This is the Church’s Moment
Updated: 6 days ago
By Shaunti Feldhahn, Ph.D., Social Researcher and Author of When Hurting People Come to Church
Speaker in the Listen video series with The Church Cares, and a central part of our team
Here at The Church Cares, we aim to nurture the congregational care helpers. That’s why we’re proud to offer free high-quality support to those who want to pray, care, and engage more effectively with the hurting world around them.
Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Have you ever quickened your step to open a door for a young mom pushing a stroller? Or maybe you saw someone in the church parking lot struggling with a heavy load of bags or boxes and you rushed over to help carry their load.
It felt good, didn’t it? For them and for you.
Friend, we don’t have to limit our caring response to physical needs. Writing to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul encouraged the believers there to carry each other’s burdens. The original Greek word for “carry” means to bear, to lift, to endure. That’s more involved than carrying a box of VBS supplies to the church office! Paul’s instruction involves presence, listening, and walking alongside one another. It requires staying.
As a church, we often don’t have a plan for how to carry out Paul’s instruction. We like being there for each other. We lack the organization to do it well.
I believe with all my heart (and backed by statistics that make the case) that it’s time for the church to reclaim its historic role in helping people navigate their mental and emotional pain. A truly human crisis exists around mental health today. In the U.S. alone, nearly 60 million U.S. adults live with mental illness, such as anxiety and depression, or trauma and grief responses that have become disordered. And 50% of those with clinically significant mental illness—almost 30 million adults, roughly the size of the state of Texas!—are not receiving care.
Why? There are many reasons, but topping the list is that there aren’t enough caregivers. Pastors and clinicians are overwhelmed.
This could be, and should be, the church’s moment.
Yes, counselors are vital. But we have gotten too used to the idea that “mental health care” means “refer to a professional.” We have to get back to people, the body of Christ, as being a critical part of the solution too. The early church in Acts took care of each other in every way. It’s our hour to reclaim the mantle of listening, supporting, and caring for each other. That person in your small group who is going through marriage issues may indeed need specialized care. But they also need a friend.
Pastors are nearly unanimous on the power of people to help each other in this way. In a national survey of 2,000 pastors, 96% say that church community members supporting each other is one of the best ways to foster good mental health in church.
So, how do we get there?
The same way Moses did in the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, when Moses tried to take on a leadership role too heavy for him, his father-in-law Jethro bluntly said, “What you are doing is not good . . . The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone” (Exodus 18:17-18). So, Moses chose leaders to help in groups.
To make this real today, our pastors can share a vision for care that starts at the top and divests down to people in the church—an organizational structure that reminds us of what Moses instituted. Leaders can offload the burden from resting solely on their shoulders and instead rely on the church body to serve the church body.
Churches can mobilize their best asset—their people—to provide care for those who feel isolated, anxious, or without hope. Not every issue requires a mental health professional.
Some people simply need a trained, listening ear.
Just a few verses after encouraging his friends to bear each other’s burdens, Paul encouraged them to not become weary in doing good. He continued, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10, emphasis added).
Can you imagine the health and strength and victory we would unleash if we, as a church, truly carried each others’ burdens? Not every emotional pain needs specialized counseling. Some of the aches common to the human heart just need to not be carried alone.
With words that reach through two millennia to today, Paul reminds us this is how we fulfill the law of Christ.
And what is that law by the way? It’s love. “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14).
Our neighbor is the woman worried about her teenager, sniffling in the pew behind us. It’s the man who just lost his job and thinks failure and shame might swallow him whole. It’s the visitor who stumbled through the church’s doors hungover thinking this place might offer relief.
The church has a powerful opportunity to sit with our neighbor in their loneliness. To offer hope when they think all hope is gone. To walk alongside each other—to endure—when the road of depression or trauma recovery are long.
Church, the only force stronger than us in this world is the Holy Spirit that empowers us. Let’s step boldly into Paul’s instruction to carry each other’s burdens. This could be the church’s finest hour.
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