Many of us will face some kind of mental health struggle at some point in our lives. As the world gets ever more chaotic and overwhelming, the question of how the Church deals with these struggles becomes increasingly pressing.

The statistics are certainly worrying. One in four people in the UK will experience a diagnosable mental health problem each year and one in five school-aged children has a mental health difficulty. Among Christians, a 2021 study undertaken by the Christian mental health charity Kintsugi Hope, found that the rate of regular churchgoers reporting mental health issues was higher than the national average. The same study found that only 35% of those questioned felt their church community had been particularly supportive.

An added complication comes from mounting evidence that many people, especially young people, are becoming so saturated in the language of therapy spread largely by social media, that they end up inaccurately diagnosing themselves with serious mental disorders, inevitably making the problem worse.

Theology vs Psychology?

Amidst these challenges, it can be hard for Christians to know where to look for mental health support. If we were to place the approaches on a spectrum, we find at one end the belief that secular counselling and psychotherapy offer false promises of recovery based on worldviews that ignore God, the soul and our fallen humanity’s ultimate need for redemption. At the other end, pastoral approaches may be grounded in contemporary psychology but pay scant attention to the problem of sin and ignore the sufficiency of Scripture.

The good news is that, as we read in Ecclesiastes (1:9), “there is nothing new under the sun”. The current mental health crisis may be a recent development, but people have gone through suffering and hardship ever since the Fall. The Church may be facing societal challenges that can seem unfamiliar and disorienting, but it continues to be a God-given place of pastoral refuge and care that has withstood the test of time.

Learning to discern

By his common grace, the Lord in his kindness, has given us different ways of understanding and addressing struggles of the mind and the heart. Our view is that this includes much that is found in secular psychology. At the same time, we also know that God speaks to us through his word and ministers to our hearts and minds through the means of grace that he has given us, foremost amongst which is his Church.

So if, as the survey cited above indicates, far too many people feel they cannot find the help they need at church, how are Christians to respond to the mental health crisis unfolding around and among us?

First and foremost, we surely need discernment to notice and identify mental health challenges when we see them. All too often, there is confusion between physical, psychological and spiritual realms so we struggle to understand what we are dealing with. Thankfully, there is a wealth of information and training available to both ministers and congregations to help answer those questions.

Alongside equipping those within the church to respond to the mental health challenges amongst them, there is also much that can be done to educate churches on recognizing when more specialist outside help might be needed. Above all, it is important for church leaders to think through how to welcome those struggling with mental health issues in a way that directs them to the support they need, either from brothers and sisters in the church, the minister and elders, or external specialists.