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Mental illness in the life of the church

John Konrad and Roland Balzer

Highland Community Church in Abbotsford, B.C. is a 25-year-old congregation of 140 adults, youth and children. The church has a primary focus on members caring for each other, much of which happens in small groups which meet in homes. Sunday morning services include an opportunity for those present to share from their everyday lives. Highland’s size allows for most people to know each other by name. During the past six years, the church has found itself journeying with some members as they have struggled through serious mental illness. Roland Balzer, Highland’s pastoral elder for the past 12 years, and John Konrad, one of several members who have suffered mental illness, reflect on how this journey has gone.


Our self-perception

Roland: It seems to me that the way we see ourselves has helped us to walk with people through their mental illness. For many years, Highland has viewed itself as analogous to a “hospital”. All of us, leaders included, know ourselves to be wounded and needy, and we see each other as wounded and needy. We’ve been a place where people can come to find healing for their woundedness (disillusionment, marginalization, doubt) without facing great expectations to perform or to be useful until they are ready.

John: As a charter member of Highland, I have always valued the culture of a “hospital” church, even though, during my tenure as an elder, one of the most painful experiences was to witness the “discharge” of people when they moved on. It took me many years, and the helpful insight of friends in a similar church, to accept this as normal. In order for this kind of ministry to exist, a strong core of committed families is required, along with leadership vision to sustain that ministry.

Recognizing the disordered side of our lives

Roland: There are several ways in which we as a congregation have said to each other: “It’s okay to feel weak.” We invite each other to speak of the downside of life in our Sunday morning sharing times. We speak the Psalms together, allowing our laments to be voiced publicly. Our prayers sometimes give expression to the anger and discouragement that we feel. Sermons have emphasized that God works in and through all parts of our lives, especially those in which we feel very poor in spirit. Some of our small groups have studied mental illness using John Toews’s book No Longer Alone. When John Konrad was going through his depression, we invited one of the counsellors in our church to inform us about depression and answer questions that we had. That helped us deal with some of our uncertainties in relating to John.

John: The onset of “clinical depression with acute anxiety” (my diagnosis) in 1994 came as a considerable surprise – to me personally, as well as to my family, friends and colleagues. I can remember people saying, “If John can be afflicted with this illness, we are all vulnerable.” What helped me a lot was to realize that I was suffering an illness that I had not chosen, any more than someone would choose cancer, heart failure or a stroke. It was not something that reflected on me as a person. During my illness, I lost all sense of competency and all confidence that I would ever be able to resume normal life again. Yet, I was assured by God’s Spirit, working through God’s people, that I was unconditionally loved, and that God and they would be near to care for me, even though I was totally void of the feeling that this was so.

Accepting the untidy as part of our worship celebration

Roland: If we are going to welcome and include each other when we “don’t have it all together”, our time with each other needs to allow for “not having it all together”. We try to resist the temptation to put on a good show. We risk some untidiness in our worship time. It’s okay if everything doesn’t look slick and flawless.

John: Our culture has moved to a performance/spectator mentality, and the church has not been exempt from this. Prior to realizing that I was getting ill, I withdrew from participation in the worship team, as my energy and sense of contribution were waning. I was told that that was okay and that others would be found to take my place. This was a great comfort to me. I have been reassured many times by being reminded that when we worship, there is an audience of only ONE – God. That’s what makes it so important that in worship each of us can participate – singing, sharing, praying, joining in the reading of Scripture or a liturgy, or meditating in silence.

Promoting spiritual matter-of-factness

Roland: When people struggle with mental illness, they often question the strength of their faith and spirituality. We have tried to counter the tendency to equate mental health with spiritual health by creating a context which is “matter-of-fact” about spirituality. We avoid highlighting only peak spiritual experiences so that piety is not associated only with wonderful outcomes. God is associated with the difficult, unpleasant and unfulfilled aspects of life perhaps even more than with the successes and victories. We have encouraged our teachers to speak in an everyday tone of voice so that we are not being bombarded by “high impact spirituality”. Our priority value is authenticity, expressed in sharing from our daily lives and promoted by regular times of silence within our worship.

