As ministry leaders, how can we honestly approach our own mental and emotional struggles and create safe spaces for others to do the same? In this week’s conversation on FrontStage BackStage, host Jason Daye is joined by Alan Noble. Alan is a professor at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture and an award-winning author. His most recent book is entitled On Getting Out of Bed. Together, Alan and Jason look at the reality of mental afflictions and how they relate to our spirituality. Alan then shares from his own experiences some words of caution and encouragement on how we can address mental health in ministry.

Looking to dig more deeply into this topic and conversation? Every week we go the extra mile and create a free toolkit so you and your ministry team can dive deeper into the topic that is discussed. Find your Weekly Toolkit below… Love well, Live well, Lead well!

• Video links to this week’s episode – easily share with the ministry leaders in your church
• Audio links to this week’s episode – easily share with the ministry leaders in your church
• Additional resource links from this week’s conversation – so you and your team can easily find what is mentioned or referenced
• Ministry Leaders Growth Guide – key insights and concepts from this week’s conversation as well as engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process
• Full-text transcript of this week’s episode – review something you heard, pass along snippets, post tweets, create presentations to share, or use in whatever way you find most helpful in developing your ministry leaders
• Shareable Social Graphics – Feel free to post them on your church social accounts, your personal accounts, or use them as graphics in your communications

---

Video Links

Share the video with your ministry leaders >> YouTube

---

Audio Links

Share the audio podcast with your ministry leaders…

• This week’s episode on Apple Podcasts
• This week’s episode on Spotify

---

Additional Resource Links

www.oalannoble.com – Check out Alan’s website to access his book, articles, videos, and a range of other helpful resources designed to guide and inspire you on your personal journey of faith and growth.

On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living – For many, sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness are daily struggles. Despite advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the challenge often boils down to making simple choices, like getting out of bed. Alan Noble’s reflections offer a deeply personal yet relatable exploration of these burdens, balancing hope with the reality of suffering. He concludes that choosing to persevere amid pain is a powerful testament to the goodness of life and God.

Connect with Alan – Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Connect with PastorServe – LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 

Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or just want to talk?  Complimentary Coaching Session for Pastors http://PastorServe.org/freesession

---

Ministry Leaders Growth Guide

Key Insights and Concepts

• The Church has always taught that suffering is an inevitable part of life, shaping our understanding of God’s nature and our problems.
• Modern society’s belief that life hacks can solve all problems adds to our suffering by creating unrealistic expectations of perfectibility.
• The prevailing consumerist myth that suffering can be eliminated by the right product or service contributes to a harmful self-blame culture.
• Mental affliction, encompassing both diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions, affects everyone at some point and should be acknowledged inclusively.
• The Psalms reveal that even David, a man after God’s heart, suffered from depression and anxiety, offering a biblical model for voicing our struggles to God.
• The stigma and shame associated with mental illness often lead people to suffer in silence, exacerbating their affliction.
• Genuine community support within the church is essential for overcoming mental afflictions, as isolation intensifies suffering.
• Over-identifying with mental illness as a defining characteristic of one’s life can hinder healing and recovery.
• Balancing vulnerability and prudence in sharing personal struggles is crucial for ministers to avoid oversharing while still modeling responsible openness and providing support.
• Leaders in the church must address the harmful trend of overcorrecting mental health issues with purely spiritual solutions, recognizing the gift and value of medical and therapeutic interventions.
• Emphasizing professional help and creating trusted support networks are vital steps in managing mental afflictions effectively.
• The erroneous belief that emotions always reflect God’s will can lead to significant harm, as emotions are often unreliable indicators of spiritual truth.
• Healthy church communities foster openness and vulnerability, setting a tone of honesty that encourages others to share and seek help.
• Advocating for one’s mental health and well-being honors God and equips individuals to support others effectively.
• Ministers should find a balance between providing spiritual guidance and recommending professional counseling, recognizing the value of both in addressing mental health issues.

