About 25 percent of the population will experience a diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives; six percent live with chronic mental illness. Most pastors and congregational care givers have little idea how to minister to people with mental illnesses.

Pathways to Promise has produced many excellent, free resources for churches available on their website including a survey to help church leaders identify mental health concerns and interests of their congregations, ideas for church leaders to work with neighboring congregations and community allies to build a network of caring congregations, and a step by step guide for congregations to share the journey of healing and recovery with individuals and their families facing serious mental illness, addictions, and trauma.

That step by step guide, Mental Health Ministry - A Toolkit for Congregations, outlines five parts to ministering well to people with mental illness in a congregation:

• Education: Building awareness, addressing stigma, and developing understanding
• Community: Building commitment and community as a caring congregation
• Hospitality: Welcoming those who suffer
• Service: Resources and models for serving those in need
• Advocacy: Toward individual healing and a more just system

The Toolkit provides so many practical ideas, that at first glance it could intimidate someone getting started with a mental health ministry. But like any toolkit, one need not use every tool at once, but instead it provides leaders with the tools they need for caring ministry when they need them.

The introduction to the Toolkit emphasizes the main point:

As faith communities, we have care for the soul. We pastor and counsel. We share one another’s burdens, and we share our stories of salvation, purpose, and meaning. In sacrament, rite, and ritual, we gather for worship and celebration, lifting up a life path that leads to fullness of health and well-being. We help each other become whole. Mental illness, brain illnesses, and mental disorders are forms of human suffering that often cast an individual and his or her family into exclusion and isolation. Our calling as faith communities is to open the doorways of inclusion, to become centers of healing and growth.

What a beautiful picture of the body of Christ!