Christian Community and Mental/Emotional Illness

[temporal1]

The query is how does your fellowship deal with individuals who have these issues?
Leave out the politics, please ..

i like your request.
it's tough to leave politics out.
i hope others will do better than i .. like ..

My church has a few people who struggle with these things.
The stance seems to be that the illnesses are a result of the devil's influence in the world; those with illnesses are encouraged to combat the issue spiritually and through medical treatment (if necessary).

[MaxPC]

Note: this is a sincere query, not a demonization of those who have these issues.

Now that that's clear I'll ask:
How does your fellowship deal with these issues, e.g.
-manic depression
-obsessive-compulsive disorder
-schizophrenia
-addictions of any sort
-autism
-developmental disabilities
-sensory disabilities (blind, deaf,etc)

Seems like there is a difference in the first 6 and the last 1. Regarding the first 6, these have not been a very high profile or divisive issue at our church. Of course there are opinions of both sides, some strong. The stronger opinions against medication generally come from people that have little or no experience with these problems. In a nutshell, I'd say our most common course of action is to go to a medical doctor and take medication.

We shouldn't pretend to be experts in these things if we have no training. Some people seem to have a propensity for fringe healing techniques that have no trial data, and no oversite. I personally have little time for these methods.

What we should be experts in, is discerning the spirits; if the person is obviously a Christian and loves the Lord, then it is easy to trust and believe them when they say that the medication is helping them. But if a persons life does not add up in other areas, and then that person claims a mental illness, then I'm prone to skepticism about it being a medical need.

As long as they aren't involved in the occult, they are free to use whatever works.

Thank you for your input, RZehr & KB. Do your fellowships have any group homes for those with more severe forms of these issues?

A clarification: That list focused on conditions that interfere with a person's ability to function in general, hence the inclusion of physical disabilities.

[KingdomBuilder]

No, our fellowship does not have a group home.

[RZehr]

Thank you for your input, RZehr & KB. Do your fellowships have any group homes for those with more severe forms of these issues?

A clarification: That list focused on conditions that interfere with a person's ability to function in general, hence the inclusion of physical disabilities.

Usually as long as there is hope for improvement, and money in the family to do so, a lot of effort and research is put into special education (autism, developmental disabilities), or healing (depression, OCD, schizophrenia).
When the decision is made to move into 'maintenance' mode, the burden of taking care of people with these problems, falls on the immediate family. As the person becomes older, and the parents age, then siblings may take responsibility possibly by turns.
Addictions are a major problem for us because we don't know how best to help.

If the burden is to heavy for the family, then the church helps. However, it seems that the burden threshhold is very high, because it rare to see the church helping, other than in small ways. Probably because the large immediate families are the first line of defense, and then the large extended families are the secondary line.

[Wade]

MaxPC,

Why don't you get started with telling us how your fellowship deals with these things?

I know some Catholic's that provide housing for people coming to the area for treatment with illness for free. Obviously these types of things are not advertised and they have only mentioned about what they are doing briefly and I have seen things that may imply they are doing a lot more than they say.

[Josh]

Mennonites have some group homes for MR/DD individuals and also have some residential programmes for people with serious behavioural issues. Ernie and GaryK talked on the old MD about starting another one of the latter.

Like RZ said the group homes come into play once family and extended family have exhausted their own resources.

[MaxPC]

Thank you all for your input. I am examining the concept of faith-based services via a model that would provide a continuum of care that ranges from an outpatient model for counseling to the full time residency programs.

When in Florida some years ago we visited a Lutheran senior care "village" that offered a continuum of care from garden apartments for the more independent seniors to a full time assisted living with 24/7 nursing care all on the same campus. It was a very efficient and top notch model.

[Bootstrap]

Are you setting up such a program? In what context are you examining this?

[lesterb]

Some of you have perhaps heard of Eagles Wings, a counselling center originally run by the Midwest in Ontario. This center was shut down but has been bought by the Old Order church with the intention of continuing it.

I thought this was a pretty interesting development and certainly out of the ordinary for the OOM's.

[MaxPC]

Some of you have perhaps heard of Eagles Wings, a counselling center originally run by the Midwest in Ontario. This center was shut down but has been bought by the Old Order church with the intention of continuing it.

I thought this was a pretty interesting development and certainly out of the ordinary for the OOM's.

I'm glad to hear this