WSL West Coast Conference 2023 - Krista Fox - The Church's Response to Depression and Suicide

[00:00:00] Would you like to be equipped and inspired? Does learning and collaborating amongst fellow Christians sound encouraging and refreshing? If so, we invite you to the C.J. and International Conference this June 23rd to the 26th

[00:00:14] that Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. The conference is for ministry leaders or anyone interested in being equipped and inspired in their Christian walk. This year's theme is Hope, Suffering and Glory. Studies in First Peter. Nine speakers will address topics taken from First Peter.

[00:00:30] In addition, workshop topics will include caring for your own soul. We're all apologists now, making sense of Christianity for Gen Z and trauma informed ministry. We hope you can join us at this year's C.J. and International Conference June 23rd to the 26th.

[00:00:47] Be sure to get the early bird discount and register by April 1st. Register and learn more at conference.calvary Chapel.com That's conference.calvary Chapel.com Hey, we wanted to share some recent content with you. Here is one of our breakout sessions.

[00:01:06] Anyways, my name's Christopher Fox. A little bit about me and I was a missionary up until a couple months ago. My family and I served in the Amazonian region of Billing, Brazil. We're church planners. My husband's a pastor. We recently just relocated back to the United States.

[00:01:25] Here to the Temecula Valley. Our home church is reliant now. My husband is one of the pastors there now as well and it's just a big blessing to be able to kind of be back. We're originally from Colorado.

[00:01:38] So getting to know the California area has been brand new. Aside from being a missionary and a pastor's wife, Church planner, I also have a Master's degree in counseling psychology before we went into the missions, fields. Well, before that, I homeschooled my kids and then

[00:01:58] before that even I had a private practice in Colorado for a time until the Lord is like his time for you to close this and focus on your kids and I did. Right now I'm finishing my doctorate in

[00:02:10] counseling focused really on trauma psychology and I have a heart to work with those broken. I work with refugees in Brazil and we started a ministry for individuals involved in prostitution and human trafficking in Brazil as well. So there's this a lot of brokenness,

[00:02:28] a lot of darkness and for some reason I'm really drawn to the heart in that with women and hurting individuals but for today, for today, we're talking about depression and suicide

[00:02:43] and how to navigate this and what the church's response should be to that. Now when I say church, I don't mean the church you go to. I mean the church in general, the universal church,

[00:02:54] as is believers, we should have a response to this because it's so big. No one is immune from this. No one is immune from depression, from sadness, from loneliness, from the feelings of worthlessness.

[00:03:09] It affects all of us. It's not, it doesn't discriminate. It affects the pastor, the missionary, the businessman, the psychologist, every person in this room probably has been affected in some way with it either personally or somebody in your family. We know somebody that's going through it.

[00:03:32] And I believe for those of us Christians who have accepted the Lord Jesus' Savior, we need to talk about these things. These are difficult things that we need to talk about, but we often

[00:03:43] maybe feel guilty and maybe even deal with shame for struggling with these feelings. Many of us have been taught in our churches or in our ministries or maybe we've just come to assume that Christians

[00:03:57] don't struggle with these things and maybe we've been told that. We're told that we should have joy, we should have peace and we need to rejoice in all things. And you know these are all true,

[00:04:08] yes, yes the Bible tells us, consider it pure joy in my brothers when you encounter trials of this kind in James is because you know that the testing of your faith, personal, develops perseverance.

