Mental-health advocates enlist local clergy to dispel misconceptions

Local mental-health advocates have been using a new method to reach people in the community: the pulpit.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness - Franklin County and the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County are teaming up with faith leaders and clergy members to educate them so they can, in turn, educate church, synagogue, temple and mosque members.

"(Faith leaders) are often on the front lines of the community and where people reach out," said Kevin Dixon, vice-president for community and culture at ADAMH.

The board has been working with the faith community for more than 10 years, Dixon said, and it wants to support faith-based organizations and the work they do every day with the mental-health resources it can offer. ADAMH, for example, recently hosted a symposium on mental health, with a demonstration of acupuncture and other techniques for stress management given by health professionals.

Mental illness is far-reaching, and one in five adults will be diagnosed with a mental illness each year, according to the federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration.

As local agencies connect with clergy members, they are finding a stigma when it comes to mental illness, even in the church.

"That has been very harmful," said the Rev. Sarah Griffith Lund, vice president of advancement at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. "Mental health is a brain disorder; people who have mental-health challenges are no different than someone who has heart disease."

The image is changing, but there's still a long way to go, said Lund, who wrote "Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church." The book is about her family's struggles with mental illness.

The Washington Gladden Lecture Series will be hosting the Rev. Sarah Griffith Lund, author of "Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the
Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church," this weekend. The Gladden series, titled "Spirituality and Mental Illness: Does God Make Mistakes?," will be presented at 4 p.m. Sunday in the First Congregational Church sanctuary, 444 East Broad St., Downtown. It is free and open to the public.

Lund recommends that churches and other faith organizations have sermons on the topic to normalize mental-health issues, offer support groups for family members and those affected by mental illness and create mental-health ministries.

"Churches can be a place where we educate our community, our children on mental-health care," she said. "They can offer us hope."

Senior Pastor Tim Ahrens of First Congregational Church, Downtown, has been an advocate of mental-health awareness in the church. A pastor for 32 years, he gave a series of sermons about mental health this past fall and is providing the sermons to other faith leaders to use as a reference when they're trying to speak to their own members about the topic.

"To have a well-known pastor come out and say, 'This is something we need to look at,' it really begins to take away the stigma in church," Rachelle Martin, executive director of NAMI - Franklin County, said of Ahrens.

When Ahrens began talking about mental illness, others did, too. Members and non-members of the church began asking to get coffee with him or to sit and chat about their experiences.

That's exactly what Martin is hoping will happen when other faith leaders begin to talk about it.

Jeff Daniels, of the North Side, has been the caregiver of a family member with a mental illness. He said his faith is a big help in getting him through it.

"Very often when someone has a mental illness, they can be irrational and very difficult to deal with," he said. "Through your faith you learn to be calm yourself and rational and loving."

All religious communities have to be a safe place for people to express concerns, said Rabbi Rick Kellner of Congregation Beth Tikvah in Worthington.

Kellner's congregation prays for those who are suffering to be healed and renewed during services each week.

"We have to create these holy spaces to explore and connect ... so people know they can come find healing and wholeness," he said.

​At Cathedral of the Covenant Church on the East Side, Bishop Harry E. Bellinger offers members mental-health counselors onsite.

"The church is made of the city and community and our environment, so people come there ... They need help; they come for food, clothing because they've been abused, torn down or mistreated, and they don't feel comfortable going (somewhere else)," he said. "People feel safer in church."