Questions for Reflection

• How do I personally understand suffering in my life? How does this shape my view of God’s nature? What does this indicate about my view of the struggles I experience?
• What myths about perfectibility and consumer solutions might I have internalized? How do these affect my approach to my own struggles? When have I sought out resolution outside of the Lord? What were the outcomes?
• How inclusive am I in recognizing and validating all forms of mental affliction, even those I or others around me have not had formally diagnosed? How do I feel about the validation of mental afflictions? How can this shape the way I serve and minister?
• How do the examples of biblical figures like David influence my perspective on my own mental health struggles? In what ways can I identify with David?
• How can I create a safe space in my church where people feel comfortable sharing their mental health struggles without shame or fear?
• Do I feel comfortable sharing my mental health struggles with trusted individuals, or do I tend to keep them private out of shame or fear? Why do I tend to lean that way?
• How can I build a supportive personal network to help me cope with my mental afflictions? Who comes to mind when I think about this network?
• How do I balance being vulnerable about my own struggles with maintaining appropriate boundaries and avoiding oversharing? Have there been instances when I believe I overshared? If so, what did I experience?
• What steps am I taking to seek professional help for my mental health, in addition to relying on spiritual support?
• How do I reconcile the need for both spiritual and medical interventions in addressing my mental health or the mental health of others?
• How do I discern between trustworthy and unreliable emotions, especially during times of mental health struggles? What emotions have I periodically wrestled with in my life? How has this impacted my life and my ministry?
• How open am I to sharing my burdens and seeking support from others? If I struggle with this, what prevents me from doing so?
• How do I view self-care and seeking help in the context of honoring God and fulfilling my ministry effectively?
• What balance do I strive to achieve between providing spiritual counsel to others and recognizing when to recommend professional mental health resources for myself and others? How am I continuing to journey with those I have recommended to professional care?
• ​​What can I do to foster an environment where church leaders and members feel encouraged to share their burdens and support one another? What might this look like at our church or ministry? How can we begin moving in this direction?

---

Full-Text Transcript

As ministry leaders, how can we honestly approach our own mental and emotional struggles and create safe spaces for others to do the same?

Jason Daye
In this episode, I’m joined by Alan Noble. Alan is a professor at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture and an award-winning author. His most recent book is entitled On Getting Out of Bed. Together, Alan and I look at the reality of mental afflictions and how they relate to our spirituality. Alan then shares from his own experiences some words of caution and encouragement on how we can address mental health in ministry. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Jason Daye 
Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of FrontStage BackStage, I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each and every week, I have the honor and the privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader. We dive into a conversation all in an effort to help you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you embrace a healthy rhythm for both your life and your ministry. Now, each week, not only do we dive into a conversation, but our team also creates a toolkit that you can use for yourself and for the ministry leaders at your local church to learn more and to go more deeply into the topic that we discuss. You can find that toolkit at PastorServe.org/network. We are proud to be a part of the Pastor Serve Network. We have these tools and we provide these tools for you and for your local church so that you can grow and develop. Now in that toolkit, we have tons of resources, including a Ministry Leaders Growth Guide, so be sure to check that out. Now at Pastor Serve we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders and we have coaches across the country who do just that. If you’d like to learn more about how you can receive a complimentary coaching session, please check out PastorServe.org/freesession for those details. Now for those of you who are joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and take a moment to drop your name and the name of your church in the comments below. We absolutely love getting to know our audience better and we will be praying for you and for your ministry. If you have any questions that come up throughout this conversation, again, be sure to drop those in the comments and we’ll get back to you on those. Now, whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe and follow. You do not want to miss out on any of these great conversations. We have a great conversation for you today. At this time, I’d like to welcome Alan Noble to the show. Alan Welcome, brother.

Alan Noble 
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Now, Alan, one of the things that you are helping us to learn and you do this through your book On Getting Out of Bed, which is a very honest kind of personal essay written from your heart. Absolutely love it, brother. In that book, you kind of talked about the fact that I guess I should say, oftentimes, we think of people who are having a difficult day or difficult life. Oftentimes, our minds go to people who are living in extreme poverty, struggling with a big addiction, or living in a war-torn conflict area, right? Which rightly so, they are facing very, very difficult days. But one thing you help us process through, Alan, is that the reality of life, is that even if you’re waking up in the English countryside on a spring morning, life is actually hard and we’re not always honest with ourselves about the fact that life is hard, right? So, Alan, talk to us a little bit about this reality check for us about the truth that life, in and of itself, is just hard.