[00:04:21] Okay, we know that and peace. The Lord gives us peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you? Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. That's in

[00:04:34] John 1427. And what about rejoicing? Rejoice in all things as it says in Psalm 1 18 24. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad. This last verse. This is

[00:04:52] something that the Lord has taught me over the years that troubles come in. I'll hear the word rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. I'll hear it in worship songs I heard in my devotion time. I'll just

[00:05:01] hear it in my head and I'm thinking why do I keep hearing rejoice? And it took me years to realize because that was what God was preparing me. There was something I was about to walk into. So he was

[00:05:12] preparing me. Rejoice this is the day the Lord has made. And it took me a very long time to realize first what I needed to do in my trial but for also he was preparing me for that. So now

[00:05:25] any time I hear rejoice, I'm like oh my gosh what's coming. There's something something's coming but often we take a look at these verses and we look at our present emotional condition and we can even feel worse, right? Even more guilty because we don't really feel this joy

[00:05:45] that the Bible is talking about or peace and then we don't really feel like rejoicing. So then we begin to feel even more depressed and despondent because we wrongly equate the joy with happiness. Being joyful is not a feeling of happiness, it's a contentment. This is contentment that

[00:06:05] this joy comes from only trusting the Lord which all which includes our sadness, our loneliness, our grief, contentment and what about peace? Where is the peace when you feel that there's no one in the world there for you or you've convinced yourself that your worthless, that your unseen,

[00:06:29] or even worse, that it to get anyone's attention after hurt yourself. There is no peace in this type of thinking but that's because our peace that we have, it doesn't come from ourselves. Peace like joy

[00:06:45] comes from the Lord and again this is a contentment. You may be suffering with these things but you endure them because of the safety that you have in Christ and His promises. Like it says in

[00:06:58] Deuteronomy, be strong and courageous, do not fear or be in dread of them. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you, He will not leave you or forsake you. The Lord who spoke the world in

[00:07:11] two existence has promised us, his children, that He will not leave us. This is where we find our peace, not in our feelings, never in our feelings but in His promises. And what about rejoicing?

[00:07:28] How are we to rejoice when we are in the depths of darkness? You do as King David did, you command yourself to rejoice. In Psalm 18 it says, You are my God, I will give you thanks to you, you are my God,

[00:07:48] I will install you. David is a man after God's own heart who also is a man who committed adultery, he lost a child, he was pursued by his own son to the point and he sent one to kill him.

[00:08:04] And he also had these intense feelings, intense feelings of happiness, intense feelings of depression and loneliness. Many of the Psalms that King David wrote have the same theme. He often writes about commanding his soul to rejoice because he didn't often feel like it because it's not

[00:08:25] a feeling. It's not about doing this because we're happy or we're excited. No, many times he commanded his soul to give thanks and rejoice when it was in the most distressing times of his life.

[00:08:40] And I know that's for me as well. Every single time almost I go to speak there is a crisis happening, not a little crisis, a big gigantic crisis in my life and my family's life.

[00:08:52] But I have that peace that surpasses my understanding and this is what we need. Be joyful and peace that rejoicing in Christ or what we are supposed to do is Christians, we know that but also some of the

[00:09:08] hardest things to do and be faithful in when that depression comes and when the difficulties arise. If you guys have your bibles, let's look at Psalm 23 quickly. Psalm 23 it says, the Lord is my shepherd,

[00:09:37] I shall not want. He makes me lie down and green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the past of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk

[00:09:49] through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. You're raw and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

[00:09:59] You annoy my head with oil, my cup overflows, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life. And I shall dwell on the house of the Lord forever.

[00:10:12] Think of the Psalm for a moment in your own lives and the people that you minister to or who you know are struggling with depression, whether in your church or the minister of your home.

[00:10:24] Verse 4 says, even though I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. You're raw and your staff they comfort me.

[00:10:35] This verse, it does not say you're going to run currently in escape this valley, right? Which is most of us want to do? Disgusting this through, God just get us through, let us be done. I don't want

[00:10:46] to hurt anymore. No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that we're going to escape this quickly, this depression, the circumstance. Although King David is speaking about his own life and his own

[00:11:01] suffering here, we can understand that the Lord will also be our comforter as well. He is our shepherd. He will lead us calmly through the dark and lonely valleys at his own pace.

