In addition to the resources featured below, we are currently compiling a list of mental health providers in North Carolina. If you identify as a faith-based counselor and would like to be included in the online listing, please complete this form.
The Mental Health Resource Guide for Individuals and Families, published by Saddleback Church, is provided free of charge as a courtesy to those seeking insight and information on mental health. It is designed to serve as a simplified reference guide and should not be utilized as a diagnostic tool.
By Matthew S. Stanford
Why has the church struggled in ministering to those with mental illnesses? Each day men and women diagnosed with mental disorders are told they need to pray more and turn from their sin. Mental illness is equated with demonic possession, weak faith, and generational sin. As both a church leader and a professor of psychology and behavioral sciences, Michael S. Stanford has seen far too many mentally ill brothers and sisters damaged by well-meaning believers who respond to them out of fear or misinformation rather than grace. Grace for the Afflicted is written to educate Christians about mental illness from both biblical and scientific perspectives. Stanford presents insights into our physical and spiritual nature and discusses the appropriate role of psychology and psychiatry in the life of the believer. Describing common mental disorders, Stanford probes what science says and what the Bible says about each illness.
By Amy Simpson
Mental illness is the sort of thing we don't like to talk about. It doesn't reduce nicely to simple solutions and happy outcomes. So instead, too often we reduce people who are mentally ill to caricatures and ghosts, and simply pretend they don't exist. They do exist, however—statistics suggest that one in four people suffer from some kind of mental illness. And then there's their friends and family members, who bear their own scars and anxious thoughts, and who see no safe place to talk about the impact of mental illness on their lives and their loved ones. Many of these people are sitting in churches week after week, suffering in stigmatized silence.
by Kathryn Greene-McCreight
Where is God in the suffering of a mentally ill person? What happens to the soul when the mind is ill? How are Christians to respond to mental illness? In this brave and compassionate book, theologian and priest Kathryn Greene-McCreight confronts these difficult questions raised by her own mental illness--bipolar disorder. With brutal honesty, she tackles often avoided topics such as suicide, mental hospitals, and electroconvulsive therapy. Greene-McCreight offers the reader everything from poignant and raw glimpses into the mind of a mentally ill person to practical and forthright advice for their friends, family, and clergy.
NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. They are an association of hundreds of local affiliates, state organizations and volunteers who work in your community to raise awareness and provide support and education that was not previously available to those in need.
Pathways to Promise is an interfaith cooperative of many faith groups which was founded in 1988 by fourteen faith groups and mental health organizations to facilitate the faith community’s work in reaching out to those with mental illnesses and their families.
Pathways to Promise provides training, consultation and other resources for faith groups who want to become supportive, caring communities for people with mental illnesses and their families. Their written resources, which include ministry manuals, bulletin inserts, and training curricula, are used by people at all levels of faith group structures from local congregations to regional and national faith group staff.
Mental Health First Aid teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders in your community. Wild Hope can help you find a certified instructor to provide Mental Health First Aid training for your group or organization.
Mental Health Grace Alliance (The Grace Alliance) is a non-profit (501(c)3 organization whose mission is to equip the Church with mental health resources that blend science and Scripture to see God’s grace transform lives.