michaelajoann

[michaelajoann]

Mental Health and the Church

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It exists to educate about the importance of mental health and to reduce the stigma of struggling with mental health. It's a public health issue and like any public health issue, there isn't a simple solution.

As a Christian who also lives with mental illness, I struggled a lot because of the stigma against mental illnesses, psychiatric medications, and "secular" psychology. I struggled with shame because "Jesus is the answer." I don't disagree, but the issue is that it's framed in a more reductionist way.

"Just have more faith." "Don't let the devil take root in your life." "You just need to [pray, read your Bible, fast] more." "God says 'Do not worry.'" These are only a few phrases I've heard and I'm sure others have heard worse.

These phrases are not encouraging for someone struggling with their mental health. It's mostly shaming the individual for reaching out [in faith!] to someone to fight the isolation that can exist alongside mental illnesses. Spiritual disciplines like reading Scripture, prayer, and worship can be very difficult to engage in. Our prayers consist of tears, groans, and sighs, but Holy Spirit knows our hearts and the weariness that weighs upon it.

Churches' Attitudes Toward Mental Health

Churches approach mental health differently. My impression is that churches that are more "progressive" are more accepting of those struggling with their mental health. They seem to acknowledge that mental health treatment is individual and should be holistic. Mental health is health.

Conservative Christians tend to approach mental illness as just a spiritual issue, as if the mind and the body don't coexist with the spirit. A mental illness is treated as a spiritual deficiency rather than being a result of many biological, psychological, and social factors. There is more resistance to psychological counseling and medication.

Spiritual Malpractice

Seminaries may have counseling classes as part of their requirements for a ministry degree. There are problems when it is not made clear that they can only speak from a theological perspective. They are not professional counselors and are not licensed to be one. Someone can become a pastoral psychotherapist, but they have to be credentialed and licensed. Most ministers may be ordained, but that does not qualify them to provide mental health treatment. Also, fewer prospective ministers are attending seminary, so they don't have the background to provide ethical counsel aside from "life experience."

There are also "biblical counselors" who just have to say they want to be one and have general knowledge of the Bible. They are not trained in a formal program nor are they certified or licensed. They do not have a code of ethics to abide by. Unlike Christian professional counselors, they are not bound by HIPAA, so what is said and recorded in sessions is not guaranteed to be confidential. The goal is to get to the "sin" causing the issues the counselee is experiencing and telling that person to repent of their sin. They are explicitly against recommending medication or professional counseling.

The thing I want to stress here is that pastors and lay leaders need to know that it's not their place to interpret what is going on in a person's life. It's not their place to say that medication is not necessary. It's not their place to say secular evidence-based counseling practices won't help a struggling individual. It's not their place to judge an individual for using these treatment modalities.

The Role of the Ministry Leader

Ways to support someone struggling is to pray for them and listen to what needs they have. Attending to practical needs is doing the work of Christ. Maybe they need dinner delivered to them during a depressive episode. Maybe it's providing transportation to their therapist or medical appointment. It's also possible pick up a prescription on someone's behalf. Maybe it's just being there without judgement.

It is important to be aware of the resources available. This may mean having a list of licensed mental health professional for referrals. It would also be important to note whether a sliding fee scale is provided. There are more resources that ministers should be aware of since they are a member of the community.

Churches need to discuss the complexities of mental wellness. It is not just developing and maintaining spiritual habits. Ministers can speak on being with one another through suffering. Anything outside of their field of expertise should be left to professionals, which could mean hosting a workshop on mental health awareness and acceptance. There is no way to know everything, but one can know enough to point someone in the right direction.

[michaelajoann]

This Thing Called Grief

Everyone is familiar with the 5 Stages of Grief:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

These stages are not linear and they reveal a common theme- this is not how things should be. We feel this within our being, but sometimes we want to move straight to accepting and moving on. It is easy to rush a process that might not be a process at all.

There is no ending to grief, at least not here on Earth. We learn to carry it as we live our lives. There are days when the grief feels light and there are times when it will be unbearable as if the loss just occurred. There are times when death doesn't feel real because it shouldn't be real.

As a Christian, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and I believe that same power will resurrect the dead. The Christian hope is the resurrection of the body and eternal life in the renewed creation. Dying and going to Heaven isn't the ultimate hope. I have to admit it's comforting to know that I will be with Jesus in paradise like he told one of the criminals beside Jesus when He was crucified. The bigger reality however is the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. All creation will be made new.

