What kind of church welcomes people with depression?

I was recently shocked to hear the news of another young man, a pastor, who had taken his own life, leaving behind a beautiful wife and three beautiful children. It’s heartbreaking to say the least.

This article could go in many different directions. But I am choosing the direction that seems most obvious to me. The world needs a church where the sick are welcome, and where even top leaders can be sick even in their assigned seasons of ministry.

Why? Why it happens.

The church system must be able to cope, especially since the church is a hospital for the sick.

What I am talking about here is not physical illness, but mental, emotional, and spiritual illnesses that have plagued many of us. I have had three major bouts of depression, panic attacks, and endured enough pain to understand and accept that suffering is endemic to life.

So why is there a perception that people with depression are not welcome in the church?

Why wouldn’t there be the right support and advice and training programs to help those who are sick? Well, sometimes there are resource limitations.

Part of the reason, perhaps, is that our modern world is so oriented around skillful and efficient operations, and pastoral leaders feel compelled to replicate that in the church.

This perfectionism that can never be satisfied has become part of the modern church culture.

Many young and not-so-young men and women in the church today are under tremendous pressure to serve well enough to please the people they serve, as well as the church boards they serve.

The church needs to be a place where we can be rewarded for our honesty regarding our weaknesses.

After all, it is a biblical idea that we receive strength from Christ when we admit our weakness. The problem is that we live in an age that has forgotten biblical tradition, and bought into the lie that the successful church must be competitive, and that successful ministry must be both effective and grounded in excellence. The church is run like a business, competing for its members, with its sales and marketing strategies, instead of simply rooting itself in living the gospel.

There are many reasons why churches may not embrace the concept of strength in weakness within their ministries. Many forces collide. Part of the problem is the intrusion of the prosperity doctrine, name it, claim it.

It seems to me that if we want to improve the acceptance of mental health issues like depression in our churches, we need to accept them across the board. What would Jesus want us to do? deny reality? No way!

I can’t think of a better way to do this than for one of the key pastors or leaders to be completely transparent about a current struggle. Oh, I know that used to be a no-no. As a pastor, you wouldn’t share anything unless you’ve gotten over it. But pastors also need to lead the way in vulnerability that shows humility.

Pastors need to show courage, ironically in their weakness by being vulnerable, to encourage others in their weakness.

That kind of example of weakness begins with the pastor!

But the churches don’t seem to like it when their pastors are weak.

This is because we have fallen for the lie that leaders are strong.

In many things in life, however, “overcoming” is fanciful, as if we could snap our fingers and overcome depression. Anyone who has ever been depressed knows that this is nonsense. We don’t have that kind of control over this black dog. And this is completely biblical. The Bible would take us to the psalms of lament, Ecclesiastes, the book of Job, the prophetic writings, and in the New Testament, Second Corinthians, and specifically, that thorn in Paul’s side, among many others. The idea of ​​suffering is central to the Bible. Moses, David, Jonah, Elijah, Jeremiah, the list goes on and on. Can the suffering servant Jesus of Isaiah 45-55 not understand our depression, especially in light of the cross?

Why do pastors need to project the image that they have it all under control? None of us do…

His heroes in the Bible did not.

There seems to be a development system for herders that doesn’t allow much room for them to have genuine and ongoing struggles. Like, that kind of weakness counts against them or discards them. However, this tradition forgets some of the best pastors who suffered, like Spurgeon. I know from a writing perspective that I am most deeply connected to God in the words I write when I am struggling. There is a deeper kind of ministry that we can tap into in our depression, as long as we are not overwhelmed by it, and as long as a deeper kind of ministry is allowed. Acceptance is a powerful economy.

Pastors with depression need to be hugged even more! Pastors who have suffered from depression are better equipped for ministry. And churches need to struggle more with how effectively they support people in the dark. Smoke machines, brewed coffee, and stealthy efficiency poke fun at church principles with their own book on suffering.

Churches are complex environments for those who work in them, whether paid or volunteer. Those who are paid always put in far more hours than they are paid for, and those who volunteer put in hundreds of hours a year for the love of the job.

It would be nice if it was satisfying work, but many times it’s not worth the conflict, or the constant failure to meet the high standards set by many churches, and I don’t mean standards of holiness, but standards of effectiveness. The work environment in churches can be more toxic than the comparative work environment in secular workplaces. The feeling of inadequacy, the conflicts that won’t go away, the pressure from leaders and members, the pressure to lead, and the spiritual warfare that is part of the environment all contribute to the chaos that hangs over a pastor or ministry leader and threatens to burn them out. in a spirit of despair.

Surely, we could understand that there are a plethora of precursors that predispose people in the church to depression and anxiety-related disorders.

I suggest that the kind of church that accepts and even embraces those with depression, especially those within the ranks of its pastors, is the church of Christ.

Surely it must sadden the Spirit of God that so many pastors, and whatever, are suffering alone, not to mention dying!

Here are some things the church provided that I found helped me when I suffered from depression in ministry:

1. Furthermore, I was accepted into the leadership, as the leadership understood that I needed the support of the fellowship. When we feel weak we need a lot of encouragement, and the best encouragement comes from those who are more mature in the faith. Leaders suffering from depression need to be surrounded by compassionate and wise leaders.
2. There was a culture that embraced both weakness and honesty. Both are necessary. We are only strong until we become weak, and it is only a matter of time. When we are weak we need to be honest, and the church must build a culture that demands honesty and provides security for all that is revealed.
3. There was a devotion to prayer, which is another way of saying that the healing ministry is God’s business; that those within the Church understood that clichés and advice had limited or even damaging effect.
4. As I shared my burden and my inability, I was still allowed to do what I felt I had to do, but other leaders took on the more onerous responsibilities. This often meant that they would delegate individual tasks to others, which was an opportunity to develop them. What I found most encouraging is that these other leaders would not make me feel guilty. They just understood. Churches need to foster a culture that exemplifies empathy and compassion.