Bishop Julius C. Trimble is the Resident Bishop of the Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Trimble has the personal mission to encourage all people with the love of Jesus Christ to rise to their highest potential. It is his commitment to his personal mission that led Bishop Trimble to create the “To Be Encouraged” Podcast along with co-host Rev.Dr. Brad Miller.

Bishop Trimble says, “I am compelled by Jesus to share with you an encouraging word or two about Jesus, theology, the Bible, the pandemic, the environment, racism, voting rights, human sexuality, and the state of the United Methodist Church.”

To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble is to be published weekly and is available at www.tobeencouraged.com and all the podcast directories.

https://archive.inumc.org/bishop/

In episode 057 of To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble, the guest is Reverend Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund, (https://sarahgriffithlund.com/) an ordained minister in Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ. Lund is an author of several books on mental health, including “Blessed Youth: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness with Children and Teens.” 

https://blessedmind.org/

Bishop Trimble and Lund discuss the importance of mental health awareness and advocacy in faith communities.

Bishop Trimble shares about his personal connection with Sarah related to their ecumenical witness in Greater Indianapolis but also wants to discuss Sarah's writing on mental health, specifically her book, “Blessed Youth.” Trimble was emotionally pulled into the book while reading it and believes it would be suited for community reading. Bishop Trimble speaks about his mother-in-law who lived with them for 20 years due to her mental illness, but the Bishop’s children did not know about it because she received excellent care and support.

Bishop Trimble believes that being surrounded by support makes a significant difference for those with mental illness.

Lund discusses her inspiration for writing "Blessed Youth" and highlights the importance of understanding mental health as a form of physical health. Lund shares the importance of mental health ministry as an opportunity to show the love of Jesus to the community and provide resources available, such as a free study guide from Blessed Youth on the Chalice Press website. Bishop Trimble discusses mental health ministry in the church he once served and shares the benefits of having a mental health-friendly church. Lund emphasizes the need for lay people in starting a mental health ministry in their faith community and eliminating any barriers to participation.

Additionally, they discuss the Surgeon General's advisory related to the spike in suicides in youth and highlight the importance of strengthening spiritual connections to God and one another to prevent deaths of despair. Finally, they explore the stigma and shame often preventing people from talking about mental health and seeking help for mental illness and discuss the importance of shifting attitudes towards mental health so that it is viewed as part of overall health, much like dental hygiene.

Episode 057 with Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund is Part one of a two Part Episode featuring a discussion about Dr. Lund's book "Blessed Youth." Part 2 will be Episode 058 we be about "Starting a Mental Health Movement in your Church and Community and will be available at www.ToBeEncouraged.com.

Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund can be contacted about her books and speaking opportunities at:

https://sarahgriffithlund.com/

Her Ministry is Blessed Mind

https://blessedmind.org/

Hello, good people, and welcome to To Be

Encouraged with Bishop Julius C.

Trimble, the podcast where we look to offer

an encouraging word to an often discouraged world.

I'm your co host, Reverend Dr. Brad Miller. In today's episode

of To Be Encouraged, we're focusing on mental health.

Our guest is the Reverend Dr. Sarah Lund

and she has a mission that revolves around the area of

mental health to share hope and healing. She's an

ordained minister in the Christian church, Disciples of Christ

and the United Church of Christ. She's a pastor

serving churches in Brooklyn, New York, Minneapolis and New

Smyrna Beach, Florida, and is the regional minister of the Florida Conference

United Church of Christ and vice president of Christian Theological

Seminary in Indianapolis. She has Degrees from Trinity

University, princeton Theological Seminary at MDiv,

Rutgers University and Master of Social Work and McCormick

Theological Seminary at D Men. And she has

received the Dell Award as a mental health educator from the

United Church of Christ and involved with several things along the area of

helping serve as the men of disabilities of mental health justice on

the regional staff of the UCC and is the senior

pastor of the First Congregational United Church of Christ

in Indianapolis.

