Mental Health and the Church: A Book for Pastors and Other Church Leaders

By Bishop Terry Haynes

The mental health of individuals regardless of denominational association or spiritual belief is essential to overall spiritual, physical, and mental wellness. Pastors are challenged to provide answers to difficult questions, offer guidance to manage life challenges, and the various concerns of their congregants. Although pastors give themselves to others to improve their wellness, attention to personal needs is often neglected. Compassion fatigue, depression, anxiety, and burnout are factors decreasing the mental wellness of pastors. Self-awareness, self-care, self-disclosure, and help-seeking behavior of pastors and church leaders are essential to decrease the severity and frequency of mental health episodes. Mental health and the church provide information for clergy and church leaders to improve their mental wellness and those they serve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885406932

Book preview

cover.jpg

Mental Health and the Church

A Book for Pastors and Other Church Leaders

Bishop Terry Haynes

Copyright © 2022 by Bishop Terry Haynes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Mental Illness or Demon Possessed

Historical and Current Views on Mental Health

Types and Characteristics of Mental Disorders

Pastors and Mental Health Professionals

Personalizing Mental Health: Self-Care

Pastor Parishioner Relationship

Introduction

As church leaders, they engage with people personally as their pastor, a unique relationship coupled with moments of joy and sadness. The highs and lows of ministry are displayed in real time for everyone to see. However, few can understand the emotions, the tears, the fears, the loneliness, and the pain associated with providing support for people and neglecting oneself. Pastors are holding the hands of the sick, praying for those in bereavement, offering counsel as needed, burying the dead, performing weddings, and always waiting for the next call regardless of the time of day, of people seeking answers in the time of crisis. Exemplifying the epidemy of strength, bending but daring not to break or appear weak in the presence of others, is the battle cry of pastors. The silence, the words not spoken, the pain never shared, the disappointments, and the sense of failing God, family, and self are associated with depression, anxiety, fatigue, and burnout.

Before becoming a pastor, encouragement to attend the seminary to receive a formal education related to theology and the church was continuous. Seemingly, seminary training would be the fix needed to address the various challenges associated with leading the Christian church and providing answers for people in trouble. Thirty-five years later, it is realized that graduating with honors, studying the Greek and Hebrew languages, and studying the books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is not enough to address all the needs and expectations of church members. Seminaries providing mental health courses for clergy are the minority offering theological education as the main course of study. Mental health training for pastors increases self-awareness, improves willingness to self-disclose a mental illness, and improves help-seeking behavior (Ross and Stanford 2014). Future pastors attending seminary receive a theological education but little training in mental health to improve awareness of mental health Bible institutions can provide more training in mental health (Carlin 2014).

The fatigue, the stress, the loneliness, and the anxieties associated with performing multiple tasks and caring for others are overwhelming and linked to depression and burnout of pastors. Prayer, fasting, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and casting out demons are traditions practiced in the Christian church and should remain; however, the opportunity to study mental health beyond seminary provides information related to types, characteristics, and signs and symptoms of mental illnesses improving self-awareness and self-disclosure. Caring for others within the church and community is a demanding and shared responsibility of the pastor, especially in the community. While caring for others, self-care and positive mental health are needed to successfully meet the challenges as a church leader and provide care for themselves. Self-awareness of mental illness among pastors can enhance their ability to recognize their vulnerability to different mental illness types and disorders. With increased mental health awareness and self-disclosure, pastors may understand the prevalence of mental health concerns among fellow pastors, mental health professionals, and congregants.

Mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders are common among individuals living in the United States and across the world. Although the prevalence of mental illness varies among demographic groups, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI 2020) asserts that 51.5 million people in the United States experienced some mental illness in 2019. The onset of COVID-19 increased the risk of individuals