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From Hope Made Strong, This is a Care Ministry Podcast, a show about equipping ministry leaders and transforming communities through care. Supporting those in your church and community not only changes individuals lives, but it grows and strengthens the church but we want to do that without burning out. So listen in, as we learn about tools, strategies and resources that will equip your team and strengthen hope.
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I'm Laura Howe, and welcome to The Care Ministry podcast. I am so excited because we have just recently launched our second theme of Mental Health Sunda. Mental Health Sunday is a resource or a toolkit that you are not going to want to miss. And this year's theme is titled you are not alone. And this podcast is definitely one that you're gonna want to share, because I walk through the Mental Health Sunday toolkit step by step and share how you can get the most out of this incredible resource. So if you haven't gotten there yet, make sure you go to mental healthsunday.com. And you can download this entire toolkit, now I have set the price to be paying what you want. So this means that if you don't have the church doesn't have the resources, and purchasing something is a barrier, then set the price at $0. But if you want to if you see the value in this and you want to contribute to the cost of producing it, then feel free to set the price out what you want. I don't want costs to be a barrier to help churches create a Sunday morning service that speaks about mental health. So this is set at pay what you want. And all you have to do is go to mentalhealthsunday.com and grab and download that toolkit.
This podcast, we are going to walk through the three sections that make up the mental health Sunday. Because there are so many tools and strategies and ideas in here you are going to love it. And I'll identify what each component is and how to get the most value out of it that will serve your church and your community and your team. But let me tell you all the heavy lifting is done for you.
So let's jump right in and I'll tell you about what mental health Sunday is and where the idea came from. So mental health Sunday toolkit is a resource that will equip you and your team to host a Sunday morning service or maybe a series on mental health. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So that's why this is being sent out now, in anticipation and in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. And I wanted to create a resource that makes it so easy for churches to talk about mental health from the stage. So often mental health is relegated to a small group or, or a workshop on Wednesday night in the back hallway of the church or maybe it's in closed discussions behind doors but mental health impacts us all. And by talking about it on a Sunday morning, you are able to offer care and support from this stage at the same time offering biblical principles and practical strategies for everyone who attends. Now back in episode 34, I share about the barriers to talking about mental health and why it's so important to talk about it from the stage. So if you're a ministry leader listening and you're trying to get buy-in from your team, you're gonna want to check out that episode 34. Because while my talking about mental health may take you out of your church's comfort zone like you don't normally talk about that. It can be so impactful for churches like so impactful. Stigma is broken and people feel that they belong and they are validated. You create safe spaces for people to seek support, and you offer hope in a situation that has been dark and hidden. Proverbs 18: 21 says there is life in the power of the tongue. The words you speak from the pulpit can bring light and life to all who listen. It could be the first time anyone has heard a church or a pastor or a person in a church, talking about what they have been struggling with privately. It tells people that your church is a place of hope. Your church is a place of healing and that no struggle is too much for God and nothing disqualifies them from being part of your community and part of the family of God. So ministry leaders, it is so vitally important to talk about mental health from the stage or from the pulpit. And if you don't know where to start, this is mental health Sunday toolkit is for we give you everything you need to promote, present and engage with people around the theme, “You are not alone” Now to help organize
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over a dozen resources that we offer, I put it into three different sections or categories. The first one is digital resources. The second one is service resources are things that you would actually use on a Sunday morning. And then the third one is a midweek resources focusing on engagement strategies.
So let's walk through this and start off with those digital resources. And let me tell you what this is chef's kiss, your communication and production team is going to love you for this lesson, you will be their favorite person that week, by far for sure. There are social assets that includes six different posts, as well as stories. And it gives you options for promotion, as well as like coming soon kind of posts and quote templates. Because every church is unique, you know, I know that you're not going to, you might not want to use the exact post, or maybe your church doesn't start at the same time that your neighbor church does. We gave you the Canva files, we give you the working files, so you can change the pictures out to have your people in it. Or you can put in your address or your time details, we want to make this easy and accessible for you. So we have links in the links to the Canva working file. So all you have to do is click the link, make a copy and customize these posts for your church.
Now one of the questions that I receive every single time is when is mental health Sunday, what day of the year is mental health Sunday, and I'm going to say every Sunday is a mental health Sunday, kind of cheesy, but so true, you could talk about mental health at any time there. But no, there is no official day that at least none that I know of. However, May and October are really common to talk about mental health because May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and October 10 is World Mental Health Day. But really, honestly, your church can pick any day that works with your calendar, you have all the working files, all the digital files, so you can change the date and time for your specific service and your church. Also, the digital assets section we have included a bumper video, it is so good.