In particular in our context today. She is the

author of several books blessed Are the Crazy

Breaking the Silence about Mental illness, family in the Church,

blessed Union Breaking the Silence about mental illness and Marriage.

And the focus of our conversation today. Blessed Youth

breaking the silence about mental illness with children and teens.

You could find her at Sara Griffith.com

and she is the founder of Blessedmind,

LLC, which you could find@blessedmind.org.

Mr. Treble, would you help us welcome our special guest to our podcast today?

Yeah, I want to say welcome to my dear friend Sarah.

We really appreciate your sharing this time with our listeners

and we just continue to try to be co conspirators

for good and grace and for getting into

good trouble to make the world a better place. Thank you for your witness,

particularly as we break open, pull back the curtain

around mental health and our role as faith

leaders in this space.

Welcome. Glad to have

you with us, Sarah. Just to kind of initiate our conversation,

been mentioned that you're a faith leader in churches and you're involved with getting in

good trouble. As Bishop has said here we're to find out more about that.

But let's find out a little bit about you initially. Meaning tell

us what about your faith story, how you came to know Christ

in the first place and how your Christian faith journey

has led you now to the path of being a pastor and an

author, and particularly with an advocacy regarding

mental health. Thank you so much. It's really an

honor to be a guest on this podcast to encourage folks.

And so thank you, Bishop and Brad, for this invitation.

We are indeed co conspirators for goodness and hope.

And I'm, like a lot of folks, kind of have a very

mixed background in faith. I was baptized

as an infant as a Lutheran in the ELCA tradition,

grew up in the Disciples of Christ tradition

was confirmed there, and then in college

was introduced to a more

evangelical flavor of Christianity in

a Bible study that was run by university.

And so my faith background really prepared me to

engage in a deeper level in a personal way as

I connected to Jesus as

really more intimate relationship.

And so I'm grateful for the people who focus on

college students in that window of time when people are really searching for

meaning and connection. And that was where I

got my call to be a pastor, was while I was at

Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Bishop, I know you have a connection with Sarah and share

a little bit about your connection, and then what kind of things would you like

for us to learn about her? Well, I think my connection with

Sarah is relative to our ecumenical witness here

in Greater Indianapolis. But also

I really want to get into because I know we have a limited amount of

time to her writing around in the area of mental health,

particularly her more recent book,

Blessed Youth. As I began to read the

book, it began to evoke emotions, my own emotions.

And you kind of warned the reader that this might happen.

And as I got into the book, I realized I said, maybe this is a

book better suited for a community reading.

But I was so already pulled. When you're in a book,

it pulls you in and you just can't stop reading.

And I'll say a little bit. Brad and Sarah,

my mother in law lived with us for 20 years.

In fact, she first came to live with us. She's gone

on to heaven. The older young granbury and our children

are now three adult children. But our children grew up thinking everybody

had a grandmother who lived with them, but they didn't know why she lived

with us. They just thought everybody had a grandmother who lived with them.

We kind of were raised in kind of a village environment. But while I

was actually in my second year of seminary,

when we were at seminary, Brad at Garrett in Evanston,

my mother had to come live mother in law had to come live with us

temporarily because she had mental illness and

her mother had passed and she was living with her mother.

And when her mother passed, she couldn't stay by herself.

She attempted to do that, was offered meds

and just kind of things were unraveling.

And even though we had a small infant and we

were living in a small student apartment in Evanston, she had

to come live with us temporarily. And then eventually she

had to come live with us permanently.

Once I had my full time appointment and was serving a church in North Chicago.

And at that time, by that time when

we had our second child, she was living with us.

And again, our three children kind of grew up with their grandmother,

living with them up until the last one graduated. Our youngest

graduated from high school, and she lived with us because

she had a mental illness. They didn't know she had a mental illness because she

received excellent care and support.

And as long as she was on her meds and went to her

therapy sessions and she was involved, was surrounded by

church community, she was very active in the church, very active,

volunteer in our food ministry and so forth. And so

it makes a difference when you are surrounded by support.

