Over the last few years, I have facilitated an annual workshop on mental health for Methodist youths and young adults from Chinese Annual Conference (CAC) churches.¹ I always have a good time leading the workshops because the attendees are very engaged. And while running the workshops, I noticed some trends. On one hand, our young people are growing increasingly literate in mental health issues. On the other hand, more and more of them tell me that they themselves are experiencing poor mental health. This latter trend is not surprising. Many countries are experiencing a mental health crisis. “At least one in five, and in some parts of the world perhaps as many as one in two, people experience mental ill health during the course of their lifetime.”² Estimates show that mental illness accounts for almost a third of all years lived globally with disability.³ In Singapore, in 2022, more than a person a day on average committed suicide, with poor mental health often being a significant contributing factor.

Suicide is the leading cause of death among youths (aged 10 to 29) in Singapore.⁴ Just this year, then-Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong stated that addressing mental well-being is a “key priority” on our national agenda.⁵

Unfortunately, one more thing that my workshop attendees consistently tell me is that their churches are not engaging sufficiently with mental health. Indeed, it is lamentable that “many churches still consider mental health as outside the domain of their ministry.”⁶ To redress this, I would like to put forward several reasons why churches should care about mental health.

What is mental health?

Before we discuss those reasons, we will first identify what we mean by the term “mental health”. Mental health is not fundamentally about the presence or absence of mental illness (e.g. clinical depression). We should distinguish between having a mental illness and having poor mental health. While “people with mental health conditions are more likely to experience lower levels of mental well-being … this is not always or necessarily the case” (italics added).⁷ This is because mental health is a complex phenomenon involving the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of a person’s life.⁸ Even if a person has a mental illness (biology), they might still experience satisfactory levels of mental well-being due to medication (biology), therapy (psychology), and support from their church (spirituality) and family/friends (society). Such a holistic perspective on mental health helps us to better understand why churches should be concerned about mental health—as we shall see in the next section.

Four reasons for churches to care

Having defined what mental health is, let us consider four reasons why churches should take mental health seriously.

Firstly, if our congregations reflect national trends, then poor mental health is already the lived experience of many of our church members. In 2019, some of my friends edited a volume entitled Mental Health and the Gospel Community, a collection of essays reflecting the stories of a wide swath of Christians in Singapore who struggle with mental health. Pastors and lay people, professionals and students, parents and children—no group was exempt. Thus, a church that turns a blind eye to mental health issues is choosing to be irrelevant to a critical need of their members.

Moreover, since the growth of mental health challenges is a reality in our broader society, this also means that there is a large window of opportunity for missions. There is tremendous potential for the Church in Singapore to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ through engaging with the mental health needs of our society. Indeed, the harvest is plentiful, if only our churches would take up the call to plough this mission field, both locally and abroad!

Secondly, churches must recognise that persons with mental health conditions often experience stigma and marginalisation. It is notable that a major mental health campaign in Singapore is titled “Beyond the Label”.⁹ When a person is diagnosed with mental illness, many deep-seated stereotypes attach themselves to that individual. I have personally experienced this. During my youth, when I struggled with depression—when I most needed help—I was labelled as “孤僻” (gū pì), i.e. withdrawn, anti-social, eccentric. This only served to further isolate me from those around me.

But the good news is that the Bible tells us that God loves those who are alienated and excluded! Deut 27:19; Ps 146:7; Isa 1:17; Zech 7:10; Luke 14:13–14; Jam 1:27—text after text in Scripture reveals God’s heart for those whom society pushes to the margins. Thus, churches seeking to be faithful to God’s character must take mental health seriously, for persons with mental illness are surely included in the Great Commission’s command for us to make disciples of all people!

Thirdly, churches must recognise that Christian discipleship and mental health go hand in hand. While the terms “mental health” or “mental illness” are never used in Scripture, mental health is a frequent concern of Scripture. For instance, it is striking how many aspects of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23 are essentially dimensions of mental well-being, e.g. joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control.