Alan Noble 
Yeah, and the church has always known this. It’s always taught that suffering is a basic part of life, and how you deal with suffering says a lot about how you understand the nature of God and the nature of your problems. But I think what’s made it acutely difficult for contemporary people is that we live in a society that says that all problems can be solved if you just have the right life hack. So if you’re suffering in some way, it’s really your fault. You should pursue this life hack or this 12-step program, all of which can be helpful. But the myth deeply embedded in this is that if you just get the right product or service, your problem goes away. So you’re not going to have to deal with suffering. If you’re dealing with suffering, there’s a problem that can be addressed. That’s the problem. That’s the issue and that’s just a myth. We live in a fallen world and we’re going to suffer. One of the premises of my book is that everyone suffers at one point or another from mental affliction, what I call mental affliction. I choose that term because it includes both mental illnesses and mental disorders, diagnosed things, and undiagnosed things. Because I think sometimes we use that term, that phrase, mental illness too narrowly to exclude the suffering of other people who are going through difficult times. Somebody who might feel like well, I’ve not been diagnosed so maybe this is not legitimate. That’s a problem. I want to include all of those forms of mental affliction that we’re going to feel because part of my premise is that everyone at one point or another struggles to get out of bed. They’re depressed about where their adult children are in life and how they can’t help them. They’re depressed about a sibling who is addicted to a drug. They’re depressed about life or they’re anxious about their future. There are all kinds of reasons that we can be distraught and we have to learn to deal with those emotions and move forward in a way that glorifies God. So this myth of perfectibility, through primarily consumerism, through purchasing things, services, or products, I think is really detrimental to us. It adds a layer of anxiety because, as I said earlier, it makes us think that really it’s our problem, that really it’s our fault. We shouldn’t have to suffer like this. Because if we just do the right things then the suffering will go away. Sometimes we do put ourselves into bad situations and we deal with the repercussions of that. But sometimes life is just hard. It’s nothing you did. It’s just hard. And the question is, how do you get out of bed in those moments?

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s excellent. We really do live in a solution-oriented society, right? We believe that everything needs to have resolution. But when we look at Scripture and what you’re sharing in On Getting Out of Bed, is this idea that not everything necessarily has resolution right now. Some things we live with, some things we cope with, some things we manage, or some things are like the thorn in the side. I mean, Paul writes about it, right? I mean, that’s the reality. Yet, so often, our mind is on eliminating all of the discomforts. Eliminating all of those things in our lives that might make it hard for us to get out of bed in the morning on a particular day. Alan, this idea of mental anguish or being distraught. Oftentimes, especially in the world in which we live today, there are very good things coming out of us talking about mental health, mental illnesses, and mental disorders. It’s becoming more normative to have these conversations and to really look at these things. But one of the challenges, and you point this out in the book, is that because there’s more awareness around mental illness, then it’s almost like all of the mental afflictions, as you say, all of the feelings of despondency, distraught, or whatever it is, somehow, that’s for people who have some sort of diagnosed mental struggle as opposed to human experience. Right? So talk to us a bit, Alan, about when we look across scripture even or when we think about the life of the church over the last 2000 years, this idea of mental anguish and that struggle, how can we help identify with that in such a way that we see it as part of our life in Christ, part of a discipleship, and part of who we are as we are growing in our relationship with God?