It doesn't take away the mental illness,

but it does make a difference. And I say that

by way of segue into saying, reading the book

Blessed Youth introduced this may be in your other books as well,

introduced me somewhat more to some of your story about your

dad, about your niece, about your own childhood,

and how I think this is so true.

You kind of gave an insight to what I think many American families or

many families across the globe experience, but no one ever knows

about it. And no one knows about it. So I want to basically

start with an open ended question, basically around what's early on,

what we read in there, both from you and from

the Surgeon general around mental health is physical health.

Help us understand that a little bit. Sara mental health being

is physical health. Thank you so much, Bishop,

for sharing part of your story that is

so beautiful, because it helps us realize that everybody has a story.

We all have a story and we all have mental health.

The reason why we don't often talk about it is because

of stigma. Stigma is shame.

It keeps us silent and it isolates us.

Mental illness has been stigmatized for a long time,

and sometimes the faith that we grow up in

might interpret mental illness as a sin,

demon, possession, punishment from God.

And so thinking of mental illness in these ways makes

us feel ashamed and reluctant to get help.

So what we're trying to do is connect mental illness

and mental health to other kinds of health.

And our brain is an organ. Our heart is

an organ. We can get heart disease.

We can also get brain disease. And the more we learn about

the brain, we know that it's incredibly complex,

but it really is the hard drive to our whole system.

And so I ask folks when I talk about mental health,

how many of you have a dentist? Everybody in

the room. How often do you see the dentist? Well,

to prevent cavities, we go see the dentist for good cleanings.

And throughout our whole lives, we take care of our mouth and our teeth.

Oral hygiene, right how many of you have a therapist

or a psychiatrist? A lot less people yet that

is one of the most important parts of our body, our brain,

yet we do not have good mental health hygiene. And so

I'm really trying to help folks be more open and receptive

to all the ways we can proactively take care of

our mental health hygiene and have a therapist.

Everybody needs to have a therapist just like you have a dentist.

And so that language of mental health is health

is part of this national conversation that just

like you might bring a casserole or a hot dish over

to somebody who's recovering from a heart attack or in chemotherapy,

you're bringing food to the family. We want,

likewise for good folks, to bring casseroles and hot dishes to

people who are recovering from hospitalization for

a psychiatric illness or depression or postpartum

that's coming out now. More and more people are willing

to acknowledge that happiness with the new baby sometimes

comes with lots of struggle and lack of sleep and stress.

And so we can be more open about these health

needs. Get a checkup from the neck up, as Patrick

says. Yeah, I like that. You're the first

person I heard make reference to no casserole illness.

Yes. Say another word where you just said a

little bit about that, but can you expand on that? No casserole?

Yeah. Mental illness is called the no casserole illness in

our family. I write about in Blessed Union, our marriage. My husband

sometimes will get in a pretty serious depressive episode where he's

not able to get out of bed really for a few days.

And so wouldn't it be beautiful if we had the type

of community where we could openly say we're struggling?

If you brought over a lasagna or chicken,

this would really help and bless our families, but we don't.

I've talked to other church groups where a mom struggling to

raise three kids and two of them have mental health challenges

and her anxiety is so high, and she said

it would help so much just to have someone bring over a chicken dinner.