[00:11:13] As I said, this verse teaches us to walk slowly through our trials. Not to stop, not to hurry, like we said, also not to stop, not to just lay down and give up, quit, but to walk with him,

[00:11:32] because he is with us and he guides us. For some of us, these dark trials and these valleys, they last briefly, sometimes for others, they last months, sometimes for others years or a lifetime. But the duration of one's trial, whether it's depression, it does not depend,

[00:11:54] it's not dependent on our timing to get out of it, but the Lord's. Some of us may struggle our entire lives with feelings of depression and it's not because we lack faith or because we aren't praying

[00:12:09] hard enough, it's because the Lord has allowed it and he's going to use it for his glory if we allow him to. Do you remember, or do you know, I'm sure you do, the story in John

[00:12:24] chapter 9 verses 1 through 3. It's when Jesus healed a man born blind. He said, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from verse and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents

[00:12:40] that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sent or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. It wasn't because of sin that this man was blinded.

[00:12:53] It was so that God would be glorified in this blind man. For many struggling with depression, this may be the case as well. Struggling with depression is not sinful, but how we deal with it,

[00:13:06] maybe do we give into these downward spirals of self-defeating thoughts? Do we believe the lies of this, from the enemy that we are nothing that we're unloved, that we don't matter, or that everyone would be better for everyone if we're gone. Do we believe that?

[00:13:31] We cannot give our lives, our minds are over to these self-defeating thoughts. This is when we need to do with what David did, command our souls to rejoice in the Lord. And although it hurts us and we may not understand most of the time we won't,

[00:13:47] we trust that He is in charge of everything and then we have the contentment. There will be safety, there will be security that allows you to feel joy and peace even when

[00:13:58] you're in those darkest valleys. And it's because we trust in the Lord and His will in our lives despite our feelings that we can have this peace. God has made each one of us so unique

[00:14:10] that we can bring Him glory in all these things. Some of us are just built more happy, more animated, more excited. And while other of us daily struggle with maybe melancholy, sadness, or very dark depression, the fact is that we live in a fallen and a sinful world.

[00:14:31] God does not promise us an easy life, life without struggle or health or anything like that. But He does promise us the power to face difficult trials and the strength to endure them if we're not delivered from them. I think there's been a lot of confusion about

[00:14:50] and misteachings on what the Bible says about depression and suicide and what it means for a believer. Because depression can have a variety of causes. Heredity, circumstantial situation, grief, physical issues when our body is that we're physically going through things, trauma,

[00:15:12] all of those can lead us to depression and so can sin. Sin can absolutely bring a person to the depressive state such as unforgiveness or unrependent sin, as well as spiritual attacks gets hard to continue to fight the enemy all the time. And suicide, according to the Bible,

[00:15:34] it is murder and it's sin. But suicide is not the unforgivable sin. It does not determine a person's eternal destiny. The only one, the only unforgivable sin is rejecting the Lord as our Savior. We need to remind those who are desperately hurting that

[00:15:56] God is the only one who's just decide when and how a person should die. We should say with the Psalmist my times are in your hands. No matter what meant to present to take God's authority upon

[00:16:09] himself and his or her own life. And when we sit with others, who are struggling with depression, contemplating suicide, we are distranked in them in Christ. We can help do this through removing

[00:16:25] the shame and the guilt that maybe they have attached to their depression and show them how God has helped others and responded to others in his world, who have also struggled with depression and suicidal ideation. Some people in Scripture felt deep despair in their life. Let's look at

[00:16:45] a few. They're Solomon. In his pursuit of pleasure, he reached the point where it says an Ecclesiastis 2017 he hated life. And there's Elijah in first Kings 19, first four says Elijah was fierce pull, fearful and depressed, and year and for death. There's Jonah. Jonah was so angry

[00:17:13] at God that he wished to die. Even the Apostle Paul and his missionary companions at one point it says in second Corinthians 1a, they were under great pressure far beyond their ability at two endurance so that we despair of life itself. These biblical figures were hurting and wounded

[00:17:35] but how did God respond? And what did they learn in their suffering? Solomon learned to fear God and keep his commandments for this is the duty of all mankind. You can see that in Cuisieastis 1213.