John: I’m not sure what I might have done if my spiritual leaders had come to me and told me I needed to pray more, and more fervently, during my illness, and that God would then answer my prayer and heal me. While in the grips of deep depression, with thoughts that suicide would be the only way to end the interminable pain, God seemed very far away, beyond my grasp. Instead, I was told that it was not surprising that I was unable to pray under these circumstances, and that others would do that for me. I was assured over and over again that God’s people were praying and that God heard the unspoken prayers of my heart.

Corporately supporting counselling ministry

Roland: Over the years, we have affirmed the value of professional care by including in our church’s mission the support of a community counselling centre in our city. That says, “It’s good to ask for help.” Recently, we offered a three-Sunday workshop on “Integrating Mental Health and Spiritual Health”. When appropriate, people feel free to let each other know that they are receiving counselling.

Nurturing a readiness to live interdependently

Roland: It’s easy for us to try to “do it on our own”, so we intentionally invite each other to consider our lives as “shared”. Small groups are places where we encourage the sharing of everyday concerns. One of the challenges of listening to each other is to avoid giving advice unless invited. A question such as “What would you like from us?” becomes an opening for members to support each other without being intrusive. We also encourage individuals to meet regularly with a spiritual director as part of finding God in all things.

John: While I was “going into the dark pit”, I was still able to verbalize some of my fears, questions and concerns. During that time, my wife Katherine, my family and my friends were available to listen to me. They didn’t have much advice, as this experience was new for all of us, but they were reassuring about their love and their commitment to my care, both by providing care themselves to the extent that they were able and by ensuring that I got the best spiritual and medical care possible. When I was no longer able to verbalize, they were still there, and their presence spoke volumes.

Offering each other support

Roland: We have been able to offer to persons struggling with depression our quiet presence. In some cases, we read Psalms when the sufferer finds reading difficult, and we pray our hope and trust in God when individual prayer is impossible. Lately, we’ve also been able to offer “healing prayer” to a person in depression. A small group of friends who have begun to explore this way of helping met with the person to simply be channels of God’s love. T. Norberg and R.D. Webber’s book Stretch Out Your Hand (Upper Room Books, 1998) has been a helpful resource.

John: During my illness, and since, I have come to see God incarnated in each of us as we give ourselves to each other. My close friends would come by and sometimes take me for coffee or lunch. When I was too ill to leave home, they would sit with me for a time. This presence of God, incarnated in other people, went with me when I was admitted to hospital, which I feared greatly.

After my illness in 1994, I returned to work, then retired from my career, started a management consulting service and expanded my volunteer work in the church and the community. I also experienced a relapse two years ago. Through all of this, the only thing I’m assured of is that if I should become ill again, God and my faith community will be with me.

Roland: In all of this, we are very aware of how much we are stumbling beginners, learning to walk with each other and with God.

Dispelling some myths about clinical depression John Konrad

One of the gifts given to me during my illness was information concerning the nature of clinical depression and the possibilities for recovery. This came to me as a result of research done by a close friend. While it provided some hope for me at the time, I have only fully appreciated the value of this information following my recovery. I have since shared it with many people who are suffering with clinical depression. The findings included the following: Clinical depression is the most common of all “mental illnesses”. It is also the most curable, based on currently available medical and psychological interventions. Alarmingly, notwithstanding its “curability”, clinical depression has the highest suicide rate resulting from any mental illness. The research indicates that the best chances for recovery are when three elements are present in combination: the appropriate use of psychotropic drugs; psychotherapy (talking intervention); a strong support system. Happily for me, each of these was present in abundance. I have begun to refer to a strong support system as the three f’s – family, friends and faith. If intervention has such a high chance of success, why is the suicide rate so high? Three factors are identified: People who suffer from clinical depression fail to go for help. Very often, family physicians fail to refer patients with clinical depression to a specialist (i.e., psychiatrist). Clinical depression requires the services of a specialist just like heart disease, renal failure or a stroke. When under medical care, people go off their medications prematurely (often against their doctor’s advice) when they begin to feel better or are troubled by uncomfortable side effects. The course of my illness has been fairly typical. The research indicates that if you’ve suffered clinical depression, the odds of a relapse are about 50%; if you’ve had one relapse, the odds of another relapse are about 90%. While none of us individually is imprisoned by statistics, they do suggest that attention to one’s health is critical, and that recurring symptoms need to be addressed promptly. All of this is no guarantee of good health, but God has given us care ministries to help us. Accepting one’s illness and seeking help is one way of following God’s desire for us.

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Last modified April 3, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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