One less thing for me to worry about and give my family a

nice meal. So mental health is

health helps to break down that stigma. And it's

also related to this idea of parity and you see

this in our healthcare system and insurance that we don't

cover medical care for mental health as

we do other types of medical care. So in the advocacy

realm, we're really trying to advocate for equal treatment to

equally cover with insurance anything related to

mental health as you would any other kind of health disease

or disorder. Wow. Can you say

something about there's good data in your

book, Blessed Youth around the impact of the pandemic

and how it exposed the crisis, like the

crisis of mental health, particularly with children and

youth, but also what I call

borrowing words from your book and from Martin

Luther King, Jr. The fierce urgency of now. So the impact of the pandemic,

what it has exposed, and why this

current moment is important for

not tacit advocacy, but really strong,

urgent advocacy around support, around mental

health. There is a

fierce urgency of now. The Surgeon general

issued an advisory, and this is pretty rare that the

Surgeon General would do an advisory, but he did in

December of 2021. And this is related to the spike

in suicides in our

youth. And so the data is still coming out. We're still updating

it. The most recent data I read, talked about 60%

of teenagers are expressing feelings of

depression and anxiety. And we know that depression

and anxiety, if unaddressed, can lead to

suicide. And so I am really

hoping that churches will take this seriously and that

all of us who care about children and teens will have the

conversation and create a safety

plan for our children. It is my

conviction that everybody, no matter what your

age, needs a safety plan because suicide rates

are going up for all of us,

even elderly. The highest suicide rate of the

general public are white men in their

70s.

Yes. And the rates are going up for boys,

boys of color, and that's

often not talked about. But the pressures on

communities of color and the social unrest

and the racial injustices are leading

to deaths of despair. And so the faith community,

this is where we can encourage each other, because the science

is also showing that as faith communities,

we have a key tool to help prevent these deaths of

despair, and that is the spiritual connection

to God and to one another.

Dr. Lisa Miller is a researcher out of Columbia University.

In her new book, Awakened Brain, she has done the science and

she has the data that we can prevent these deaths

of despair by strengthening our

spirituality. She's Jewish. Yeah, she is

Jewish. But she says in her research that spirituality is

a living relationship with a living God who

is actively loving us.

Yes. And so the more we can strengthen our living

relationship with a living, loving God.

And this is really what I heard you say in your story about your mother

in law, is that she was at church, she was surrounded

by people who loved her, by you and the church. And I think that

that was probably key in her recovery and in

her well being. As part of her plan, in addition

to a doctor, she had a pastor, she had a prayer partner.

She spent time in the Word

and encouraged through the living relationship she

had with a loving God. Sarah, you said something I

don't want to let get by, particularly for our listeners. You said a

safety plan. What is a safety plan?

So a safety plan is three people

that we promise we will contact if we're having

thoughts of despair and self harm.

Wow. Safety plan. And there's a safety pledge in my

survival guide for youth that's a companion to the book.

It's blessed Youth Survival Guide. There's a part in that book that

helps people think through okay, who are three

people I trust that I can tell,

text or call when I am low,

low. Some people are probably thinking, I don't

have three people. Right? Exactly. Somebody's saying, I can't think of

three people. And that's why you need a safety plan. That's why

we're thinking ahead of time. And if you

have one person, you have one person. It really just takes one.

We like to say three because sometimes people have their phone

turned off. They're not able to get back to you in your text. So if

you are surrounded by three people, so this survival

guide is a chance to think ahead. Okay,

who would my three people be and tell them ahead

of time, say, hey, by the way, you're one of the three safeties

in my life. This is what that means.

And that feels good to know that there's this agreement

that there are three people who you trust who will

be there for you when you reach out to them.

Sarah, how do we equip the people in our safety plan

group, as it were? I know for young people, really,

basically anybody, they're more likely to reach out to a friend, sometimes even

a coworker or somebody like that, for help rather than a parent.

For a youth or an authority figure or pastor or

teacher or something like that, they're much more likely to reach

out to a peer is the word I'm looking for. Peer. So how can we

help equip them in the safety group here and to help people to get

this set up? Well, the challenge with the

peer connection is that it doesn't go far enough.

There's a lot of pressure in peer groups to not get anyone

in trimble or to make anyone mad. And when people are

in crisis, there's lots of emotions and there's a sense

of secrecy. Don't tell anyone, and losing a friendship.

So part of the training with our youth is that we need to

tell trusted adults this is not something they can handle by themselves,

and God forbid someone would die because they kept

it a secret or were worried about losing a friendship.

And so we tell the youth that it's better to upset

your friend than to have them die. And so

that's why there's this idea of telling adults

and for adults to be trained. And so that's another opportunity for

our faith communities, is to be the place where we have those trainings.