There is comfort in the midst of grief, but it doesn't deny:

The death of a loved one

A devastating medical diagnosis

The trauma of abuse

The loss of faith.

There are no words to describe the loss that all you can do is sigh.

"This isn't how it should be."

[michaelajoann]

It’s Time for a Reckoning: an Open Letter to my Pastors and Church Family

Wednesday’s insurrection was years in the making. We saw the fruit of people being discipled by cable news instead of the Bible. While there are many great people who profess to be Christians, the displays at the Capitol are our spiritual rot visible for everyone in this world to see. This piece is aimed at Christians because this has long-term implications for the Church.

The display of signs saying ‘Jesus Saves’ in the midst of nooses and bloodshed is blasphemous. To those who proclaim the name of Jesus and say that this was a good thing: A rebellious (or seditious) spirit is that of Satan, not of Jesus Christ. I am telling you now because you need to repent to make Christ a priority again. See how encouraging these things on social media and elsewhere does not reflect the character of Jesus. See how you’re giving someone one more reason not to listen to you when you talk about Christ.

We also need to talk about the fact that so many Christians are deflecting from the issue. “What about the BLM protests?” “What about Antifa?” “What about…” Do you want to know what you’re doing? You are absolving yourself of being complicit in this. If you make any excuses for Trump, you are no different than making excuses for a domestic abuser even though you know he’s been beating his wife. 

Pastors, I am disappointed and angry. I acknowledge that addressing terrorism done in Jesus’ name is hard, but it’s time to step up and stop tickling ears. It is not hard to say what happened Wednesday was evil on display and does not represent who we ought to be with Christ within us. A love of anything above God is idolatry, and Christian Nationalism does not reflect Christ. Few brave pastors came out to condemn these acts of violence as an attempt to undermine democracy, but to also undermine the witness of the Church. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, you needed to speak the Gospel into this. Ignorance is not the Gospel.

Also, please stop talking about just getting along with another in hopes that it will create unity. It won’t. If people want a cheap country-club Christianity, they can go elsewhere. If you are committed to the Gospel like I hope you are, you will talk about the hard stuff. You can’t have unity without confession, lament, and repentance. 

Lament is an act of worship just as singing praises is an example of worship. It took me being abused by a pastor to begin to understand lament. He didn’t just sin against me, he sinned against the Body. I had to deal with the grief of his sin on our church alone. There are others who were hurt by him and because we didn’t deal with this corporately, there’s a good chance that the people he abused will end up abusing themselves due to unresolved trauma. We chose to move on instead of grieve and we are missing out on the chance for God to do His redemptive work on this body.

We have to fight against cheap grace. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, we have to fight against:

Preaching forgiveness without repentance,

Baptism without church discipline,

Communion without confession,

And absolution without personal confession.

If we don’t preach about a costly grace, we are feeding the flock a “grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, and grace about Jesus Christ.” Right now, I am seeing the harvest of cheap grace in America- people having the benefits of “being a Christian” no contrition required. 

Maybe if people were taught to rightly divide the Word of God, there wouldn’t be so many Christians falling for conspiracy theories and joining QAnon. This is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed, but is beyond the scope of this piece.

Where do I stand in all of this? I’m struggling. I’m at a point where I never want to step foot in a church again. I get up on Sunday morning and walk through those sanctuary doors to use my gifts to edify the body. I am struggling to find sanctuary because I can’t wrestle with issues without empty platitudes. Just when I start to feel safe, I’m reminded that it’s not.

I was cyberbullied by a church member and he blocked me on social media after he called me a liar. How do I deal with that? His need to be right is more important than trying to make amends. He made that choice and I just have to learn to take communion without guilt I guess. He is not the only person who feels his need to be right is more important than listening to other point of view. This is being passed on to the next generation.

There are studies saying going to church can be good for your mental health, but it’s destroying mine. I’ve endured Trumpism Christian Nationalism for years. I tried to believe that those I’ve seen at church are people who actually love Christ. There are a few people I can say for certain, the rest I don’t know. It’s hard to say when they believe their side is the right side, when they truly don’t understand racism or just use simplistic platitudes to avoid the issue, when they minimize instances of sexual assault and abuse, when they don’t even show compassion to the families of the hundreds of thousands who died from COVID. I feel like I’m the only one who believes that the integrity of the Gospel is more important than politics. If your theology doesn’t inform your politics, it won’t align with the Gospel.