Alan Noble 
Yeah, so I think it’s natural if you read the Psalms in particular, you’re overcome with the reality that David, who had a heart after God’s heart, suffered from depression, suffered from anxiety, suffered from fear, and voiced those fears, anxieties, and that depression very vocally to God because he was overwhelmed. He was overcome with the sufferings of life. I think that’s an opportunity for us to minister to each other in the church. It’s an interesting time. I’ve said this before, I think it’s a really interesting time to have a mental illness or a mental affliction. Because on the one hand, as you mentioned, there’s a lot more openness to this. On the other hand, I think most people keep that suffering private. I still think for most people there’s a sense of shame and a sense of dangerous vulnerability that they keep those things quiet even to their loved ones, or to their closest friends. That creates additional suffering because you can’t get the help that you need. One of the themes in On Getting Out of Bed is that we can’t go through this alone. We need communities of believers standing, walking, and sitting beside us in order to persevere because it’s too hard. We need people outside of us to tell us, hey, your life is beautiful and good. I’m sorry that you feel like it’s pointless and meaningless right now. But I can tell you objectively, that’s not true. We need those kinds of voices. They don’t always get through to us, but we need to hear those voices. So I think there’s an interesting dynamic going on where the people who are most vocal about mental illness tend to be online. Very online. They’ve gone to another extreme where they’ve come to identify with their mental illness. Their mental illness becomes an identity, instead of a thorn in the flesh. I mean, you can’t imagine Paul doing this, right? Going around saying, Well, I’ve got this thorn in my flesh, this is who I am. This is a very modern thing to do. A lot of people are being self-diagnosed, or self-diagnosing, based on TikTok videos or YouTube videos, and using that as a kind of cultural capital to say, This is who I am. I have this condition. This makes me disadvantaged in some way. So there’s a danger and we’re trying to walk this fine line where we are, in Christian communities, being vulnerable and open to sharing our experiences so that we can get the help that we need, without falling in love with our own suffering. This is one of the challenging and hard teachings that I have in On Getting Out of Bed, is that it’s a reality that some people can fall in love with their own suffering. They can see it as something that makes them stand out, something that makes them unique, something that makes them meaningful, or important in some way. It adds some drama or spice to their life. We don’t like to admit this because it sounds perverse, but it is a temptation. So in discipleship settings, I think what we want to do is walk this fine line of recognizing that we need to vocalize our struggles and we need to rely on other people. But the way we vocalize those struggles is not as this illness defines me and my existence. This is not my identity. My identity is in Christ. But this is a thorn in the flesh that I need help dealing with.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, it’s fascinating, Alan, as you talk through that because there are these two extremes or the pendulum can swing two different ways. One is that we tamp it down to such a degree that we don’t even whisper about it. We keep ourselves isolated and that’s painful, right? The other is, as you said, we embrace it to such a degree that it becomes literally who we are, right? We almost celebrate it, which just sounds strange to say. But we almost celebrate it in a way that is not healthy, as well. Yet somewhere in the middle is life and finding health by navigating these mental afflictions that we might have. When it comes to the church, pastors and ministry leaders who find themselves maybe on one side. They haven’t been talking about it or haven’t been sharing what they’re struggling with. They don’t want to get to a point where they feel like, Oh, this is how I’m going to brand myself suddenly somehow. As a ministry leader who’s wrestling with mental anguish, whether diagnosed or not, what words of advice or recommendations would you have for them as they’re seeking to obviously serve their flock or the ministry in which they find themselves but at the same time process through this heaviness that they have?

Alan Noble 
I think the the first thing I would say is to make sure that you’re getting professional help so that you’ve got that support system because one of the distinctions between people who embrace and celebrate their condition and those who genuinely identify it, but want to get rid of it, is that you take active steps to mitigate the problem. You take active steps. You seek out therapists who are going to help you and counselors who are going to help you get over this condition in some way. There aren’t easy answers and a lot of these things are still going to be thorns in your flesh, but you can ameliorate them. You can make them less severe and that’s important. So that’s the first thing I’d say is take care of yourself. Be an advocate for yourself, getting that counseling. The other thing is to find a small group of trusted friends and family members who you can talk to and get support from. You need to be open about your struggles with them. I would caution against opening up to the wider public about your struggles. Unless you’ve thought this through very carefully. Even then I think I’ll frame it this way. I think we can overshare. I think ministers can overshare. I think all of us on the internet, especially, can overshare. We can get into too much of our business. I try to model this in On Getting Out of Bed. You’ll notice that I don’t tell many personal stories. It’s not a book about me, although it’s clearly personal. That’s because I don’t want it to be about me, I’m not really interested in sharing with you my private experiences with my family and my struggles. I don’t want to do that. That’s not the safe space to do that. So I think I would caution against it, and I say caution because I think that there are opportunities when it’s appropriate to share. But I think we want to be careful about not oversharing because what can happen is you can get this sort of excitement or this sense that, I want to normalize mental affliction in my congregation or in the people I minister to. So I’m going to share all my dirt, then that’s going to be normalized, and that’s going to help a lot of people. I think that might confuse a lot of people. Whereas there are ways of approaching it where you say, perhaps in a sermon talking about the Psalms, as you’re discussing what David goes through, you can admit that you’ve gone through periods like this yourself. Saying things like that can really open it up and help people without making it about you and your personal struggles and oversharing. So there’s a fine line there that I would encourage pastors to walk. I think prudence is really important and that circle of friends with whom you’re much more open about your struggles. They can help you stay prudent, right? You can ask them, is this oversharing? Is this going to be helpful to people or is this just going to cause more confusion and doubt? Use those people as a sounding board to try to figure out, how do I acknowledge these normal human experiences, while not glamorizing them or causing confusion in my congregation or those I’m ministering to.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s so helpful, Alan. As you’re saying that I started thinking about that we’ve all probably heard someone at some point stand up and give their testimony as to how they came to Christ. Sometimes there are people who, man, they go all in. Exposing everything, every salacious detail, almost glamorizing the pits of hell that they were in beforehand, right? It is kind of that thought, like, okay, maybe that’s not necessary. That’s not really helpful. That, as you say, could be confusing. So kind of the same thing when it comes to this. That temperance or that idea of thinking through and processing through what is truly going to be helpful. What could be confusing, or it could be oversharing, or could even be, to a degree, triggering is used a lot, but potentially triggering to someone else. So being careful in that, right?

