Emotional & mental health

Lee Stephenson: Everyone, welcome to the Unfiltered podcast. My name's Lee Stephenson and I have the fun and the joy, the privilege of being able to oversee church planting for Converge. And my co-host here.

Danny Parmelee: I'm Danny Parmelee. And I oversee church planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And we're just continuing the conversation about church planting and pastoral ministry. And leadership in this season is completely different. And I don't know about what you've heard, Danny, but I know a lot of the conversations I've had, I see it in our church as well, is that there's a lot of people that are just struggling emotionally. And they are facing the dark side of, whether or not it'd be a dark side of their marriage, a dark side of their own personality, their own leadership ability. And I've been trying to peg what that thing is, and since that, there's an element that there are a lot of people in our churches, a lot of people in the community that may not even be connected at church that are just wrestling with a lack of purpose in this season, what are you seeing? Are you seeing that issue as well?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I think so and there's, you know, there's probably a little bit of a time gap or some time that probably went by for this to kind of show its face because in the beginning, people just, you know, they're hunkered down, they they have this resolve. But over time, you have people that are starting to, of course, lose their jobs. And for some, it's even a matter of just their job changing and how many people are even working from home. And whether we like to admit it or not, there is a certain element of purpose that we get when we're gathered, and we're in meetings and we're giving presentations and people are saying good job. And now it's like you're stuck behind a computer doing Zoom calls, and maybe some of those same things happen, but it's just a totally different feel, different environment, and I don't want to be sexist here, but especially even for men and how much identity and value — not saying it's right — identity and value that they get from that work environment, because I'd lump myself in that category as well.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, the affirmation just isn't the same on a Zoom call as it is in person in something. And I think specifically even for pastors, it's different preaching to a screen and a camera than it is preaching to a live audience. And sometimes that you know, you like the affirmation you get instantaneously when you crack a joke and people laugh. Now you crack a joke, and you have to, like, create a fake pause. So expecting that people at home are laughing to the joke.

Danny Parmelee: No, no difference for me Lee in my preaching. They weren't laughing before anyway, so, and my wife has told me that.

Lee Stephenson: She keeps it real man.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, but no, I absolutely agree. I mean, it is a different thing. And even if it's not the laugh of the joke, it is the handshakes afterward that you know, you're in the lobby and people are exiting. ... And we know and we're fully recognizing saying that there is so much of that is of the flesh. So I think that it is a great opportunity to even just recognize that as pastors and planters, and to say, Yeah, man, I really did kind of feed off of some of that, even though I would say it was all for the Lord. So just to kind of recognize that and maybe take that to the Lord in prayer. But there's a reality element to it as well, that we were created to be in community and there is that sense of even genuine encouragement that I think that we all need as people. We need it as pastors as well, but to think of now, people in the congregation. It's the same thing in their work environment, too.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, I totally agree. So thinking through from a strategy standpoint, for our pastors and church leaders out there, if we know that so many of the people in our congregation are wrestling even with what we're wrestling with with maybe redefined purpose, or lack of purpose, lack of affirmation towards purpose in their lives. How can we as the church step into those moments like what words of wisdom would you have for a pastor or church leaders in knowing that purpose is an issue right now?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, I think the easy low hanging fruit on it is the teaching element. And it's teaching with authenticity. So even if it does become a three or four part sermon series, which I believe would be evangelistic, because just like you said, these people not going to church, they're wrestling with the same thing, and they probably have a harder time of even identifying why they're feeling that way. So if pastors and planters can give words to that, and to say this is what's happening even in me and I recognize that this is probably happening in other people as well, I think that that is, you know, just at least somewhat of an easy way to be able to address that. What about you? What are some of the things that you guys are or that you're even doing within your church that goes beyond kind of the speaking from, you know, the crowd, the online sermon type of thing?

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, number one is just trying to get people more engaged. And we'll talk about that even in a whole 'nother episode. Just talking about church engagement happens and how it's changed. But it's more about not just engaging by commenting on Facebook, it's, you know, it's more about how they engage the mission. And really, it's, we are leveraging everything we can and the conversations I'm trying to have with pastors as well leverage everything you can to help people understand evangelism, the mission, like those things need to happen continuously outside of the one hour Sunday experience that we're used to, and I do think that requires a different level of intentionality and relationship than probably a lot of churches have given in, you know, over the history of the church that we think, man if we can get them all to church, then we can really evangelize and just, we've put so much emphasis on the professional staff, or the professional leadership. And the reality is we've got to have a paradigm shift, which I think is a good thing of how are we actually training, equipping our people in helping them understand the importance of this, that God has in essence scattered the church, but that doesn't mean that the mission has stopped. And we've got to press into this more than ever.

