How Pastors Can Best Help Those Suffering From Depression
By: Keegan Divant
Tags: Depression, Support, Hope, Christianity, Counseling

Are you suffering from depression? Do you have anxiety that keeps you from doing normal things throughout the day? What about feelings you may not even understand? I know I have a hard time trying to understand why I often feel lonely when I’m most surrounded by people. When you get to the point where you reach out for help, who do you reach out to?

The average Christian may think they should reach out to the pastor of their church. They’re likely educated on biblical counseling and present themselves as the shepherd of their local church. But, is this always the best step to take?

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Reality

There’s no sugar coating it, dealing with depression while belonging to a church can downright suck. It’s hard enough living in a world that can’t, or won’t, understand what you’re going through.

Depression, along with other forms of mental illness, naturally comes with feelings of loneliness. When you feel ignored by those who are supposed to be part of your closest support system, the feeling of despair quickly becomes devastating.

Not every church is calloused to those suffering from mental illness. However, the sad reality is that very few truly know how to care for their silently suffering brothers and sisters in Christ. Worse, a disturbing percentage of churches don’t even believe in mental illness.

Again, not every church or pastor takes this stance. I’m very blessed to have a church home I trust and that is very helpful as I struggle with my own depression and anxiety. But, based on my personal experience at previous churches, listening to accounts from close friends and family, and the Christian communities I belong to online, I can say this is a prevailing problem.

Where The Church Fails

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced going to your pastor or a church leader for counseling. If you have, there’s a very good chance that you know what I’m talking about. If not, then here’s what it’s like.

You meet with your pastor one day. The two of you step into one of the church offices and start off with a little small talk to break the ice. Once the idle chit chat ends there’s an awkward transition to discussing what’s troubling you. As you begin to share the pain and issues you’ve been dealing with, the pastor silently listens with a look of discernment. Once you finish you wonder what’s about to be said. It’s rarely good as you can see some of the most common responses below.

Have you tried praying about it?

Uh, yeah! I can promise you, regardless of someone’s prayer life, they’ve likely struggled to the point where they cry out to God. This response contains an underlying theme that encompasses all of the responses listed here. What is it that YOU’RE doing or not doing to bring this depression on yourself?

This is the last thing someone with legitimate depression needs to hear. Sufferers often deal with feelings of guilt and a response like this, even if it’s innocent, can be extremely damaging.

Look, the point isn’t that pastors should completely forget about the spiritual aspect of counseling someone. Prayer is an extremely important part of any believers life. But, depression is a very complex ailment and it can be so discouraging when someone puts the cause of the problem on the sufferer.

Here’s a better way to help a believer in regards to prayer:

Let’s pray about this together and ask God to lead us in how to best help you.

You might be quick to notice that the prayer doesn’t jump to “God, take away this depression.” That can definitely be part of your prayer to God. He is, after all, the Great Physician. But, when we come to prayer are we boxing God into how He should remedy depression?

Let’s look at the gospel. God has the power to supernaturally share it with every single person on earth. But, is that how He brings the gospel to all the ends of the earth? No, He chose to spread the gospel through His people.

Likewise, God does have the power to instantly take away ANY ailment. We know this because of all the healing miracles Jesus and the apostles performed. But, we need to be open to whatever God has planned for us.

For some, that might mean that we continue to suffer. Job was blameless and upright and he served the Lord in his suffering. God may also choose to heal us through earthly means. Let us bring our petition to God with the understanding that His will be done so that our suffering isn’t without purpose.

Is there any sin in your life?

Well, yeah! We’re all sinners! Again, pastors may genuinely be searching for a specific sin. I mean, I would be pretty depressed if I took out my life savings and lost it all in Vegas. That would be a specific sin that leads to depression.

Here’s where pastors lead believers astray. They generalize sin.

We are all sinful in nature yet He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The penalty for sin is death and the only cure is to be saved by faith through grace. So, our great hope is that we will be made new but that doesn’t mean our earthly life will be easy.

When a pastor jumps to the conclusion that your sin is the cause of your depression, they are subtly suggesting that you’re not as “good” as someone who isn’t suffering. Apart from Christ, none of us are good enough.

How then does a pastor determine if there is a specific sin leading to depression? Open ended questions.

When did you first start feeling this way? What was that like? What was life like around you during that time?

There’s a huge difference between guilt and conviction. Conviction is from God for all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. If you’ve gambled everything away then you should be convicted that that was wrong.

Guilt is of Satan. In Revelation he is called the accuser. He is the one to make us feel unworthy of the love of God. He points out everything we’ve done wrong and says “see? You’re unlovable. God doesn’t want you. He’s turned His back on you for EVERYTHING you’ve done.”

When we come to saving faith, we receive the full credit for Christ’s righteousness. Our position before the throne of God has been eternally secured. On earth, we are still tied to the selfish desires of our heart which is removed through the ongoing process of sanctification. Until the final day, we will all struggle with sin in one degree or another.

How often do you read your Bible?

The implication here is that you can instantly remove any pain or suffering if you just do the “right thing.” Reading the bible is essential to a believers life and spiritual growth. It’s the Word of God which all things were created through. Along with prayer it is a great way to commune with God. The problem is when it’s presented as an item on a checklist that will keep bad things from ever happening to you.

Here’s how I personally feel comforted by God.

Jesus wept, so did Job, and Jeremiah. And the writer of Ecclesiastes definitely struggled with an existential crisis.

I remember one time in Sunday school. We had to memorize a verse of the bible and repeat it the following Sunday. I thought I was being pretty smart by picking John 11:35 that contains a staggering amount of words. Yeah, actually just two. Jesus wept. That didn’t fly with the teacher.

But, over the years this has become a deeply comforting verse to me. Lazarus had just died. Jesus arrives four days after and sees Martha, Mary, and their fellow Jews mourning over his death. Mary came to Him and said if only He had been there, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus then raises Lazarus from the dead but no before crying over him.

Some say that Jesus was crying because of the disbelief of those around him. I still turn to Hebrews 4 that says we do have a great high priest who can sympathize with us in every way. Even though Jesus knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, He still mourned alongside everyone around him and cried over the death of Lazarus.

I take comfort in knowing that God fully understands our pain and suffering. He comes alongside us in our mourning and moments of despair.

I also love reading Ecclesiastes. The writer had everything. He didn’t hold anything back from the desires of his heart. Yet, he fell into the despair of not knowing what the point of everything was. Definitely an existential crisis.

What Can You Do Then?

I hope you don’t immediately come to the conclusion that no pastor or church can offer counseling or help for those struggling with depression. I do hope that you know how to discern if you’re receiving wise counsel or not.

Because of the stigma around mental health, it’s important that you know how to find the right care for yourself. It also helps to join support groups for those dealing with mental health. Ultimately, it is God who heals. Just don’t ignore the possibility, or probability, that He will provide healing through earthly doctors.