May church be one of those places we feel like ourselves - 'Fooling around' in church (Dec 2022)

Good evening beautiful people,

Hope you had a lovely day. 

Before calling it a day, I would like to share my thoughts on the recommendations by the Episcopal Church's task force on individuals with mental illness.  

Image from Episcopal News Service

Interestingly, and similarly to young people, most clergy said that they lacked proper tools to name and deal with their own mental health related issues and did not have support systems/‘safe spaces’ to express and process what they were feeling. At the time, most of the articles I cited were on the fact that everyone was dealing with COVID and there was information on how members can take care of themselves, there was information on how clergy can take care of their members during the pandemic, but there was little to no information and support for clergy, yet more than half of their responsibility then was taking care of their members while they figured out how to make sure the church remained intact. There should, therefore, be deliberate steps on not just increasing knowledge to clergy so that they can better support members but also increasing the support clergy get for their own mental wellbeing.

In conclusion, I think the trainings are good, so are the handouts and curriculums for clergy, but there has to be intentionality to localize and reframe mental health conversations to fit the different contexts. Most importantly,  and maybe challenging, is how to make churches – not just the clergy or those with the training – go beyond being safe spaces but being warm enough to not only promote healing but also growth and impact for both members and clergy. 

From my mental health work in Africa, I remember that World Health Organization had an almost similar program called mhGAP (mental health gap). The program was intended for countries in Asia, Africa and Central/South America (or 'the South' as international development labels them) and aimed to help fill in the mental health service provision gap. 

Though it worked in some areas, it had a slow uptake and is not talked about that much in global mental health circles because of the assumption of one size fits all. If local churches want to explore these recommendations, I would say, instead of jumping on a training and distributing fliers, have a round table with church members. 

If well facilitated, there is something older members seeing their friends dying every other week, members of color dealing with microaggressions, LGBTQ members working on their sexuality and identity, and international members like myself dealing with social isolation and loneliness can learn from each other. This should then be the foundation the mental health first aid trainings, church members resource materials and additional capacity building for clergy should be pegged on.

May church be one of those places we feel like ourselves - 'Fooling around' in church (Dec 2022)

As a side note, I wish the task force’s name was more on the mental health and wellbeing side as opposed to individuals with mental illness. I have not dug into how it came about and nor have I read their full report. I will soon be doing some digging to learn more about the why behind the task force and its name.

Until the next update. 

Sending love and light,

Sitawa