Danny Parmelee: Do you have any like super practical examples of whether that you're teaching them something or even giving them an example, in other words, like, hey, this isn't just about showing up at 10 a.m. and using the chat feature to, you know, chat with others, or, you know, just making the shift from instead of inviting them to church, invite them to the online service. This is how you can engage your neighbors because backyard barbecue outreach probably doesn't — not yet at least — isn't still going to be there. But yeah, I don't know if you have some different examples.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah. A couple things that come to mind. One is we've readjusted all of our series in this season, to focus in on that. And so it is a natural part of our conversation that we're just having. So like, for instance, just even this past weekend, my entire sermon was Ephesians chapter five and just talking about the church. Like why why is the church important? Why did God create the church and even more, helping people understand like, why does God even call us the bride of Christ? I don't think a lot of people, if we're honest, a lot of people in the traditional pews, our congregants, truly understand the purpose behind the church. And I think we've got to come back to that and help them understand like, there's a benefit of why church is important in your life, and then help them connect the dots, like knowing that church is important what are you doing to help other people connect to this truth? And then just talking about how do you love your neighbor? And how do you be the Good Samaritan in this season? Whether or not that be through via social media, or writing a note and drop it off at your neighbor's house to trying to get groceries for a shut-in. You know, it's there's just practical ways of trying to help them look for those open doors that God's already created right in their backyard, that maybe before they were too busy to notice. But now because things have dialed back, they realize, man, I have more time and I should intentionally connect with them.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, that's great. I think too, it's, um, it's unique because there is such opportunity to reach out right now. At the same time, you don't want to offend someone. So, you know, I saw, you know, one of our church plants, you know, doing flower delivery stuff, and I'm like, there's some people that probably that just made their day. There's other people that said, What the heck are you doing on my porch? And how am I going to kick this vase or flower off because I don't want your COVID contamination on my thing. So it is just a really unique time of how you try to do, you know, how you take some of those different risks.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah. And then I think, you know, leverage your volunteers like, give the phone list of all the people that have been in your church and just say, Hey, would you mind call 10 of these a week, you know, and just check in and see how they're doing? And I think naturally that that begins to build as well, they realize I can do this. And they don't even need to be connected to my church to in order to be able to do this and you're retraining people, even in just the art of hospitality, even though it hospitality does look different in this time.

Danny Parmelee: Right. I know we've talked about it before, but I don't know if you have any comments on when people lose sense of purpose, and especially those who have struggled with mental health issues. How can the church I guess, just be aware of that or how can pastors or planters maybe realize some of those different signs of mental health that they should intervene and not just wait because, you know, COVID is not a bad snowstorm that you know, is going to get cleaned up in two days type of thing?

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, great, great question. I think, you know, I think number one, you've got to voice that there's a way to help. So just make it real obvious, super easy for those that are willing to self elect and say, Yeah, I need help to be able to take the next step. That's really all you need to create is, what's the next step? Because I think honestly, a lot of people don't even know what the next step is, or where do I go in order to find help. And so make that as easy as you possibly can. And I think talk about it on a regular basis, communicate it to your people via text, email, through your social media, and even you know, add into your sermons. Like we created a separate page, we just call it our we care page. And so people can go there and they could schedule time to meet with a pastor, if they want to do that. They could schedule time, literally directly to go meet with a professional counselor, let alone the ability to if they needed benevolence needs, they could fill out a form directly to be able to access benevolence funding. So again, it was a one stop shop for everybody that had those type of needs to be able to go to.

Danny Parmelee: Oh, that's great. Are you willing to share that so that people can copy that great idea?

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, it's harvestflorida.org/we-care. And you can find what we did there.

Danny Parmelee: See, that's great because it too, it covers so many different things. So that's something then as a resource that you can literally mention in every sermon, and the other thing is is this equips people from your church, when they hear about needs to say, hey, well, have you gone on the website and that could even be people that are outside of the church that then get connected to the church, because they see that the church is, you know, providing a need that way.

Lee Stephenson: Exactly. And you'll be shocked by how people connect with that. It's, you know, I ran into a guy just in the parking lot two weeks ago that loose affiliated not a Christian. Been maybe two or three times to the church ever. Appreciates religion. But he saw me and came up running, like, Hey, I could use your help. Because I have this acquaintance — I wouldn't even call him a friend — but he's showing the signs on social media and even a few texts that he's given me that he's not right mentally. And he, I'm afraid that he's gonna blow his brains out, you know? And he's like, what, how do I help him? I said, Why don't you? Here's a link. Just send him here and if he really wants help, we can have the ability to give him help, and that equipped him in order to be able to help others as well. I think that's really what we've got to be about is how are we, you know, resourcing our people? How are we enabling them to just continue to carry out the mission?

Danny Parmelee: That's great.

Lee Stephenson: Well, great conversation, Danny, just talking a little bit about just how do we help people in this season that lack purpose? And even for those that are our listeners, if you're wrestling with that, I'm going to encourage you to feel free to reach out to one of us, we'd be more than happy to just sit and talk with me and even pray with you. But until next time, everyone, this has been the Unfiltered podcast. Please keep it real.