Providence Presbyterian Church - Powdersville SC

The Office of National Health Ministries seeks to enable and empower individual Presbyterians, congregations, presbyteries and synods to understand serious mental illness and to be in ministry with persons and their families affected by this illness. We support these communities by creating educational resources, the providing of training programs and consultants.

Serious mental illness is the term used for a group of disorders causing a severe disturbance in thinking, feeling and/or relating. The results are a substantially diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life. Today in this country, approximately one in four people in all age groups are touched by mental illness.

Why Mental Illness Awareness?
More than 35 million people suffer from some form of mental illness in the United States. Nationally, it is estimated that one in twenty youth, or as many as three million young people, may have an emotional disorder. At least one in four families cope with the challenges brought on by a family member experiencing mental illness.

Effective treatments are available for the most
serious mental illnesses – whether it’s an anxiety disorder, bipolar, depression or schizophrenia. More hospital beds are occupied by people with serious mental illness than by persons with cancer, lung disease and heart disease combined. Two-thirds of children with mental health needs are not getting the help they need.

Two decades of studies have consistently shown that approximately 40% of persons seeking professional help with mental disorders turn first to the church. We are
called to seek justice, offer compassion and hospitality and engage in reconciling ministry with persons with mental illnesses as well as others in need.

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.

We are called to be a people of compassion and show that with any illness – treatment, proper medication and facilities there is hope.

I saw this kind of passion while Lewis and I were in Washington at the Mental Health America National Convention and know that our advocacy is respected and heard – heard by the people who pass the rules and regulations for how government treats people diagnoses with the many varied mental illnesses. However, churches are called to be the leaders in knowing and being aware of
the disease and its devastating affects, if left untreated. As Presbyterians, we are called as a people of God to reach out to all people who are hurting, ill and suffering. The stigma that surrounds this disease, unlike any other, is horrible. We are to minister to all people, and with the statistics in this country and our own community, we cannot do less but strive to bring awareness and wipe away the stigma that this disease is no different than a disease of any other organ in the human body. There is hope and we must come together as a congregation and end the pain in the pews.
We are called to minister to our creation, church and community.

Alysen and Becky