The gold standard is mental health first aid.

That's a nonprofit partnering with faith communities.

They come to your church, they do an eight hour certificate training.

It tells you the warning signs for someone in distress and how

to respond and get help. Nationally, we have 8988

so instead of calling 911 to get the police,

we encourage people to call nine, eight, eight.

It's a mental health crisis hotline. And when

I train folks, we actually call nine eight eight. And when I call them,

I say I'm doing a training. We have a group of people here. Would you

walk us through what you would do to help us if we were in a

crisis?

So you provide a

gift for me as I was reading Blessed Youth, and I

really would like you to expand on it a little bit,

Sarah, because this is kind of a

theological word as well. Bless it. I think about

the Sermon on the Mount and different translations

of the word, but the word blessed, you breathe for me. You breathe new

life into that word on what it means to be holy as

well as whole. W-H-O-L-E-N.

Holy. H-O-L-Y So

can you say more about what blessed? I said this

a few days ago in a sermon, that our

sacred worth is not subject to debate.

So God has already blessed us to be loved,

but there's so many other voices that come in. So what does

the word bless it? How do you

breathe that life into that as being holy

and whole? Thank you so much.

Mental health is what impacts our emotions,

our feelings, our behaviors, our relationships.

Mental health impacts everything. And so when we are having a mental

health challenge, it impacts our moods, how we think

and feel about ourselves. And so oftentimes,

mental illnesses will cause a low self esteem,

a feeling of worthlessness, a feeling of hopelessness,

despair. The part of our brain that processes mental

illness is also the similar part that processes

spirituality. And so one of the side effects

of it is feeling like God has abandoned

us because our brains have sort of blocked

that spiritual pathway. And so people can feel

utterly abandoned and forsaken by God when they are really

in what I call the valleys of the shadow of mental illness.

And so in the midst of that, I want to remind myself

and other folks that we are blessed.

We are not cursed, we are not forsaken. As we

hear Jesus say, blessed are the poor in spirit,

blessed are those who live with mental illness and their

loved ones. This reminds us that we are more than our illness.

We are more than our diagnosis. We are more than our label.

We are more than what's broken about us.

We are made in the image of God,

and we are Jesus's beloved disciples,

part of God's family. And so I have to remind myself

because like a lot of folks in my family, we have generations

of mental health challenges. We have bipolar disorder

that is genetic. So I can see four generations

of people in my family that have bipolar disorder.

And so someone might say, wow, is that a family curse.

This just keeps passed on from generation to generation

who here sinned. And so that's

just kind of always there for me, because that's so much how we

talk in the Christian faith, right? Cursed and

sin, it's all throughout the Bible. But really, would God

do that? Would God take God's precious,

beloved people and curse them with generations of

bipolar disorder? Not. My God. That's not

a God of love and grace. My God says, you know

what? You're human, you're beloved. You have a brain.

Sometimes our brains are made differently. And so

I like this idea of neurodiversity.

We all have diversity in the ways our brains work.

And when folks like your mother in law get support and help,

these different brains can be beautiful, can create

art, new ideas,

talents. And a lot of our best thinking

and original ideas come from people whose brains

are different. And so that's also part of this idea of

blessed and to really focus on the

beauty and the giftedness that we all have.

No matter what mental health diagnosis we have

or medications we take.

It'S so important to realize that everyone

has a story and also the understanding of from

birth on, we often think of people

at a certain age things being noticed or diagnosed.

But in your book, you talk about even early on as infants

and prenatal, some of these things are happening.

I think back now on some things as a parent. Looking back,

I said maybe we were really missing some things

that were going on. Or even I think of things,

language that I confessed before God and all of our podcast

listeners that I think back on words that I used

or thoughts that I had that really were not healthy. You know,

why? When we said, well, those are bad kids as opposed to good

kids, bad behavior and all of these things

that without thinking about it,

stigmatize and label, when really our

stories are maybe a lot more complex than we extend

enough grace to understand.