Alan Noble 
Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Daye 
A quick question, Alan. As we look across and survey, the capital C Church right now, especially here in the West, as we’ve said, there has been some openness to talking about mental health. There have been some very key leaders who have shared openly that I have a therapist, I have a counselor, and I think that’s beneficial. Like they’re very open about these things. But then there’s some other voices and even as we’re recording this, Alan, very recently, or this past month there have been some other voices that are prominent in the church, who have literally said, There’s no such thing as mental illness. There’s no such thing as PTSD. There’s no such thing as OCD. No such thing as ADHD. They have basically said that that doesn’t exist. That this is all just a thing that everyone’s playing into. That is confusing, right? That’s confusing because you have people just kind of dismissing all of this. Alan, what are your thoughts around our understanding of mental illness and how those relate to spirituality, to the goodness of God, and to our journeys with Christ?

Alan Noble 
Yeah, so I think leaders like that are identifying some negative trends in the way we deal with mental health. Instead of addressing them in a temperate, accurate way, they’re dramatically overcorrecting to such a degree that they are causing, they’re binding consciences, and causing serious harm. I worry about people in those congregations who aren’t going to go seek the help that they need because they’ve been told that all they need to do is pray and get the fruits of the Spirit, and then their mental illness will go away. We know with PTSD, I know with PTSD, OCD, and I suspect with ADHD as well, that you can look at brain scans and see that there’s something fundamentally different going on with people who have these disorders. There are steps that we can take with counseling and medication that can address those problems. It’s a common grace good that God has given us that we have these tools to address these problems, just like we address other problems. One of the distinctions that these figures will make is that the mind is transcendent. The brain is physical, but the mind is transcendent. So when you have problems with the mind, it just has to be dealt with. It can’t be dealt with with medication or other therapy. It just has to be dealt with, with Scripture. As these scans show, that’s a dualism that’s just not accurate. The mind and the brain work together. Our bodies affect our minds. That’s just the nature of the way God created us and that’s important. Ironically, some of these figures who will say that medication can’t correct these problems because our mind is transcendent will also say that medication will damage our minds. So they’re acknowledging that medication can actually affect us. They just only think it affects us in a negative way. So that’s an interesting aside. But I think, as I said, there are some kernels of truth that they’re tapping into that they’re concerned about that we all should be concerned about. One is overmedication and overdiagnosis. Very few experts that I know will doubt that or reject that. That’s just a reality that we deal with. So that’s something that we need to reckon with and we need to think through. The idea that just medication and not going to see a therapist can fix all your problems. That’s a very American, Western, as we were talking about earlier, I want to solve a problem, there’s a step I take, I take a pill, and the problem is gone. But if you’ve had a mental illness, you know that it’s very rare that it actually works that way. So I think that’s reality. I think there’s also the reality that some treatments just exclude the spiritual realm entirely. The reality is that concepts like grace or forgiveness have, not to overshare because I’m not going to, in my own struggles, those have been integral to my healing process and those don’t come from secular sources. They come from wise, biblical pastors in my life who have spoken into my life and said, Alan, you need to understand God’s grace in a deeper way and that’s been part of my healing. But it’s come alongside work with therapists. So, I want to acknowledge that those who make these ridiculous, inaccurate, and arrogant claims that there is no such thing as mental illness, I think is super dangerous. They’re touching on and they’re being driven, I think, by these realities that we do need to address. The third reality in addition to overmedication and cutting off the spiritual aspect of our lives, of our condition, is what we talked about earlier, which is the identification with your mental illness and turning it into a lifestyle option essentially. So we need to be careful. We need to be circumspect. We need to be prudent. But these voices are harmful and my hope would be that major figures in evangelicalism would take the steps to call out these claims because they are severely damaging to the church.