I’ve read hundreds of stories of people leaving their church and Christianity for good. The sad thing is I understand why. It’s not just not being able to reconcile the teachings of Christ with a specific political party. It’s the disconnect of who we are and who we ought to be. There’s a reason why we ought to be slow to speak, quick to listen, and slow to become angry. We are missing the chance to hear how people view us as Christians and there could be some truth to it. We ought to examine ourselves to see if the way we interact with others in real life and on social media is congruent to the spirit within us.

I believe in revival and resurrection, but it also means I have to believe in death. We wouldn’t have the resurrection of Jesus Christ unless he was crucified, dead, and buried. Resurrection is the only reason I stuck around this mess I call the Church. I’m hopeful because of a community of believers on Twitter, I see the freedom from the idolatry of Christian Nationalism. I want to see every single member of my church experience the true freedom that is from Jesus Christ. In 2020, there was a lot of talk about God doing a new thing. Maybe that new thing is rebuilding His Church, but we needed to experience a reckoning to tear the veil from our eyes. 

These past few years, I had to learn to die to my false self to understand my value as a child of God. That meant confronting the person I was. The person I was before the election was evil. I was willing to sacrifice my relationship with my sister to gain a few followers on Conservative Twitter. I believed that I was the arbiter of truth since I was a conservative. I didn’t care about berating people on Facebook and Twitter. I actually made ageist and ableist remarks just so I could belong. If it wasn’t for the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, I would have been on those Capitol steps charging at those police officers. Even though I changed, there are times when I experience sorrow knowing that I might have led people away from Christ. For that, I am sorry.

[michaelajoann]

Advent in the time of COVID

Today marks the first day of Advent. We are also in the middle of a pandemic and everything is pretty much canceled. A pastor friend of mine said it perfectly, “This Advent is going to be the most Adventy Advent ever.” That is true. In the midst of death and all the chaos, there is one thing we can hold onto- God is with us. 

I’ve talked about the true meaning of Christmas being beyond the trees, presents, and twinkling lights. Advent is something different. It cannot be secularized, but it is a time when we experience the longing for the hope that lies in Christ. Those in Old Testament times were waiting for the first coming of the Messiah. The saints before us have been waiting for Christ’s return. 

In a quote from a letter to his parents, Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about the painting Holy Night by Albrecht Altdorfer saying, 

“Remember the Altdorfer Christmas scene, in which the Holy Family is depicted with the manger amidst the ruins of a broken down house—how could he, four hundred years ago, against all traditions of his time, show the scene like that? It is really contemporary. We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us…I think of you as you now sit together with the children and with all of the Advent decorations—as in earlier years you did with us. We must do all this, even more intensively because we do not know how much longer we have.”

Many families will be struggling this year because of loss. I imagine those who lost loved ones from COVID feel robbed because they wonder if their loved one(s) would be here for the Christmas season if they didn’t catch the virus. Even though they long to be near to others as they grieve, they can’t. When they buried their loved one, they couldn’t. They were robbed of that closure. There isn’t a “normal” for them. We should mourn with them.

This is why I love Advent. It invites the grief and the longings of this world as well as the hope and the joy that lies in Christ. Advent tells death, hate, grief, racism, and all the other ills of the world that their time is limited. Many of us are longing for a vaccine to get back to normal, which is not a bad thing, but we should hope for something bigger.

[michaelajoann]

Chicken fajita bowl with riced cauliflower. Sorry it’s not super appetizing because the sour cream melted. #dinner #notaprofessionalfoodstylist #lowcarb #maybe (at Boise, Idaho)

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The ICD-10 code for underdose of caffeine y’all. #coffee @pheocoffee #medicalnerd (at Idaho City, Idaho)

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Tetelestai. #itisfinished (at Idaho City, Idaho)

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Merry Christmas from Pippi the Cookie Monster! 🎁 🎄

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What I did today. #itschristmastime

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Good morning!

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I swear when I grabbed this cup I didn’t know it was Monday. Finals are done and I can enjoy my long break. #coffee #everytimeIspellcoffeeIsingthesong (at Boise, Idaho)

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Happy Sunday. Got the tree up and spending time with the fam. (at Idaho City, Idaho)

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Don’t worry she’s alive. (at Vistas, Boise, Idaho)

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My joints started to hurt during church. Now I know why. (at Idaho City, Idaho)