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When People Feel Ashamed About Their Mental Struggles: Creating a Safe Place in Our Church (Part 1 of 13)

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Daniel L. Sonnenberg

Series Part 1: When People Feel Ashamed About Their Mental Struggles: Creating a Safe Place in Our Church

Many people in the church carry hidden pain: anxiety that keeps them awake, depression that makes every day feel heavy, or trauma that flares up in quiet moments. Some of them hide this pain because they’ve been made to feel ashamed—told (directly or indirectly) that their struggle is a sign of weak faith, not enough prayer, or even sin.

When that happens, they don’t reach out. They withdraw. They suffer alone.

This article is part of a series designed to help pastors, leaders, and members learn how to care well for people who are suffering—to think biblically, speak carefully, and act wisely. The aim is not to turn the church into a clinic, but to make our church a safer, wiser, and more compassionate place for people who are weary, anxious, or depressed, and for the people who love them.

Why Some People Hide Their Struggles

In many Christian settings, people have been made to feel that anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, or addiction are signs of:

  • Weak faith
  • Lack of prayer
  • Personal sin
  • Spiritual failure
  • Something shameful or dangerous

Instead of seeing mental illness as a real health issue that can affect anyone, some churches treat it as a moral problem. When people hear this, they often:

  • Stop sharing their pain.
  • Avoid talking about therapy or medication.
  • Feel guilty for struggling.
  • Doubt whether they belong in the church.

This is what we call “stigma,” but in pastoral language, it’s simpler: people feel unsafe to be honest about their pain.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

Stigma doesn’t always show up as harsh words. It often shows up in quieter ways:

  • A pastor saying, “Just pray more and you’ll get better,” without acknowledging the medical or psychological reality.
  • A leader avoiding someone who is struggling because they’re afraid of doing the wrong thing.
  • People whispering about someone who is hospitalized for mental health reasons.
  • Using words like “crazy,” “psycho,” or “lunatic” to describe someone with a mental illness.
  • Treating mental illness as less serious than physical illness.
  • Assuming someone is “not trying hard enough” if they’re not recovering quickly.

These patterns make people feel like they have to hide their struggles instead of bringing them into the light.

How Our Church Can Create a Safe Place

We want our church to be a place where people feel safe to share their pain, not a place where they feel judged or shamed.

Here are gentle ways we can do that:

1. Talk Honestly and Gently About Mental Health

  • Include mental health topics in sermons, classes, and small groups.
  • Share that mental illness is not a sign of weak faith or sin.
  • Use words like “people with mental illnesses” instead of “the mentally ill.”
  • Avoid labels like “crazy,” “psycho,” or “lunatic.”

When leaders talk about mental health from the pulpit, it normalizes the conversation and helps people feel safer.

2. Pray for People Who Are Struggling

  • Include specific prayers for people with depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, and other mental health challenges.
  • Pray for their families and caregivers.
  • Don’t pray in ways that suggest they just need more faith to get better.

Praying weekly from the pulpit helps normalize the conversation and shows that mental health matters.

3. Listen More Than We Fix

When someone shares their struggle:

  • Listen more than we speak.
  • Avoid quick fixes like “just trust God more.”
  • Say, “I’m here with you,” instead of “you need to pray more.”
  • Ask, “What would be most helpful this week?” or “What part of this burden can we share?”

This is burden-bearing in action.

4. Encourage Professional Help Without Shame

  • Share that therapy, medication, and hospitalization are part of God’s care, not a failure of faith.
  • Offer to help people find trusted counselors.
  • Provide transportation, childcare, or meals while they go through treatment.
  • Stay in touch after you refer them to a professional.

Pastors and leaders should know when to refer people to mental health professionals and where to refer them when the need arises.

5. Treat Mental Illness Like Any Other Illness

Encourage your congregation to treat people with mental illnesses the same way they treat people with other illnesses:

  • Visit them when they’re hospitalized.
  • Send cards and bring casseroles when they’re ill.
  • Offer practical help.
  • Avoid judging them for their condition.

Mental illnesses are not the result of personal weakness, lack of character, or poor upbringing. They are biological conditions that can affect anyone, regardless of age, race, religion, or income.

6. Educate the Congregation

  • Bring in speakers from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), the medical community, and your local mental health center.
  • Share facts and common myths about mental health.
  • Run a series of articles in your congregation’s newsletter.
  • Show videos on the subject and encourage your congregation to discuss the issues raised.

Educating the congregation helps reduce the grip of stigma.

7. Create Support Groups

  • Start a spiritual support group in your faith community for people with mental health challenges and their families.
  • Offer your organization’s meeting spaces for community conversations and support groups focused on addressing mental health issues.
  • Provide space for peer-led groups that give people the chance to tell their stories in their own time and way.

Support groups help people feel less alone and more connected.

8. Be Inclusive and Compassionate

  • Foster safe and supportive environments for people to openly talk about mental health, stress, trauma, and related issues.
  • Encourage and express empathy in your family, congregation, and community.
  • Convey a message of nonviolence, acceptance, and compassion.
  • Be inclusive. Mental health affects all of us.

Fostering opportunities to build connections with individuals and families dealing with mental health challenges through trust and acceptance helps reduce isolation.

A Closing Invitation

We invite our church to learn how to carry each other’s burdens, especially the heavy ones that don’t go away quickly.

As you read this, think not just about stigma or programs, but about the people in our church. Who is hiding their pain because they feel ashamed? How can we make our church a safer place for them to be honest?

We invite you to:

  • Talk gently about mental health.
  • Listen more than you fix.
  • Encourage professional help without shame.
  • Pray for people who are struggling.
  • Create space for them to share their pain without judgment.

When we do this, we show people that they are not alone, that their struggle is not a moral failure, and that they belong in the church.

Articles in this Series to Help the Church Care Well:

Further reading on this topic

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Categories: Articles, Mental Health in the Church

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