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I'm really proud of this video. Anyway, you're gonna have to go check it out. Like I'm really proud of this, the slide templates and lower thirds, so use these video assets and promotion on social. Now these bumper videos are often used as almost like a trailer like you shown at the end of a service. And next week, we're gonna be talking about this or maybe it's in a transition time when the music team is leaving the stage and the speaker is coming on, but also can be used for social and promotion and, and kind of anticipate building anticipation and for people to share with their neighbors and their friends.
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And then also the slides and lower thirds create seamless branding for the sermon series. So if you use those with your online content, or if you video all of that is provided for you and it's all branded the same so there's consistency. This first section digital resources really does have everything your communications department would need. The hope is that mental health Sunday isn't just for your community or your congregation. But it's also for your teams. By having everything done for you, or at least, you know, a good part of the work done for you. This gives your team some time to rest or find reprieve or have a much slower or easier week than the cycle of building content that they do. The second section of the Mental Health Sunday toolkit is actually sermon resources or service resources. And this includes sermon notes
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are linked to another resource that I'll talk about in a minute. We have worship assets and even a children's ministry resource. If you don't have training or experience in mental health, then it can be really overwhelming or maybe even hard to develop a Sunday message on the topic. How do you offer hope and practical takeaways and Bible based teaching on a topic that really isn't explicitly discussed in the Bible? But yet you want it to be, you know, medically correct you you are scientifically correct you you don't want to open a can of worms and go beyond what your skill set is or your knowledge is. And how do you do all of this at the same time as equipping and encouraging people. This can be really hard and so to get the most out of the resource pack, I encourage you to use these as a jumping off opportunities. I absolutely believe that every church will want to provide a unique message that is relevant to their community and to what their their people are facing. So I encourage you to you know, take a moment, pray and reflect on the topic you are not alone.
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There is no expectation for the church to use the sermon notes as is or that it's prescriptive, or you have to use it like a script. These are really just jumping off point something to get you started so that talking about mental health isn't overwhelming. We don't want to turn your Sunday morning service into mental health 101 class? No, absolutely not. That might be for another webinar or, you know, workshop that you do at another time. But really, we want to focus on offering encouragement, creating supportive communities, and then strategies to follow up for further engagement. Mental health struggles are experienced by everyone. If you breathe, then you experience mental health struggles, there is no one who is immune to this. And so by talking about mental health in your church on a Sunday morning, it removes the shame that is often associated to struggle or, or that mental health is weakness. Mental health is destigmatized, and we're able to bring it in to the light. One of this resources that I'm really excited to share with you is from Mind and Soul Foundation. This is a phenomenal organization from the UK, and they have created a mental health access pack. This is an already existing resource. If you want, you could Google it, you don't need to have the Mental Health Sunday to access it. But I do link it in the toolkit because it can provide so much help for people who have a lot of questions like what does the Bible say about depression? What does the Bible say about medication? What does the Bible say about anxiety or, or counseling, and so it can really help you navigate some of those questions in your research in preparing your message, but it also provides pamphlets, downloadable pamphlets that you can provide maybe your next steps team or your prayer team or different things. So there's a lot of tools and resources, it really, it is a treasure trove of information. So I encourage you to access the Mental Health Access pack, because it has curated resources of of information on mental health that is coming from a faith based approach.
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Next up in the service resources is actually sermon notes. Now I agree it's ideal to create a message that is unique for your church. We already talked about that but having jumping off points can be really helpful. So I've included a bulleted notes as a way to get your thoughts and ideas started. The theme that we base everything off of is “You Are Not Alone”, based off the scripture of Psalm 23. And also the story of the Good Samaritan. And being a good neighbor. And so I think it's a really creative way to bridge those two topics. And so we create that “You Are Not Alone, The God is with you and The Church Is For You. These are the outlines for the service that we we have provided and they linked. with the devotional that we're offering the bumper video is based off of Psalm 23 and the keychain giveaways.
We're going to be talking about those in a minute. But all of these are the theme runs throughout all of these resources. So there is some simplicity, there is some continuity and branding. We actually offer a sermon video that was provided by Movement church, this is my home church. And well, we are certainly not perfect at Movement Church. We just try really, really hard and so my pastor invited a congregate who is a leader in our church, and she's also a nurse and has experience in working in mental health. And so he invited her to give the message on mental health Sunday and I think the video will show you a creative way how someone was able to take the sermon notes, their experience a person's perspective and offer that in a creative way. So I hope that you enjoy that use the notes as a jumping off point. But also maybe check out that video as some for some IPs.
Okay, so there are service resources, there are few more assets. One is worship assets and the second one is the kids ministry. Again at Movement Church, we have written a few songs and they have generously allowed me to link to these all original songs in this resource and where you can download chord charts and lyrics I linked to the Spotify. recording of this and a YouTube video of the two songs or two songs are called God of faithfulness and Holding On and I think the message of the songs are so awesome talking about people talking about how we can a God is always faithful in our struggle and we just need to hold on to him. So, I'm excited to share some of those.
