This document discusses ministering to those with mental illness. It notes that 1 in 5 Americans experience a mental disorder each year. The mentally ill often feel detached from their faith community due to lack of support. The church should welcome the mentally ill, support their families, enhance caregiver skills, and recognize that mental illness is a disease. The document provides facts about mental illness prevalence and care ministry challenges. It offers scriptural help and notes that Christians can experience depression too. The overall message is that the church should support and include the mentally ill.

1. MINISTERING TO
THE MENTALLY ILL
Everyone has a Divine Purpose to Fulfill
NJITS – Chaplain Mark H. Stevens

2. ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS…
• The magnitude of mental illness in this country is staggering.
According to the Surgeon General, one in every five Americans
experiences a mental disorder in any given year and half of all
Americans have such disorders at some time in their lives. These
illnesses of the brain affect all of us, regardless of age, gender,
economic status or ethnicity. Nearly every person sitting in the
pews has been touched in some way by mental illness. And yet
individuals and families continue to suffer in silence or stop coming
to their faith community because they are not receiving the support
they so desperately need. They become detached from their faith
community and their spirituality, which is an important source of
healing, wholeness and hope in times of personal darkness. THERE IS
HOPE!

3. WHAT THE CHURCH MUST
REMEMBER
• We MUST remember these things about the mentally Ill:
• Welcome the chronically mentally ill into the life of the local
congregation. God CAN use the mentally ill, everyone has a
divine purpose!
• Support the families of the chronically mentally ill in ways
that alleviate their heavy burdens of care. Often they are
treated with equal distain.
• Enhance the skills of congregational caregivers in their
ministry to the chronically mentally ill.
• Mental Illness is as much a disease as a physical illness;
mental illness can be genetic, from emotional trauma, or
from a traumatic injury.

4. THE MENTALLY ILL ARE NOT LESS
THAN US!
• We believe that all members of the human race, the
chronically mentally ill are not less than others, We
believe that all people, including the chronically
mentally ill, welcome them into the community of faith
We recognize that the local congregation is a
community of God's people, one of whose hallmarks is
mutual care and support.

5. FACTS ABOUT MENTAL
ILLNESS
Numbers
• Mental illness (brain disorders) strikes one in five families in the United States,
according to estimates of the National Institutes of Mental Health. This
estimate will tell you the probable number of mental illness cases in your
church.
• Care Ministry
• Ministry to the mentally ill is generally less intentional and consistent than
care for physical illness.
• Communication
• It is not easy to read the thought world of the mentally ill when loose thought
association moves the speaker from one subject to another without logical
connection.
• Delusions, inner voices, deep withdrawal can make conversation and
relationships all but impossible.
• Conventional spiritual care is on occasion distorted and disconnected from
its Gospel content by the mentally ill person.

6. CONSEQUENCE
OF NEGLECT
• Communication is broken off; ministry and
relationship, while desired, appear beyond reach.
• In the absence of the new knowledge of mental
illness as brain disease, older theories: the family's
emotional climate, parental relationships, or
inheritance persist.
• The mentally ill are identified by their disease - he is
a schizophrenic; she is manic-depressive--in the
minds of congregation members. People do not
recognize their talents, accomplishments, or the
family name.

7. MY STRUGGLE
• Inspiration
• Having been in the depths of depression, I know that a mental
illness strikes at the very core of our being.
• Mental illness is like a thief in the night. It can steal our sense of self
worth and our hopes and dreams for the future. Sometimes we
feel alienated from God. We often feel alone, helpless and
hopeless in the dark night of despair of our illness.
• The most important gift that our faith communities can provide is
the gift of hope. Our communities of faith can be a container of
hope to remind us that we are loved as a child of God...just as we
are.
• It is my hope and prayer that this Inspiration section might bring you
some comfort and hope for recovery and wholeness of mind, body
and spirit.

8. SCRIPTURAL HELP
• "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange
thing happened unto you:"
(1PETER 4:12 KING JAMES VERSION)
• "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ;"
(2 CORINTHIANS 10:3-5 KJV)
• "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all
your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
(1 PETER 5:6-8 NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION)
• "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that
ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having
your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod
with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God;"
(EPHESIANS 6:10-17 KJV)

9. YES CHRISTIANS GET
DEPRESSED
• "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope
thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my
God."
(PSALM 42:11 KJV)
• "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in
despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;"
(2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-9 KJV)
• "These thing I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye
shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
(JOHN 16:33 KJV)
• "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth."
(3 JOHN 1:2 KJV)
• "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind."
(2 TIMOTHY 1:7 KJV)
• "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the
power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
(LUKE 1O:19 KJV)

10. CONCLUSION – ANYONE CAN
BE DEPRESSED!
• David – Psalm 13
• Elijah after calling down fire from heaven
• Jeremiah after being left in a “septic tank” to die!
• Judas after betraying Jesus
• Jesus in the Garden and on the cross
• Paul in the jail cell
• Jesus after John the Baptist died