[00:17:49] Elijah was comforted by an angel. He was allowed to rest and he was given a new commission. Jonah, Jonah was rebuked by God. And Paul, Paul learned that although the pressure he faced

[00:18:07] was beyond his ability to endure, the Lord can bear all things as he's in second Corinthians 1a, this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. Through these examples, we can see that not only did God's people suffer

[00:18:27] to the point of wanting death at some point but the Lord also dealt with each one of them very differently. Solomon needed to fear God. Elijah was comforted with food water and rest. Jonah had to be disciplined and Paul learned endurance. As ministry workers is important to approach

[00:18:49] each hurting person in their situation as unique as the Lord does for us as he did for them. For some they need to be comforted for others and maybe a season of review or discipline

[00:19:04] and for many and for most it's about enduring. We don't know what it is for the person that's sitting in front of us but the Lord does and the Holy Spirit that lives in each of us,

[00:19:16] the believers, the one that's helping and the one that's hurting, he will guide and direct but it does take a tunement, it takes discernment to really understand what angle we're going

[00:19:27] to take to help this hurting person in front of us. I was trained in all these modern counseling theories and when I began my Christian career as a therapist if you call it that,

[00:19:41] I began a question some of these theories from a biblical basis because none of them at the point had really specifically talked about healing through forgiveness or offered really any other biblical perspectives. There were a lot of them not all a lot of them were very dependent upon

[00:19:58] what the person can do for themselves which is really contrary to what the Bible says, like in Philippians 413 where it says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me because that's where our strength is because as Christians we don't have the power to strengthen ourselves.

[00:20:17] I've come over the years I've come to understand that while a lot of these secular psychological approaches they don't have the Christian concepts, some of them have been useful and helpful and people I've worked with such as helping an individual look back at their early years,

[00:20:34] maybe childhood to make present-day connections to emotions and behaviors that are going on today. As well as helping people look for maladaptive patterns in their life for their thought processes and challenging them on that. It's really interesting because we've separated the secular versus

[00:20:52] the spiritual but the scientific and the psychological world, things that they've come up with, they're the inventors of looking at somebody's heart and looking at the things of the past and it starts in the Bible, right? Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun

[00:21:10] and it goes along with this too. All of these theories that I have come to read, like what the world does, the world has perverted and corrupted a lot of these things that

[00:21:21] have come from the Bible. And so we look at one of the very important theories of counseling and looking at your thoughts. Well we can look at that from second Corinthians 10-5, take your thoughts

[00:21:33] captive. Very biblical. What about examining your heart when I sit down and counsel people? That is what we talk about, is your heart looking at the past and with the concede in

[00:21:44] Proverbs 27-19 it says as in what water face reflects face so hard a man reflects the man we have to understand this. But like I said the world has crepted what was intended for good

[00:21:57] and kind of perverted ahead. And for me as a Christian counselor it was important to stand boldly on the word of God and to help those who struggle with emotional mental health issues in a

[00:22:07] godly way. And part of this is growing them in their relationship with God. To walk alongside these people in love and compassion just as Jesus did not to judge them but to help them.

[00:22:20] So how do we do that? We need to help them find the underlining cause that may be causing this depression, this sadness. We need them means we have to ask heart questions. We need to ask

[00:22:32] heart questions and discuss with them and get to the root of where this is coming from. That could mean we have to ask about and repent to sin in their life. This means that we're talking

[00:22:45] about things well in their past, maybe they've never talked to you about anybody before. We need to remind them of who they are in Christ that they are saints in the eyes of the Lord.

[00:22:56] His left children, we need to remove this stigma and shame of guilt as surrounds depression in the church. But these things take time. All of this, walking with someone in depression and suicidal

[00:23:11] ideation it is not quick and it's not easy. You have to be available. You need to be present and you need to allow time for the Holy Spirit to do his work in them just as he's done in us.

[00:23:27] We as his ministry workers we can help these others that have been captivated by these lies that have been telling themselves terrible things about themselves and accepting it. We can help them captivate these things such as the self-harmonize self hatred because those are lies.