Does that make sense? I know I'm rambling a little bit. But maybe you it

does make sense, yeah. And I think our churches can

be places where that judgment comes out.

So I think we all have stories of encounters at church with

our kids where it's like, oh,

is my kid being bad or is my kid acting in

a way that's not wanted

here? And so our church has a playground.

We have a space for kids to be in the sanctuary

where there's no pews, there's soft pillows and

carpeting. And other pastors are starting to create spaces

where children can be themselves if they have ADHD or

autism, that whatever way they behave, they're not being

bad. They're just trying to manage all

of their sensory stimulation. And so

to not label kids or punish them just

because their brains have them acting and

thinking a little different, too many families that are staying

home. They're not coming to church because they're tired

of being judged or having their kids labeled

or feeling rejected. And so it's really a convicting

moment that there's more we can do.

There's more grace and love. We can show people.

So to be proactive about that. So what would it look like

for your faith community to have a mental health ministry

where you create spaces and programming that are welcoming

of youth, who are neurodivergent, who have autism,

who have ADHD, who have social phobias

and really don't feel comfortable interacting with other people?

That is so fantastic. I hope those who are listening the

last church I served before I was elected a bishop had a mental health

ministry that only came about because lay people came to me.

I was a pastor and they educated me and they

said, Pastor, we are just missing it. There are people in our church who

are hurting. They're kind of quietly dealing with things. And then we linked with

Nami and another support group and provided

space for a support of ministry. We highlighted

Mental Health Awareness Month and I made a public

commitment to preach several times around this. But it

was laypeople who actually came and parents and adults.

We had one person who had been traumatized because she had been

in a train wreck and that created a whole post

traumatic stress illness and she helped lead

us creating this ministry. I'm saying this because I know

someone may listen to the podcast and wondering,

how do you get started? This kind of leads to my next question how

do you become mental health advocates in the faith community?

How do we think about I've been to several of our churches

that do have that play space, and I thought I said, boy, I wish

I would have when I was an active pastor at the time,

created space for noise in the sanctuary

or in the same space so parents wouldn't have a reason to

not come to church. We would eliminate those barriers.

So what does it mean to become mental health advocates and

how does one get started? Maybe there are people hearing

this or others who work in

this area,

in their work life, but they don't bring that to their faith

space. Thank you, Bishop, for your leadership

and advocacy. Preaching about mental health makes a huge

difference to break the silence from the pulpit

because like I said at the top of this conversation, the stigma is

really the barrier that prevents people from getting help and

support. So preach about mental health. May is Mental Health Month. So preach

about it. Pray about it out loud in your corporate prayer of

the people. And then bring in Nami. The National Alliance on

Mental Illness. They have trained volunteers who want to share

their story and can share a mission moment in worship. Have an

educational program after church. Our church has anami

support group that meets here they have family to family support

groups, the caregivers of people with

mental health challenges. They need support. There's peer to peer

support groups from Nami. Nami is always looking for good

places to meet that are safe and welcoming and inviting.

Mental health. First aid is another great training in the United Church

of Christ. I help develop a whole resource called Wise.

Welcoming, inclusive,

supportive, engaged for mental health.

Wise. And it's a whole ten step process.

And a church then votes to become a wise church.

And part of that is a covenant, a beautiful

promise that this church makes to be welcoming,

inclusive, supportive and engaged. And a key

part of that journey to be wise is education.

Learning about what is mental health, learning about what

would you do if someone comes into your church in a mental health

crisis? How can we love and support them?

What does it mean to have a pastor who needs to go on medical

leave for their mental health? What does it mean to be an advocate

in Indiana as we try to pass Senate Bill One to

fully fund mental health crisis support? How can people of

faith leverage the teachings of Jesus to

love our neighbor and call our senators so that they will fully

fund mental health care? So it really is an exciting

ministry opportunity and

it's also a wonderful outreach opportunity to

show the love of Jesus to our community.

And so mental health ministry, if it's something that you all are interested

in, I would pray that you would start the

conversation and you can read books to help

get the conversation going. So Blessed Youth has a free

study guide you can find on the Chalice Press website.

