Mental Illness And The Church
Author: Bob Kellemen
Category: Uncategorized
At the 2014 Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) annual conference, and at the 2015 Faith Biblical Counseling Training Conference, I presented on:
Mental Illness and the Church: Developing a Compassionate and Comprehensive Biblical Counseling Response
Here’s a summary of my presentation:
As the Body of Christ and as a biblical counseling movement, God calls us to respond compassionately and comprehensively to individuals (and their families) suffering with troubling emotions and thoughts. To minister Christ’s gospel of grace to people compassionately and comprehensively, we need to reflect biblically and historically (church history) on several interrelated questions.
· How do we cultivate a gospel-centered culture of grace in our churches as we respond to sufferers struggling with deep, ongoing emotional distress?
· How do we become redemptive communities engaging in gospel-centered relationships with people diagnosed with mental illness?
· How do we respond to a Christian world that has, perhaps, accepted a definition of mental illness that is not always comprehensively biblical or fully compassionate?
· How do we speak wisely about mental illness and the complex interaction of the brain/body/mind/heart/soul?
· How do we address root causes of struggles (heart) without being heard to say that we are ignoring the whole person or lacking empathy for social factors (nurture) and physiological issues (nature)?
You can access and download for free the entire manuscript of this Mental Illness and the Church clicking here:
Mental Illness and the Church
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Join the Conversation
How do we cultivate a gospel-centered culture of grace in our churches as we respond to sufferers struggling with deep, ongoing emotional distress?
How do we become redemptive communities engaging in gospel-centered relationships with people diagnosed with mental illness?
How do we respond to a Christian world that has, perhaps, accepted a definition of mental illness that is not always comprehensively biblical or fully compassionate?
How do we speak wisely about mental illness and the complex interaction of the brain/body/mind/heart/soul?
How do we address root causes of struggles (heart) without being heard to say that we are ignoring the whole person or lacking empathy for social factors (nurture) and physiological issues (nature)?
Posted on March 30, 2015