[00:23:46] We can ask them to find proof of these lies in their everyday life and I promise you they won't find any truth as attached to these lies because lies from the enemy won't ever be attached to truth.

[00:23:58] So they'll never be an evidence to support this Irish their irrational thoughts that some of these people have so we can help them detach that. Doing this kind of exercise helps them captivate their irrational thoughts and evaluate where these are coming from. And the whole goal of this

[00:24:19] is to it's like developing a muscle memory. I told people I work with all the time like we want to captivate. We want to capture where's this coming from. Tell me evidence and you think you're

[00:24:28] worth this who told you that? It's sometimes people tell them that and we can examine that and that's a whole other hurt issue we get to as well but if there you have a very self-defeating

[00:24:41] thoughts how do you, where's the truth? Tell me when there was a valid truth to these things that you keep repeating to yourself. Oftentimes there's like there nobody, nobody told me these things

[00:24:55] and because they're lies. And so we identify them then we break them down but it's an exercise. It's that mine exercise just like going to the gym and exercising your body when you begin to think

[00:25:05] terrible things about yourself is so much easier to think that than thinking who you actually are in Christ. Because you have built up the muscle memory in your mind that you are worthless,

[00:25:18] you're no good and nobody loves you. So much easier to believe that than your child of Christ. Especially if you've been telling yourself that for years upon years upon years. I don't know what

[00:25:28] lies it is that you guys are battling or with people in your ministry of battling but that is one very effective way to do it is to get in there and identify what it is and challenge them every single

[00:25:39] time that this is a lie from the enemy, captivated and train that muscle. And it's hard people will be walking in this for years could be their whole lifetime. So we need to know how to help them.

[00:25:58] We need to remind them of God's goodness as mercy as love is grace and the power of God. When they are in a good state we because I've been there many many times or at our lowest. We need to

[00:26:11] teach them to trust in God not in their emotions because he's always working for our good even in the hardest and most terrible circumstances. The church as we need to really listen to the hearts as a people doesn't take a university trained professional to do any of this.

[00:26:33] It takes a loving heart helping an individual work through past issues like I've said it takes time but it also takes to see basic counseling techniques as well. I'm like listening. Asking questions. Prain and seeking the Lord to know the real heart going on behind the words.

[00:26:57] And unfortunately we don't have time to get into just basic counseling tools but at the minimum being available and being a good listener will go very far when you're working with a hurting. The church, the pastor's ministry workers, we only need to realize

[00:27:18] when we're unable to help a person as well in their depression and they're suicidal ideation. Maybe you don't have enough time to walk through the issues with the person or maybe it's just the issue not being gifted in that and that's okay.

[00:27:34] But then you should also know where you can send them to get the help they need, whether it's a pastor that does have the time in the tools or a Christian counselor or psychologists they know the somebody that will help them through with the Lord.

[00:27:49] Ministry workers also need to know the laws in your area and what it means to be a mandated reporter if you are one or not. So when a person is in need of immediate help,

[00:28:02] you know who to contact whether that's a crisis center calling the police or the emergency room of somebody is wanting to hurt themselves. These are all very, very important things. My hope is that the people we work with in the church and our ministries that they never

[00:28:19] get to this point of suicide because the churches have been doing a much better job and trained to help these people and their depression. Now we're dealing with the flock better and that we've teach and we've taught them how to put on their full armor of God.

[00:28:38] All of this is done in compassion for the person who's struggling. We don't, we won't have the right answers to some of these questions, for a lot of the questions and a lot of the hurt that people

[00:28:51] will tell you most of the time we won't know and that's okay. Just being willing and available to rejoice with those who are rejoicing especially tomorrow with those who are morning as it says

[00:29:04] in Romans 1215. This, when you're more with people who are more will open the door for you to be able to minister more. You're going to create this safe and secure environment which the person needs

[00:29:18] to begin to open up to you so you can do these things that we talked about a little bit before of asking those tough questions. Getting to maybe more of the root heart issues.