Michelle Nietert is an author and a counselor. She has a podcast and she specializes in families and children's mental health. And in her newest book titled God I Feel Sad: Bringing Big Emotions To A Bigger God.
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Michelle invites adults in to have conversations with kids about bringing their emotions to a bigger God. And I think it's so beautiful and I'm so thankful for Michelle. And she's offered to allowed me to link to her Activity Guide coloring sheets, and a sample of her audiobook. So definitely want to recommend using some of these tools, with your kids ministry and how to start the conversation that God is always with them trough it all through those big emotions, God is always present, they are not alone.
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Okay, so we have walked through digital resources, we have talked about service resources, and now we're going to highlight some mid-week resources. There's so much in this toolkit, I can't believe this, like this is something you are I'm so proud of this, like, this is something you're not gonna want to miss. Alright, so we first start off was talking about door knocker or door hanger, I should say door hanger invitations. These have been designed and ready for you to customize in Canva. Again, that Canva link is provided for you. And to use this, this service as an opportunity to invite your community to the conversation. There are so many people looking for hope.
So this is a great opportunity to have an invitational Sunday and connect with people within your community and offer the hope of Christ definitely want to check out those door-hanging invitations and use this as an invitational opportunity for your community. Another engagement strategy is to use the mid-week devotionals and the congregational giveaways. If you're you if you are using this Sunday as an outreach it can be helpful to put you know a thank you gift or, or something in people's hand as a reminder of the message and a token from your church. So I've created keychains, they're actually two by two cards on key rings, they are really cool. They're sleek and simple design. And they offer hopeful messages and Scripture reminders that people that they are not alone. And they've been designed for you to use as a giveaway. Now I wish I could give these actually away for free. But unfortunately, there is a there's a fair bit of cost to building those and creating those and shipping them to you. So you can check out those congregational giveaways these key chains on on that and then you can order how many would like shipped out to your church. And this is a great token to share the message of hope with people throughout the week. People actually use these and have told me that they use these for personal reminders, as well as when they're talking with their co workers or their neighbors. They give them away as as an encouragement for others who are going through a difficult time.
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We've also included a five-day devotional that you can either hand out to people as they're leaving your service, or you can email it to people throughout the week, every day you can email you know, for five days you can email someone, the the devotional for that day and the devotional is based off of Psalms 23 and aligns with the message, “You are not alone.” I think it's can be really helpful to connect with people throughout the week as a call back to the message. And it's a fantastic engagement strategy. And even with discipleship it's really helpful to keep people processing the information but they are not alone. God is faithful through it all.
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Okay, two more engagement strategies. You ready for this? The very first one is a small group curriculum offered by sanctuary mental health ministries. They have generously allowed me to link to their sanctuary mental health course. It is free eight week course designed for small groups to raise awareness and start the conversations regarding mental health. I personally have facilitated this group I have tried it. It has been absolutely amazing for our local church. We had in our group, a 17 year old and a 70 year old, we have professionals we have those who are retired, we had students, it was absolutely amazing how every single person every week, was able to take some new learning and take something away. They talk about mental health stigma, recovery, companionship, self-care, the role of community, the role of church, it is really quite an impactful, small group curriculum that is free. So make sure you check that out sanctuary mental health ministries, their sanctuary course is amazing. And it's linked. We link it in the resource pack so you can go there and download everything that you need to run the group. Now finally, the very last resource is a 12 monthly or monthly ideas to help you keep the conversation going about mental health throughout the year.
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Mental health isn't just, you know, felt in May and October, we feel you know, people struggle all the time. So we want to keep the conversation going and foster an environment that is safe and supported. So having these ideas, we provide 12 monthly ideas to keep mental health at the forefront of the conversation so that it's not just oh, once a year we talk about it. Well, there's really simple and easy ways that you can, you can keep the conversation going. Okay, there you have it. I told you I wasn't kidding. The mental health Sunday toolkit gives you everything you need to promote and prepare, present and engage people around mental health. As mentioned, you can download this toolkit at mentalhealthsunday.com and it is set up as a pay what you want, so it can be free, or you can pick your price.
I really hope that this toolkit is gives you the takeaways that you need and gives you the resources you need to talk about mental health in your local church. Our communities are desperate for hope they're they're seeking support. And the local church is positioned in the neighborhoods of your community, and has such an incredible, unique way or unique capacity to walk alongside people in a way that no other organization can. And we have the hope of Christ to share. I hope that you're able to make use of this resource and share it with others because we can't talk about mental health enough. It is so impactful and so important to people. Well, thank you for listening. I am so excited to share this with you. I hope you have a fantastic week. And if you need any further help and planning this out, I would love to connect just head over to Hope Made Strong and click the Contact me,hopemadestrong.org, sorry, and click the contact me page and we will connect with you and talk about hosting a Mental Health Sunday. Take care and God bless