Speaking of youth, when we talk about peer to peer,

is there a way for peers? I can think back

down. Our oldest son, many years

ago was really trying to be a

friend to a friend who was going through a traumatic time

and came to me and asked for all

I remember saying is, try to be the best friend you can be.

I wish now, looking back, I was maybe better equipped

to have to really been sensitive to what he was dealing with

because it may have been a life crisis situation.

Is there peer to peer training? Because a lot of times the person

that someone in high school or junior high might speak to might

be a friend before, as Brad was saying, they would necessarily

contact their parents. Yes. So there is peer to

peer training. Mental Health First Aid has a youth training

and Nami, the National Lund on Mental Illness, is working

with schools to create these peer support groups.

And we have churches who their youth group is a mental

health peer support group. They meet after school to

do homework together, but they also have check ins and

they check in with each other about how their mental health is doing

and. So faith communities can have these mental

health support groups and like I said at the beginning,

the spiritual connection to a living God.

We can have spiritual support groups for mental health and the

United Church of Christ. We have a whole guideline for how to

do that. My church has a spiritual support group, and what it

is is a safe space to check in and to

pray for each other as part of our holistic care for our

mental health. Sarah I'm going to stay United Methodist,

but I sure am liking some of what the United Church of Christ is

doing, so I hope you're willing to come, maybe do

some of that training for some of our folks as well.

We can just work across ecumenical

relationships and do that. We do have ecumenical

partners. So if you look at the United Church of Christ mental

Health Network, it has

a synagogue that has used this resource and is a wise synagogue.

We have Episcopal and Presbyterian churches, and now we have

nonprofits that have found this wise model.

You can adapt it to your culture and context.

So it really is just a beautiful model to help journey

alongside people. We can't do this

on our own in Silos, anyway.

This is an epidemic, is it not? Sara, we were talking about

the epidemic of suicide, for one.

I don't even go off in this tangent too much, but gun violence is

so often associated with mental health issues.

I just noticed in a couple of recent episodes, they're almost a weekly

deal, but there was obvious social media and phone calls

reaching out, basically saying, I'm going to do this because

I'm ending my life. Shoot some people.

But my point is, you have to be in partnership with other churches,

with social service agencies, with our schools, with our

medical health facilities and all because

it is a crisis that we need to leverage every resource at

hand. Am I correct in sharing that?

Amen. You read my book. Because that's what youth is

all about, partnering families with faith communities, with schools,

with mental health professionals. Well, I think my

yes, my encouragement is that the church pastors

and lay leaders, you can initiate this in your community

because there's a historic division between religion

and the sciences, and so there's a lot of

mistrust. There is this assumption that faith people

just want to pray it away, that we just want the Lord to save

us. Thoughts and prayers don't always cut it all the way, do they?

Right? So they need us to initiate, say, we realize in

addition to prayer and Jesus, we need doctors and therapists

and social workers. So we want to invite you to partner with us.

Waiting for that thoughts and prayers is one part of it, but you got to

take action. You got to be physically I love what you said earlier about being

physically engaged. Sometimes it means intervention

and other things as well, and having that going on,

and that's awesome. And I'm certainly a believer in that. And it all

goes back, if I'm understanding you, Sarah, to some of your personal

stories about your own family, your niece and so on. Bishop about

your mother in law. I've got stories in my family about

borderline personality disorder that could go

off a big tangent about but it's all very personal. But it

is relevant to our whole societal health at large.

And that's what I think. We can do something in the church as an initiative

point, whatever church we're in. And however, the church can have a true

impact in society through saying, okay, here we're making a

stand. And to show that encouragement

through caring for each other, slowing down

and asking, how is it with your soul?

