How can we help young people become more resilient?
We have all heard some of the statistics, but you only have to think of a person whose child is in their teens or twenties and is ill with anxiety. 100 percent of their heart is broken, and that is the only statistic that really matters.
Everyone doing ministry in your church needs a three-month break every seven years or so.
This includes your minister, elders or PCC, ministry leaders, youth team and Sunday School teachers. Why? Because the Bible commends it, and it is good for us.
Someone once said that the purpose of the news media is the manufacture and maintenance of anxiety. I think he was right, but I also think that some churches do something similar.
That famous quotation, 'If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him'[1], is true. But sensitive souls are vulnerable to a dangerous distortion: 'If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice I make can ever be enough for Him'. I wonder if this explains an unhealthy drivenness in the churches?
There are 85 billion nerve cells in your brain, only slightly fewer than the number of stars in the galaxy! But the real work is done by the connections between them.
There are around 100 such connections for every brain cell. Every time a tiny packet of a chemical messenger crosses one of these connections, something important happens in your head. These 185 billion connections firing constantly can monitor your temperature, move your thumb, or make you seethe with resentment.
Mary came to see me for ‘a chat about her mental health’. ‘I can’t leave the house, I’m so frightened’ she said. It had gone on for years. Her GP referred her to a psychiatrist who had prescribed some medication and a course of therapy.
Her own pastor told her not to see the therapist, and to throw the medication in the bin. ‘Jesus is all you need’ he said, ‘Not an atheistic therapist’. He reminded her of Philippians 4:6-7.
When an evangelical Christian is asked to summarise the message of the Bible they often turn to John’s Gospel: ‘For God so loved the world…’. It is a compelling verse because it expresses the need for a personal response to Christ as our Saviour.
But this is not the only crystalline expression of God’s saving purpose in human history. In the prayer He taught us, Jesus gives us another: ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Jesus is not only our Saviour; He also is our king. His purpose is to establish God’s rule and reign on earth. Following Jesus means that you are part of this movement.
Imagine that your church has slipped through a time warp and you find yourselves sitting in the usual building but an unusual location; Capernaum, in the first half of the first century AD.
There is a kerfuffle outside and someone tells you that Jesus himself is passing by. You run outside and invite him in to preach. He accepts!
Are you, by any chance, a bit of a perfectionist? You have high standards for yourself, yet struggle to acknowledge your achievements? If your answer is ‘Yes!’, or you know someone like that, then this is for you.
Perfectionism lies at the root of much unhappiness. Indeed, perfectionist attitudes often correlate with poor mental health such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and even suicidal thoughts. Pablo Martinez, a Christian psychiatrist, writes about the ‘inner policeman’, a nagging voice telling us we’ve not done enough, or we’ve not done it right. When he gets the upper hand, we are in spiritual and psychological trouble .
Have we reached the point where it is unlikely that an evangelical Christian will ever again hold high office in the United Kingdom?
I have two friends hoping to be parliamentary candidates for the Labour Party in the next election. Both are clear-thinking Christians with a passion for the poor. Yet, however stellar their gifts, news media will certainly drill down on only two areas: sexuality and gender. If they are selected, they will be interrogated relentlessly on those two issues. I have, I confess, been tempted to say: ‘Don’t bother!’
It is surprising how many people with no church background can quote the ‘Serenity Prayer’ attributed to the German theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr: ‘God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other’.
I can’t think of a wiser prayer in a world like ours where so much is beyond our control. It helps us to concentrate on what really matters; how we handle a crisis and how we can find peace. Yet the heart of that prayer can also work for anyone, even an atheist, and in fact it is the first principle of a system of thought called Stoicism.
Where there is no guidance a people falls, but in an abundance of counsellors there is safety (Prov. 11:14 ESV).
It started with a Tweet. A photo of myself and two Ukrainians picking out a Christmas tree, and within an hour a friend Tweeted, ‘The Nazi government in Ukraine were guilty of geno-cide and deserve all they are getting’.
Suicide is a serious problem. According to recently released figures 5,583 people ended their life in 2021. About 20% of the population have entertained thoughts of suicide at some time in their life, so how can we be prepared to help?
John Bunyan explores this in his spiritual Pilgrim’s classic, Progress. Christian is imprisoned with his friend Hopeful in the castle of Giant Despair. The giant beats them senseless and throws them into a dark, stinking cell.
Three of Sunderland’s Methodist church buildings went up for sale this week. I’ve watched their congregations decline steadily over the years and I’m amazed it took the faithful little remnants so long to throw in the towel.
Churches are closing everywhere, not just in the north of England. A recent edition of Christianity asked 12 Christians, mostly leaders, and some young people, a deceptively simple question: ‘How do we stop the decline?’ The answers were thoughtful and full of insight, but I wondered if they had been asked the right question.
I was in Hungary in August 1989, just a few months before the Berlin wall was torn down.
Budapest was full of East German citizens clamouring for visas to cross to the West; the paperwork was not forthcoming, so one day hundreds of them just went to the Austrian border and walked across. Armed guards looked uncomfortable, but no-one opened fire. The Cold War was over.
Climate
science
is
a
sophisticated
business,
so
it
is a sitting target
for sceptics and climate
change
deniers.
But
you don’t need computer
modelling
to
sense
that
something is not right with nature.
Southern species are moving northwards.
I picked up two ticks this year walking in
the north of Scotland. You can now find
hummingbird hawk moths
in Derbyshire.
And if you want to climb down to the Mer
de Glace, a mighty glacier near Mont Blanc,
you must abseil 300 feet further than when
I first did that descent in 1974; the glacier is
shrinking!
About 300 yards from my house is the grave of an 18-year-old paratrooper killed in Helmand province.
I’ve never been convinced by the reasons given for our Afghan adventure, and why this young man was put in harm’s way by our government. We have now abandoned Afghanistan and we are left wondering if there is any hope for that country.
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Countering anxiety in young people with the gospel
How can we help young people become more resilient?
We have all heard some of the statistics, but you only have to think of a person whose child is in their teens or twenties and is ill with anxiety. 100 percent of their heart is broken, and that is the only statistic that really matters.