On behalf of our team at Key Ministry, I would like to invite all pastors, church and parachurch ministry staff and volunteers, mental health professionals, educators, family members and Christians called to share the love of Christ with persons impacted by mental health concerns to gather together with us in Cleveland this coming September 26th and 27th for Mental Health and the Church, our first national Mental Health Ministry Summit.
One of the extraordinary privileges we’ve experienced over the past 20+ years supporting churches in their ministry with families impacted by disability is the extraordinary sense of camaraderie and community that’s formed among the ministry leaders and organizations serving in the disability ministry space. The best way I can describe the collaboration and cooperation that characterizes our group is to acknowledge it as Christ-like. The way in which all involved encourage one another, support one another and promote one another’s work represents a snapshot of the Kingdom as it was meant to be.
Our culture is experiencing an unprecedented mental health crisis. There has never been a time when so many children, adults and families have been hurting and in need of care, support and the hope that comes from a saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Church needs to step forward to address the needs the healthcare system and secular systems of care and support are failing to meet. No one else has answers for the loneliness and despair that have resulted from the breakdown of the social structures that have undergirded society since Biblical times.
By gathering together in-person, we hope to explore how ministry organizations serving the mental health community can work collaboratively to maximize our impact in the North American church. We hope to share ideas for expanding the availability of care and support for individuals and families who have a connection with a local church, while offering strategies for evangelism and outreach with persons impacted by mental illness - the largest unserved and underserved population by the church in America. We hope to launch a mental health ministry movement in which every church and every person directed by the Holy Spirit to recognize the need has a vital role to play - especially individuals and families with firsthand experience of the struggles persons with mental health concerns experience on a daily basis. We hope to play a role in fostering the same type of ministry community growing by leaps and bounds that is serving the disability community.
If this movement and this type of ministry are something that you or your church are being led to pursue, we need you to join us, either as a speaker or as an attendee. We’ll be sharing information in the next week or two as to how you can apply to speak at the conference, how you or your organization can support the conference as a sponsor or an exhibitor, and the schedule for conference registration. We also very much appreciate your prayers that God would bring to Cleveland in late September the people and organizations needing to be part of this conversation and this movement.