Jason Daye 
Yeah. Thank you for that, Alan. Honestly, I love your response there and I love your thoughts on it because you do recognize that there are some tendencies and some temptations for us around mental health to move in unhealthy ways. That reality exists. So there is that balance and there is that thoughtfulness in it, and a lot of that is rooted in how we identify ourselves with Christ, how we understand who we are in Christ, and how we are developing and what God is doing in our lives as we are processing and as we’re growing. As we’re waking up and getting out of bed each day and facing whatever challenges that are before us. So I certainly appreciate that. Alan, as we are thinking about mental afflictions. There are some, and this is not to beat up on the church. But this is a caution for how we do ministry. There are some things, you share about some of these in On Getting Out of Bed, your book, where actually how we’re doing church or the approaches we have to some of our ministries can actually impact our mental health just as it can in a positive way, it also can in a negative way, right? That can provide some challenges or some stumbling blocks for us. Can you share, Alan, just some things that we want to be thoughtful about and cautious about when it comes to ensuring that the way that we’re trying to honor God, the way we’re trying to help disciple people, the way that we’re preaching or teaching and doing life together, that we’re not putting some obstacles in people’s ways that are unnecessary?

Alan Noble 
Yeah. One of the things that I was taught growing up in the church was that if I don’t have peace about a decision or peace about something that I’ve done, then I’m in sin. This was sort of drilled into me as a kid, that that’s the Holy Spirit talking to you. And when you feel unease, then you know you’ve done something wrong, you’ve committed a sin, or you’re outside God’s will, and then you need to repent and change. That led to unbelievable harm. Not unbelievable. Quite actually believable harm and pretty obvious harm in my life because I came to view my emotions as the whisperings of God. I came to trust my emotions as the arbiters of truth. God has given us a mind to use reason. Reason is a gift from God. One of the things that separates us from the animals in his creation is that we have the capacity to reason. We have the capacity to reflect and he intends us to use that. Sometimes our emotions are fallen. Sometimes we feel bad because we haven’t eaten or we haven’t slept properly. Sometimes I’ll get a guilty feeling because I’ll see a certain color and it’ll remind me of some childhood experience where I felt guilt. I mean, the mind does ridiculous things, right? All kinds of things that aren’t telling us profound truths. I’m not saying that the Holy Spirit can’t speak to us. But I am saying that making that this law, that if you don’t feel peace, then God is speaking to you and telling you convicting you of your sins and what you’ve done wrong. I think that can do tremendous harm and it really binds our conscience because it says that we’ve got to follow what our emotions say, and our emotions are fallen. They do crazy things and if you have a mental illness, often those emotions are even less trustworthy. That’s why we need communities of believers. The word conscience actually means, Con means “with” and Science means “to know”. So it’s this idea of knowing with other people. That’s what conscience means. It’s etymology, I’m not saying it’s biblical, but it’s English etymology. I think that’s a great way of understanding conscience. We know with other people, we know with trusted, wise, and biblical counselors, elders, friends, or family members, who can step aside beside us and say, this is wisdom. This is false guilt. I think the reality of false guilt is something that ought to be preached about more often. I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard a sermon that has addressed, I mean, I’m not saying the whole sermon, but even as an aside, address the reality of false guilt. I think everybody feels it at one time or another. I mean, one way of understanding it is as the accuser. I mean, that’s what Satan is, the accuser who accuses us of things and gives us a false sense of guilt. Sometimes it’s guilt about things that we’ve actually done and been forgiven for and we shouldn’t feel guilty about anymore because God has forgiven us. Other times, it’s about things that we don’t need to feel guilty about at all. So that to me, is one thing where I think the church can create a stumbling block in the way they understand guilt.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s helpful. So, Alan, on the flip side of that, what are some ways, maybe some examples of ministries or churches that you’ve seen or been a part of that have taken some positive steps to help people even have those conversations and have those safe spaces? What are some things that local churches can do?

