What Is The Church Doing About Mental Health?
One of the greatest issues in the church today in America is the issue of mental health.
As much as we are seeing an amazing rise in physical healings and salvations, the question remains, “What is the church doing about mental trauma?” For many of us in charismatic and Pentecostal streams, we tend to put mental trauma and mental illness in the category of deliverance, telling people that if they have a mental disorder they have a demon. This is a lie that shames people and makes them feel hopeless. It makes them feel unworthy.
It seems that we in the church have decided we don’t want to have to deal with mental health issues because we don’t know what to do them. Perhaps we don’t know what to do because we have not asked God for the key to bringing healing to people’s souls—how they think, how they feel, how they choose, and their identity. We would rather tell people to read the Bible more, pray more, and come to church more, and just “get over it.” For years that is what some in the church have been telling folks who carry trauma. Let me be clear—you don’t get over trauma.
What happens instead is that people become ashamed because they are not living the kind of life that we project from the platform where everything is good, perfect, and whole. The reality is that God is bringing mental health issues to our doorstep because He has the answer for all mental illness. He has the answer for the rise in suicide that is taking place not only in the military community but also in the first responder and millennial community and in all of society. The enemy seeks to kill and destroy the plans God has for each person’s life. The good news is that God is giving the church the keys to bring healing to trauma of the mind. Our first response is to acknowledge and receive these keys.
In the same way that Peter and John could say to the man, “rise up and walk,” so we have the power and authority to bring healing, restoration, and complete recovery to those who are walking in mental trauma, but it means we have got to walk with them. Gone are the days when we would go down the prayer line and say, “be healed, be healed, be healed,” and people would fall over and that was it in terms of ministering to them. There is a supernatural power that brings healing to people, but after that healing we have got to walk with some of those people. There has to be a healing community within our churches that walks with people through the process of being restored in Jesus’ name. Walking with someone through the healing process is not a quick fix. Restoration can take time. Some experience instant restoration, but for most it is a process.
There is power in the name of Jesus and in community as we bring people in and walk with them through this process of healing in Jesus’ name. Bipolar disorder is not a hopeless disorder one can never be healed of. Schizophrenia is not something one can never be healed of. Alzheimer’s, dementia—these are not hopeless disorders. Depression, anxiety, and panic attacks are not hopeless. The reality is that we have become so focused on getting information into people’s minds that we ignore what needs to happen in their hearts. In the 1950s there were movies about aliens with giant heads and tiny hearts. That is a picture of what we are doing to people in the church. We are filling their heads with so much information about healing while neglecting to lead them to a revelation of God’s love that must fill our hearts so that complete healing can take place. No matter how much information you pour into someone, unless they have the revelation of God’s love in their heart, they won’t have a transformation. And unless they experience that transformation in community, there will likely not be complete healing because it is very hard to walk out this kind of transformation alone.
We are to live as authentic people created by God to be joyful, but He has also given us the capacity to feel sadness, anger, and loss. We are not to be a Vulcan, Spock-like people where bad and negative emotions are forbidden and everyone is happy, happy, happy. Let’s create a safe place for authenticity. Sometimes we just need Jesus with skin on to pray for us. When someone asks how you are, instead of saying “fine” when you’re not fine, it should be okay to say, “I’m struggling today. Would you pray for me? I’m struggling today. I need help. Can you bring the love of God to me?” I believe the greatest expression of shalom—of wholeness—is when we can be our authentic selves. The authentic self is not a perfect person who never has a bad day. The healthiest hearts are not found in those who have no problems, but those who have found their heart’s true home in God. What that means for you and for me is that we come to understand that Jesus cares as much about our soul and the health of our soul as He does about our spirit and our body.
We live in the greatest days of opportunity—opportunity to see the greatest harvest of souls the world has known. Most of the folks who are being gathered in are not coming from within our churches; they are coming from the streets. A number of years ago our government gave up the responsibility of caring for the mentally ill, cut funding for places where the mentally ill could go to be cared for, and basically put them on the street. That is our homeless population today—the mentally ill, veterans with PTSD, and people who deal with addiction. I believe God is looking at this sad situation and saying, “Where is My church?”
When you really become purposeful about bringing the power of Jesus into a community, you will experience persecution that can bring with it trauma. The question then becomes, “What are you going to do with that trauma?” We find the answer in the book of Acts, where we see that the disciples continued to walk in boldness and courage to advance the kingdom of God even as they took some hits. They were thrown into prison, persecuted, wounded, thrown out of cities, and stoned. Yet in the midst of dealing with that trauma, they knew where to go to receive healing and restoration—to Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the context of their larger community.
In Acts 4, right after they were taken before the religious leaders, persecuted, and told not to speak the name of Jesus, they begin to pray. They didn’t pray for God to take away their enemies. They prayed for courage, boldness, and the determination to continue to go in the name of Jesus to bring the good news to the rest of the world. Then they went forth from there and astounding signs, wonders, and miracles came to the hands of the apostles. That was their destiny and it is yours. To live out your destiny, you need to learn to live with a soul that is experiencing the shalom of God.
Living in Hope
How do we live in the shalom of God? I believe there are indicators that tell you whether or not you are living in the place of shalom. First, in shalom we live in hope—the hope of Jesus returning to restore all things. In the Jesus Movement that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a radical absence of hope. People got saved because they heard the message that Jesus could come back any second, so if they didn’t get saved right away they would be left in the hell called earth. That was the message. People were waiting for Jesus to come back any second and would do crazy things like rapture practice. I was in a meeting with an evangelistic group going to Israel. This is when credit cards just became available. We were told that if you wanted to go to Israel, just put the costs on your credit card and pray for the rapture to happen before the bill came due!
The problem that I see with the no-hope message is that I don’t believe God wants to do it that way. I don’t believe that He wants to take us from this earth so quickly that we leave without understanding that God didn’t save us just to go to heaven—He also saved us to bring heaven to earth. I once met a man who built duplexes. He had been so captured by the no-hope message of the Jesus Movement that he built buildings out of the cheapest material possible thinking of them as temporary housing. Guess what happened thirty years later? Those buildings fell apart. This man went to heaven eventually and his sons are dealing with buildings that are falling apart because they were built so badly. That is living without hope.
Believing the Impossible Is Possible
A second indicator that you are living in the shalom of God is that the impossible seems reasonable. When the impossible seems possible, God will do the impossible through you. It is possible to live in such a way that you see the miraculous happening every single day of your life because that is what the power of the Holy Spirit puts within us. The very same Spirit who raised Jesus from the grave lives within us. When you live believing that all things are possible in Jesus, you understand that you are predestined to live in the glory of the cross. You wake up every morning acknowledging to God that the impossible seems reasonable. This is part of what it means to live unbroken. The idea of living unbroken is not that you never have problems, but rather that you know the source of healing and restoration.
Romans 8:28-29 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” No matter what happens to us, He works all things together into the image of Jesus Christ. As ones who bear the image of Christ within us, who is our hope of glory, we are here to bring the hope of transformation to the rest of the world.
Father, in Jesus’ name we repent on behalf of the church right now. We repent for being so busy building our own buildings and doing our own thing that we haven’t see the brokenness in our community. We repent of self-centeredness and pride and our own comfort. Forgive us, Lord. Heal us so that we can be a healing conduit to this world. Sow in us Your seeds of hope and the knowledge that all things are possible with You. Lead us to the place of shalom, where, equipped with hope and the faith to believe all things are possible with You, we can go forth into the world as workers in Your great harvest field. In Jesus’ name, amen.
