
{"id":9149,"date":"2010-02-25T11:14:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T19:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=9149"},"modified":"2010-02-25T11:14:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T19:14:25","slug":"congregations-examine-issues-in-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/02\/25\/congregations-examine-issues-in-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Congregations examine issues in mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\n CHAPEL HILL   \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Like society at large, faith communities often struggle with the complexities of mental illness \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how to know, how to help, what to say. <\/p>\n<p>Recognizing the need for better insight, a multi-congregational organization called Faith Connections on Mental Illness convened a forum at Binkley Baptist Church this past Sunday titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Faith, Hope and Love: When One Suffers from a Mental Illness.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This was the second year the forum was held. Approximately a hundred people attended.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A panel of clergy members and advocates, including recipients of mental health care services, stressed the importance of accepting that a person can appear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while experiencing deep-seated pain, and that the best therapy a minister or fellow churchgoer can provide is acceptance and inclusion.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m struggling every moment of the day,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Christine Jernigan, a member of Binkley Baptist. She said that what she most wants to hear when returning to church after an absence due to her illness is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So glad you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re back.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Jernigan said she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why she used to cut her arms, and she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect anyone else to either. But, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let me know that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taking me seriously,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>Just as it does in society at large, the stigma of mental illness persists within the church. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not talked about,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said David Girod, a Methodist minister who is bi-polar. Girod said that admitting he lived with a mental illness meant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coming out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d uncertain of how he would be received, and finding support from fellow clergy.<\/p>\n<p>Dale Osborne, an associate minister at Binkley, said members of his congregation came to him to suggest that Binkley become a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153beacon of light\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for those with mental illness. The church now provides education on mental illness, including a class called Faith and Mental Health, and sometimes addresses the disease from the pulpit.<\/p>\n<p>Osborne said the church must strive to embrace the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reconciling\u00e2\u20ac\u009d spirit that Jesus advocated.<\/p>\n<p>Emmanuel Katongole, a Catholic priest on the faculty of Duke Divinity School, spoke of a friend with mental illness who sometimes chose not to attend church services because she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to feel obliged to smile and pretend to be happy.  Katongole suggested that too often the church aims for a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Marine spirituality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c clean-shaven and efficient \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but that perhaps it should be more open to a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153messier\u00e2\u20ac\u009d theology that acknowledges, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is who we are. We have come to worship.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He said the search for spirituality is a journey of lament and rage and, still, hope. The underlying message conveyed Sunday was that it is the church community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s calling to nourish that hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taylor Sisk Staff Writer CHAPEL HILL \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Like society at large, faith communities often struggle with the complexities of mental illness \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how to know, how to help, what to say. Recognizing the need for better insight, a multi-congregational organization called Faith Connections on Mental Illness convened a forum at Binkley Baptist Church this past&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9151,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149\/revisions\/9151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}