My friend Sheila and I share the same high horse. We really resent the idea that people of faith like "popular" (often soft) causes and don't challenge themselves with the less popular ones. She works with adult men who have experienced addiction. It's not so much an easy sell.
I think that's true of mental illness. I also think that a larger truth makes all of our prophetic messages resistant to listening. We're just so far behind. Mental health, trauma, and addiction are seriously stigmatized because of external fears and people unwilling to sit beside their crazy people on the porch. (That's from a
Designing Women episode, actually, about Bernice. "Southerners put all our crazy people on the front porch." - Julia Sugarbaker)
A very significant tool to start messaging is the basic rule of hard message/ soft presentation. It's our jobs to use our creativity to give people ears to hear. That's very much how this practical ministry works. Because it's cute, you can be appropriately and appreciably more direct with the message.
We're at this wonderful time for the soil. Some of you north of us may have already mulched your beds and put them to rest for the season, but the ground is probably still soft enough to puncture easily. Many of us are thinking about fall flowers. Most of us are planning something pretty and arresting for re-starting the religious education year.
If the flower beds in your place of worship are available, consider using them for clever messaging. Consider giving faith based mental health an open door. This is an easy way for an introduction of mood facts, using those silly emoticons to talk about emotional discipline during school, or even introducing big topics like alcoholism. I used some of those flower card holders from a florist, but there are scores of ways to hold messages up. Again, make it cute. Make it engaging. It's very effective to make a tough topic (and a new topic to many) like addiction or trauma into a soft setting. This qualifies. Need content? Send me an email, buy a DSM, or go to NAMI.org. Ask a person with an Alt-Brain what they would like to share.
For use with children's ministries, I would have them make fake flowers or take real flowers to the beds to plant. They don't need a lecture; they need exposure. Teach children feelings and facts will follow. They need to learn that Elijah felt sad and ran away. Elijah felt sad and ran away, but sometimes we feel sad and want to hide. God accepts us when we aren't happy. (Wow. Teach that acceptance for personal feelings and for people with depression. So good!!) Children need to learn that Jesus went to visit the crazy man in the cemetery. Better yet, if Jesus did not fear the crazy man in the cemetery then we know that Jesus will be with us when we meet different people like that. Choose your vocabulary as you see fit. Help them know that our faith institutions comfortably teach confidence when we learn about difference.
If I did this with my youth group, I'd decorate five or six different flower beds. Each one would hold a clue to a Scavenger Hunt. Because teenagers are greedy with the clues to a Scavenger Hunt, you don't have to teach anything. You just have to plot a course where they can self-educate for the next clues. Finish it by letting them find some snacks so they can chill and chat as their night winds down. It's a perfectly good exercise.
Adults generally like to show up at worship and sit down. Instead of putting a little sheet of paper in the bulletin like any other thing, take time to affix facts and figures in windows or at the end of pews. People appreciate a little creativity and new visuals. If you did this exercise with a bunch of ambulatory adults, you could do a Prayer Tour. (I learned this idea on the worst mission trip EVER.) Each flower bed could have a theme. Mental health themes divided into six beds: (1) diseases & access to treatment (2) healing from nightmares, from prolonged symptoms, and confusion (3) support of families (4) support of faith communities (5) health insurance and access to care (yeah, go there) and (6) people who are seriously in trouble like addicted to alcohol or drugs or people who want to end their lives. When you engage the Almighty in prayer, it should be possible to be serious or silent as you open your heart to these issues.
If you're convening a hard word or a new issue, all the fuss pokes their curiosity (except the people who will always complain about what you do) and engages the subject in a soft way. My feeling is that if you do a goofy-esque presentation, then you can counter with a harder, straightforward fact-based message.
Blessed Labor Day.