Oh, yeah. That sounds

a little bit of Wesley and doesn't it? Bishop yeah, that's a little Wesley in

there. Hey, Sarah, I know we're kind of running out

of time, but you made reference to a book. Was it awakening

around the brain? And what was the name of that book? And author

Dr. Lisa Miller at Columbia University

wrote the new book The Awakened. Brad,

the awakened brain. Okay. It's about neuroscience and spirituality,

cutting edge research, and it's very much affirming of

our churches. And our whole purpose is to support people's

spirituality. Little did we know that is mental health

ministry awesome. Well, friends, I would just

say, even though you've heard reference to that first

book, you should get is Blessed Youth. So if you get that,

this should be a national bestseller. In fact, get the book if

you read it. If it doesn't bless you, I'll buy it back from

you. If you can find me. If you can find me in person.

There you go. There you go. I did have one final question.

Comment, Brad, before we bring our time together, and that was in

the book. It makes reference and this is very relevant,

the role that social media has played. And I've had some discussions

in my own family around the blessing of social media and

technology and the multiple digital platforms

as well as I won't call it the curse, but the downside of

that and how sure, we understood

experience bullying, but maybe not at this kind of level with

social media. Can you say you make reference to this in the book

in terms of the role social media has played in

exacerbating this pandemic,

if you will, epidemic of mental stress?

Yes. We need to watch very closely how our children

engage online. My niece, who did die

by suicide, she found the means to die on the

Internet. And there are resources

that will alert you to any searches

like that. And so we always need to know, what are our children reading,

listening to? Who are they connecting to?

Because the Internet can help us as well.

There was research about high school students. And it found that

students with an authentic connection were less likely to have

suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety. And it didn't matter

if that was an in person or online.

What mattered was an authentic, caring connection.

So the Internet can give us that, but it also can harm us.

And so for us as adults, we've got to monitor

very closely what type of activities

our kids are doing online. One of the greatest search

phrases on Google last year, right at the top two or three,

was the phrase, how can I heal? And I think

that's informative to us. But in terms of our conversation

here and bringing it around, Sara, one of the things we love to do,

the theme of our whole podcast here is to be encouraged.

So would you share with us just a thought, an encouraged word,

encouraging thought that you have to kind of help

us to wrap up our conversation here today? Well, I love

Psalm 23. It's one that a lot of us hear throughout our

lives. And the reason I love it is because of this promise

that even though I walk through the valley of the

shadows, I fear no evil, for you are with me, you comfort

me. So no matter what you are going through, be encouraged.

For God, who is a living, loving God, is with

you through the valley of the shadows, and you will reemerge

into the light of love, with hope,

with God's promise, and with God's love.

Thank you for sharing that, Bishop. I want you to close us under your own

closing thoughts and prayer in a moment here. I just did want to say that

our guest today here on To Be Encouraged is Sarah

Griffith Lund and her latest book is Blessed Youth Breaking

the Silence about mental illness with children and teens.

And you can find her@blessedmind.org.

And it's Sara Griffith.com,

and we'll put links to everything she is about at our

website, encouraged.com.

Bishop, final word of encouragement and a prayer, please.

Sometimes people are looking for a sign, and maybe this podcast

might be just a sign you were looking for that you are loved.

Often say I try to explain grace in this way, using my

spiritual imagination, if you will, that God has a printing press

in heaven and God is making name plates

and name tags in heaven, everybody's name.

And on the back of your name tag says, you are loved.

So I want everyone to know that you are loved. It's not subject

to debate. It doesn't have to go before the state legislature,

the US. Congress or the Supreme Court.

God loves you, and there's nothing you can

do about it but receive that love. Psalm 71 says, in you,

O Lord, I take refuge. Let me never be put to

shame in your righteousness. Deliver us,

deliver me, rescue me, incline your ear to me, save me,

be to me a rock of refuge. A strong refuge to

save me. We pray that God will be your rock and that this podcast

may be the sign of encouragement that you need

it. For today you are loved.

And in the name of Jesus, I ask blessings upon all

who here. And we thank you for listening

today to the two B encouraged podcast

with Bishop Julia C. Trimble. I'm your co host,

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller. Until next time, friends. We encourage

you to always do all the good that