Moreover, psychological research also suggests that healthier forms of religiosity are correlated with better mental health outcomes.¹⁰ Hence, if a church desires to be a disciple making church, mental health care must be a key aspect of its discipleship approach. Mental health literacy should also be regarded as a core ministry skill for leaders. Quantitative or qualitative measures of the mental well-being of a congregation would be meaningful indicators that contribute to the overall evaluation of a discipleship programme’s effectiveness. (Do note, however, that having poor mental health should not be taken to indicate that a person is a poor disciple.)

Fourthly, churches must recognise that they are already involved in shaping the mental health of their members. As mentioned earlier, mental health is a complex phenomenon which is shaped by multiple factors, including our social and spiritual interactions with others. Thus, if a person is involved in a church, that community will affect that individual’s mental health journey, whether they want to or not! Thus, the key question is: will churches influence their members’ mental health in a healthy way or otherwise?

Sadly, ill-considered theologies or practices in churches can be disabling and contribute to poor mental health in their members. Lamentably, I have seen many examples of Christians mentally “burning out” due to a workaholic culture of excessive service in Singaporean churches. Thankfully, the opposite is also true: wise teaching, supportive culture and healthy practices in a church can contribute positively to its members’ mental well-being.

Conclusion: A call to respond

Mental health missions; God’s heart for the marginalised; Christian discipleship; a church’s inextricable involvement in mental health—these are four major reasons why every church in Singapore should take mental health seriously. Mental health advocacy is not a fad. Jesus came that we might have life and have it to the fullest (John 10:10). Surely such an abundant life must include mental well-being. And while perfect mental health will not be possible before Jesus returns, we must still take mental health seriously in our faith communities. Indeed, every local church should be an oasis of sabbath and shalom in this chronically anxious world.

¹ These workshops were conducted as part of the Finding Your Place (FYP) programme. The FYP was started in 2020 by the CAC Board of Youth Ministry with the objective of preparing youths and young adults to flourish in God’s kingdom.

² Christopher C H Cook, Isabelle Hamley and John Swinton, Struggling with God: Mental Health and Christian Spirituality (London: SPCK, 2023), 12.

³ Daniel Vigo, Graham Thornicroft and Rifat Atun, ‘Estimating the True Global Burden of Mental Illness,’ The Lancet Psychiatry 3, no. 2 (February 2016): 171–78.

⁴ Samaritans of Singapore, ‘Highest Recorded Suicide Numbers in Singapore Since 2000,’ July 1, 2023, https://www.sos.org.sg/media/press-releases/ (accessed 27 May 2024).

⁵ Yan Han Goh, “Mental Health a National Priority, Says DPM Wong; 28,000 More to Be Trained to Help in Community,” The Straits Times (Singapore, 15 February 2024), https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/mental-health-a-national-priority-says-dpm-wong-28000-more-to-be-trained-to-help-in-community.

⁶ Edmund Ng, “Mental Health Literacy as a Ministry Skill: Basic Ways to Equip Church Leaders in Asia and Beyond,” Lausanne Movement, 24 January 2023, https://lausanne.org/about/blog/mental-health-literacy-as-a-ministry-skill. Accessed 22 July 2024.

⁷ World Health Organization, Mental Health Factsheet.

⁸ American Psychiatric Association Foundation, Mental Health: A Guide for Faith Leaders (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Foundation, 2018), 13.

⁹ See https://www.ncss.gov.sg/our-initiatives/beyond-the-label. Accessed 23 July 2024.

¹⁰ See John Swinton, Spirituality and Mental Health Care: Rediscovering a ‘Forgotten’ Dimension, PTS (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2001), 33–34. For a more recent review of literature, see Larkin Elderon Kao, John R Peteet, and Christopher C H Cook, ‘Spirituality and Mental Health,’ Journal for the Study of Spirituality 10, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 42–54.