Alan Noble 
So probably my best experience was in a small group that I was a part of where the leader of the small group was an elder. I don’t know if he was an elder at the time but he became an elder at the church. He admitted to us that he struggled with a mental illness. It was right near the beginning of the formation of this. It wasn’t a big dramatic reveal, he just was honest, I’ve got this condition. This is what I struggle with. This is the thorn in my flesh. That set the tone for this small group because what it meant was that when I needed to share what I was dealing with, I felt like it was a safe place. I knew somebody else had broken the ground. So I think one thing that healthy churches do is that they have people who are willing to be the vulnerable ones to start the ball rolling. Because when one person is vulnerable, other people now have the opportunity and feel a little bit safer to say, You know what, I’m dealing with this over here, I’m dealing with this addiction, I’m dealing with this problem, or I’m dealing with depression, and we can start to work on it together. That group became a group where there was a lot of honesty and a lot of sharing of burdens. Bearing each other’s burdens because we were led by someone who led with his burden. So I think that’s one practical thing that people can do is just have this posture of openness about being vulnerable.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s super helpful. Alan, I certainly appreciate you being open, you being vulnerable, you being honest, and writing On Getting Out of Bed. As we said, a personal essay, it’s your honest thoughts and feelings. Yet, it’s not a memoir. It’s not just you running through telling your story. It is honestly saying, hey, there are some things that we can think about, that we should be thinking about in this time and place when it comes to mental affliction, when it comes to walking with Christ, and when it comes to the challenges that we face on a regular basis. So I want to thank you for this resource. It’s an incredible resource and I encourage those of you who are watching or listening along. Again, we have a toolkit that digs more deeply into this entire conversation that Alan and I are having. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. You can find links to the book On Getting Out of Bed if you want to order it, which we encourage you to check out for yourselves. Alan, as we’re kind of winding down, I’d like to give you the opportunity just to share. You’ve got the ears and eyes of brothers and sisters who are serving in ministry right now. What words would you leave with them today?

Alan Noble 
Yeah, so I would say that, first of all, your life is a beautiful and good gift from a God who loves you and cares for you. Because you are a beautiful and good gift, you have a duty to care for yourself and to care for others around you. So if you are going through a dark time, you need to be your own advocate. You need to be an advocate and pursue health and well-being because that is what honors and glorifies God. We need to put our oxygen masks on before we help others put their oxygen masks on, on a plane. The same thing goes for us if we are going through a very dark time. We need to be advocates and pursue our health so that we can be there as models, supporters, mentors, and disciples of other people because they’re going to show up. I mean, that’s one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when you go through really hard times other people start coming alongside you who are also going through hard times, and that you’re able to use your suffering to glorify God. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s what we’re taught in Scripture. So I would say be an advocate for yourself. Also, especially, I think, to ministers, I would say, don’t feel like you have to be the only wise counselor in someone’s life and solve all their problems. Feel comfortable recommending them to therapy or counseling. At the same time, don’t lose touch with them. Don’t just hand them off to a professional and say, that’s their problem now. Also, be that spiritual mentor in their lives. Sometimes I think ministers live in this strange tension where on the one hand, some of them feel like I’ve got to do all the counseling by myself. I can’t trust secular counselors. Or they feel like it’s not my business, I’m not trained in this. For all of human existence, we’ve trusted wise people in our lives to give us good counsel. For some reason right now we’re outsourcing that to professionals. I want to say both have good purposes and can really bless people. I’ve seen that in my own life. So don’t shortchange yourself. You have something to offer to people and your wise words of counsel.

Jason Daye 
I love that. Alan, this has been so good, brother. Such a great conversation. Thank you so much for just the wisdom and living out of your own experience, and just your heart for others who are wrestling with their own things. It’s just so evident and I absolutely love hearing that from you. I love reading that out of what you’ve written in On Getting Out of Bed. It’s so evident that it’s part of who you are. So thank you for that.

Alan Noble 
Thanks.

Jason Daye 
Thanks for hanging out with us. God bless you.

Jason Daye
Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows, all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links to different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, and several other tools, but the greatest thing is the ministry leaders growth guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process, providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.

Shareable Social Graphics