer that it’s rather dizzy right now, though it is improving. I’m […]

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Writing for the media

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  74   (June 13, 2007) Yesterday I wrote a little piece for BC Christian News about the mental health service our church had several weeks ago. I also included something about Living Room. Another little effort to hopefully make a bit of difference. If other churches were to read it, I’m hoping […]

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Record attendance – need for more groups

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  69  (May 11, 2007) Living Room met today and the afternoon had a party atmosphere. So many of us were there. We had set up four tables joined to each other to make one huge table that will seat 18 people. My co-facilitator thought that perhaps I was overdoing it – and […]

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