[00:29:27] Create a safe and secure environment, mourn with them, cry with them. Being proactive as a church in ministry's key, having systems in place to help those who are hurting before the issue

[00:29:41] gets bigger is key. Ideally there would be a few people in our churches in our ministry that have time to work with these individuals. Notice it keeps going back to time. It doesn't have to be a

[00:29:53] pastor, but it doesn't need to be somebody who is biblically strong has a strong foundation and has a desire to come alongside these people and it takes more than a couple sessions. That's why

[00:30:04] keeps saying time, time, time. I can tell you the many people I sit down with and talk to. The second time I meet with them is for sure not even getting to any root problem. We're just

[00:30:17] kind of getting through the fluff of it. It's not fluff at the time, but that's what gets them in the door. It takes longer than a couple of sessions because we're going to be walking through

[00:30:30] someone's pain and we have to be prepared for that. It's a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice. That our time is a ministry workers to walk in the darkness with these individuals. It's a sacrifice for our

[00:30:47] churches and ministries to be able to train people up to be able to do this as well. One that focuses on hurting those and hurting the trauma, working with a depression, looking at these deep issues.

[00:31:00] Because the president's suicide, it's not new. As we saw these biblical examples we talked about earlier, there are many youth struggle with it and many will continue to. So we do need to have programs and people in place to help these people, ministry workers who can respond correctly,

[00:31:16] right? Correctly, to the hurting and the broken. This is my one of the things I'm doing on starting a ministry for this to equip the churches, to be able to equip their people to

[00:31:28] serve in this. It's called the Plaid Careford Trauma. But some churches don't have the resources or not interested in that and that's fine. I suggest you train yourself, then there are so many

[00:31:40] books or so many podcasts. There's so many things on the internet that you can do to train yourself to be a good counselor to those hurting your churches. You don't have to have our ministry

[00:31:52] come out and train. You're welcome to but you don't have to. You can read all these books, but I love this quote. I'm going to end with this quote by Pastor, his name's Chris Hodges. He says, followers of Jesus should be first responders to those

[00:32:07] battling the darkness of depression. We should be compassionate facilitators of hope and healing, following the example set by Christ during his time on earth. And I love that. I love that. I have a few recommendations. I didn't print the recommendations out first because my paper

[00:32:26] printed a hairline. All right, but second because there's only a few on here because as I was reading more of the books, I didn't really feel comfortable recommending a lot of them because there's a lot of different things that people believe when they write books on depression and

[00:32:43] Christians. And so I believe you guys will use your own discernment in these books, and there's a lot of great resources but I didn't want to put an endorsement on something that

[00:32:54] has some things in there that are a bit questionable. One thing though, I always say is the songs. If you want to walk through somebody with somebody with the songs, know the songs, walk through them, use them when you're working with somebody in depression.

[00:33:10] There's a good book by Diane Langberg. She's a PhD. She talks a lot on trauma. She has a great quote. I'm going to mess it up because it's night and night and night it down.

[00:33:22] But it talks about trauma is the new mission field, 21st century mission field. And trauma is not just something like for people here and there we've all have trauma-wale of crisis and some

[00:33:35] regards. So we need to learn how to deal with it. But she has a great book is called Suffering in the Heart of God, how trauma destroys and Christ restores. Yeah, I'll repeat it. Suffering in the heart of God, how trauma destroys and Christ restores.

[00:33:53] It's Diane Langberg. And there is a link on focus on the family that if you just Google focus on the family mental health resources, I trust their resources. They have a lot there. But really

[00:34:06] you can put in any kind of Google search of Christians and depression and get a lot. Just be careful. Be careful with what you're reading, use discernment, use wisdom and I will be praying for you guys.

[00:34:21] Well thanks for joining us today. We hope you find this content helpful. Hey, stay connected with us on Instagram and Facebook for all that is going on with when she leaves. We'll see you next time.