The Rev. Jessica Stokes, NC Council of Churches
The Rev. Jessica Stokes is the Associate Director of Partners in Health and Wholeness, a program of the North Carolina Council of Churches. She leads the statewide mental health advocacy efforts.
Peace to you, wherever this finds you. I am grateful to share this space with you. My ministry is focused on mental health advocacy alongside faith communities and destigmatizing mental health. What better time than now to think about this with me?
As people of faith, we know how important community is, and how important life together is (even virtually). Faith communities have the ability to be agents of compassion, healing, hope, and peace for those that are hurting, living with mental health concerns, and more. This is needed and sacred work that God joins us in. We can begin conversations of compassion, while fostering shared-vulnerability in a culture of mutuality and support.
I pray that we can see this time as an opportunity, and not just a challenge. Faith communities have numerous intersections of mental health in ministry: conversations, sermons, monumental events, curriculum, pastoral care, grief support, and more. I am grateful to be included in the work that health ministries are doing across North Carolina. My heart is also grateful that these topics are becoming more accessible and utilized as our society acknowledges the need for mental health care.
With the focus on mental health becoming widespread, there are trainings and workshops to learn from. A few include: Mental Health First Aid, Emotional CPR, Interfaith Network on Mental Illness' resources, and Injury Free NC’s trainings. Many organizations such as Partners in Health and Wholeness and NC NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) offer webinars. I recently attended the two-day “Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Academy” offered by Injury Free NC. We learned about specific suicide prevention approaches such as safety planning, self-care, and post-vention. I am even more convicted that faith communities are especially situated to join this work and offer hope that will save lives.
There are intentional seasons in which a faith community can connect these topics and trainings to the larger congregation. Times to highlight these efforts include September being Suicide Prevention Month, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health Week in October, August 31 is Overdose Awareness Day, and more. Some faith communities will host an event during Advent or the winter holidays to support those hurting in those seasons.
It is crucial that faith communities consider the impact of our emotional and mental health. A topic that is getting more acknowledgment lately is trauma. Many of us are aware of how insidious trauma is- the way it shows up in relationships, marriages, families, congregations, or more. We see national headlines and current events spark worry and divisiveness in our own community. Trauma has a long-reaching impact. Despite how long ago we experienced it, trauma can show up in the ways we relate with each other, and also how we relate to God. Trauma impacts the very way we see the world, and how we receive love. Learning about trauma and mental health concerns helps us have compassion for others' various stories and experiences. By having these conversations and doing this hard work, we can better understand and productively approach community trauma, which includes racism, historical trauma, institutional harm, and more. I developed an introduction to this topic titled “Becoming a Trauma-Informed Faith Community Tool-kit” which offers ideas of how a faith community can respond.
Working on mental health topics as a faith community is ultimately a ministry of truth-telling and creating space for all to share.
When we are vulnerable and allow others to be vulnerable, this sacred act allows us to ask and receive support, which invites healing and hope into our lives. These acts of love take form in all types of action, from establishing trauma-informed ministry practices, to eliminating stigma, normalizing professional therapy, promoting self-care, and more.
Another effective way for a faith community to begin this work is by eliminating stigma around mental health. This is marathon work because it involves as much self-work as it does communal work. It is a colossal pivot away from the harmful messages, intrinsic and overt, that we have picked up in our journeys. Messages such as “what is normal”, what a family and career “should” look like, the “proper” order of life events, the hustle mentality that burns us out, and countless more. This work is dismantling toxic messages to instead choose: compassion, love for self and others, understanding, patience, and wholeness. Eliminating stigma in our communities is work that is sustained by our own self-work.
When we do the hard work of learning the deep biases that we all hold, we become more whole and resilient and we are able to love others and ultimately ourselves better. Faith Communities can become more whole and healed. A faith community has the radical opportunity to be completely different from a world full of oppression and “othering”. We have the opportunity to connect wholeness and healing to the generational impact of mental health concerns, including trauma, grief, loneliness, and more.
In this marathon, when we persevere, we are able to become healed, known, and know others more genuinely. We find a peace that authentic community offers. We also are that much more connected to God, because God is always with the person experiencing stigma.
The Reverend Jessica Stokes may be reached at Jessica@ncchurches.org
