Caring for our minds is a spiritual practice. Yet many of us neglect mental health care as part of giving our whole selves to God. This sermon series is designed as an introduction to thinking of mental health as part of our lives of faith. Each week explores a different way mental health struggles can present themselves and suggests truths our faith gives us to support ourselves and others.
You may want to give extra attention to introducing this series so that people can prepare themselves for encountering difficult topics during worship. An example of an introductory letter is here.
Week 1: Clouds in the Sky: Living with Chronic Mental Illness
Scripture: Psalm 139:1-13 + Luke 10:25-28
Mental illness is not a punishment. It is simply a breakdown in an incredibly, beautifully complex human brain. And God does not punish brokenness. God redeems it.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Research suggests that as many as half of us live with chronic and manageable mental illness, which means that almost all of us know and love someone who does. While chronic, low-level mental illness is easier to live with than severe, it has its own set of challenges. However, our faith gives us tools and truths to handle these challenges. The psalmist stands in awe of a God who knows us and loves from the inside out–which means God is in our thoughts, our minds, our perceptions. Therefore, caring for our mental health is not incidental to our faith. It is right there, in the great commandment: to care for our minds is part of loving God, and loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves. Caring for our mental health—so that our “all” is as strong as it can be—is a spiritual practice.
Week 2: When the Waves Roll In: Dealing with a Mental Health Crisis
Scripture: Isaiah 43:1-2 + Acts 16: 25-34
If you struggle with mental health crises, that does not count you out as a disciple of Christ. Even the wounded can wash others’ wounds. Maybe it is the wounded themselves that can be especially tender and courageous about it.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
Lots of people in our sacred scriptures wrestle with suicidal desperation: many of the poets of our Psalms, Job, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Paul, King Saul, and Judas, just to name a few. But one powerful moment in scripture describes a successful suicide intervention. Paul, who wrote about nothing in life or death separating us from the love of God, refuses to run from prison when he hears the jailor express a suicidal plan. Instead, he calls out “Don’t harm yourself; we’re all here.” How can we offer that same support and grace to those who are in a crisis? How can we have the courage of the jailor to reach out to others when we are in crisis?
*Note: The church has a long history of harmful theology around suicide. Please take a moment in your sermon to note that suicide is not sin, and that while it is not what God desires for us, neither does it make a person unredeemable. Be aware that it is highly likely that someone in your congregation is a survivor of a suicide attempt, or knows someone who has completed suicide. Amp your pastoral instincts up to 11 for this one, folks!
Week 3: The Unmoveable Mountain: When Mental Illness is Severe
Scripture: Psalm 42 + Luke 9:23-27
Faith cannot cure mental illness, because mental illness is not a sin that can be washed away by the blood of Jesus. But faith can carry the cross and bear the burden of mental illness. Faith can move us into knowing God’s presence in the midst of pain
Rev. Sarah Griffith Lund, Blessed Are the Crazy
When Christ invites us to take up our cross in the gospel of Luke, it is not an invitation to seek out new suffering but encouragement to keep moving forward even with the suffering that exists in our lives. The entirety of scripture witnesses to a God who is present with us in our suffering. Some of us live with the suffering caused by mental illness that is severe and chronic–mental illness that resists treatment, warp reality, and can strain and shatter relationships. Honoring the suffering and trauma of mental illness, rather than mocking or fearing it, is part of faithful Christian witness. So too, is creating communities equipped to welcome those with severe mental illness–places were all people are treated with dignity, held accountable to healthy behaviors, offered the security of stability and routine, and loved for the people God made them to be. The severely mentally ill often have much to teach us about carrying crosses, and belong in our congregations and ministries.
Week 4: The Foreign Landscape: Seeking to Understand Others
Scripture: Job 2:11-13 + Mark 5:1-20
Most of us will never do ministry in war-torn countries, or in starvation-ravaged communities, or with flocks of orphans—the kind of ministry that movies get made about. Instead, I truly believe that it is our ministry with mental health that will take us into the trenches. We will bring peace to war-torn minds. We will bring compassion to souls starving for it. We will be family to those whose demons make them orphans in this world.
Rev. Carol Holbrook Prickett
One of the most successful tactics mental illness has is drawing us into self-isolation, cutting us off from the very routines and resources we need most. But Scripture offers us multiple witnesses to the fact that, as Genesis 2:18 attests, it is not good for humans to be alone. One of the most powerful scenes in the Bible comes from the Book of Job, where Job suffers the compound trauma of the loss of his property/security, his children, his own health, and the fracturing of his marriage. His friends come to sit with him in silence, offering the ministry of presence. In the gospels, Jesus meets a man engaging in self-harm during a demonic possession. Jesus heals him, but, despite the man’s begging, does not allow the man to join Jesus’ nomadic travels, instead sending him back to his community and his friends. Even Jesus is aware that one person cannot be any other one person’s entire support system. Caring for others with mental illness is a challenging, heavy calling. We are strongest when we build networks of support, inside and outside of the church, so that we can truly “bear each others’ burdens.”
*Mark 6 is a story about a man our gospels say was living with an unclean spirit, later named as a legion of demons. His behavior—shouting, self-isolation, and self-harm—certainly reads to my modern ears like the symptoms of severe mental illness. Some folks with mental health struggles like the language of demons, as a metaphor for what happens inside them; others don’t. I don’t, because I don’t like equating mental illness with sin or evil. I chose this passage because I found its lessons instructive, but a note on the language of demons might be appropriate in your preaching.
Ministry Resources
And With All Your Mind Liturgy
And With All Your Mind Graphics
Suggested Reading and Resources
- Books
- Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness and Marriage by Sarah Griffith Lund
- Lifesaving Church, The: Faith Communities and Suicide Prevention by Rachael A. Keefe
- Christ on the Psych Ward by David Finnegan-Hosey
- Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church by Sarah Griffith Lund
The Dark Has Its Own Light by Sue Dowell - The Gift of Anger by Marcia Cannon
- The Genogram Journey by Monica McGoldrick
- Web Resources
- The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has incredible resources, both nationally and locally.
- Mental Health First Aid offers trainings on how to support people in a mental health crisis.
- The PC(USA) Mental Health Network offers resources from a faith-based perspective.
- Psychology Today keeps extensive lists of local therapists to help you find someone local to talk to.
- Sermons
Deep Well Worship 