Mental Health in the Pews

When the Uniting Church’s national General Secretary spoke openly about his own diagnosis this Mental Health Week, he raised a question every congregation should sit with. What does it really mean to make room for mental ill-health in church?

It started with more than a week without sleep, a mind racing with ideas and a sense that something was not right. After months of care from his GP, psychologist and psychiatrist, Andrew Johnson, General Secretary of the Uniting Church’s national Assembly, was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder last year.

In October, during Mental Health Week, he chose to say so publicly. His reflection is personal, but its point is aimed squarely at the church: a diagnosis names one part of a life, and the danger is that the name starts to define the whole person.

“It is part of my story. It is not the whole of my story,” he wrote.

One in five, in the pews too

Andrew is far from alone. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than two in five Australians aged 16 to 85 have experienced a mental disorder at some point in their lives, and one in five had one in the previous year. Anxiety is the most common.

Church does not sit outside those numbers. The most recent National Church Life Survey, from 2021, found that 19 per cent of churchgoers had sought or received treatment for a mental health issue in the previous two years, up slightly from 17 per cent in 2016. Results from the 2026 survey, which has just closed, are still to come.

In a congregation of 50, that is nine or ten people. Some of them sit in the same pew every week. Some of them lead worship.

Supported, or simply unseen

The same survey asked those churchgoers how well their church supported them. Around four in ten rated that support as good or excellent. But almost as many, 38 per cent, said their church did not know about their mental health at all. That figure has improved since 2016, when it was 46 per cent, but it still means many people carry their struggle quietly on a Sunday.

Not every silence is a problem. NCLS researchers note that for some people privacy matters, and their church does not need to know. For others, the congregation could be one of the most valuable sources of connection and support they have, if only someone knew to offer it.

There is a long tradition to build on. Wesley Mission in Sydney, now part of the Uniting Church, is where Lifeline began under Rev Sir Alan Walker. It has since grown into Australia’s largest national phone support service, and Wesley Mission’s LifeForce program is now the country’s largest provider of suicide prevention training.

When faith language gets it wrong

Stigma in church is rarely loud. Andrew observes that it more often shows up in quiet assumptions: about what someone can still do, what responsibility they can carry, or whether their judgement and calling should now be seen differently.

Faith language can make it worse. Research by the UK charity Kintsugi Hope found that unhelpful beliefs persist in churches, including the idea that faith should protect people from mental illness, or that it stems from a lack of belief or from sin. Well-meant advice to pray, offered instead of practical help, can leave someone feeling their illness is a spiritual failure.

For Andrew, the better response begins with dignity. Where illness affects someone’s capacity to work or serve, he argues, the church should make reasonable accommodations and keep recognising each person’s gifts, rather than measuring their worth by what they produce.

What helps

Much of what helps is ordinary: a meal dropped off, a lift to an appointment, a card, a visit, a prayer, or simply someone noticing. Information matters too. Putting details of local support in the newsletter or on the church website quietly tells people they are not the first to need it.

None of this replaces professional care, and it is not meant to. Across the Uniting Church, agencies such as Uniting NSW.ACT provide mental health support alongside the care offered in congregations. After a suicide memorial service in Canberra late last year, Uniting Church President Rev Charissa Suli prayed that the church would continue to be “a community of compassion, courage, and connection for all”.

Some Uniting congregations have gone further. In Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Uniting Heart and Soul runs Wellness HQ, a counselling service in Double Bay offering face-to-face sessions at little or no cost, with no doctor’s referral needed and no one turned away for financial reasons. Sessions are led by counselling interns in their final year of study, supervised by the service’s principal psychologist. Its message is simple: “It is a strength to ask for help when you need.”

We are all clay jars

Andrew closes his reflection with the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians: “We have this treasure in clay jars.” The image is not about hiding weakness. It is about the treasure carried in fragile vessels, which is to say, in every one of us.

For Andrew, a thriving church is not one where everyone is coping. It is one where people can name their struggles without shame and find support when they need it. That is not a program a church can buy in. It begins with the next conversation over morning tea.

Further reading: Graham Joseph Hill writes about his own experience of depression in How Struggles with Mental Health and Addictions Can Help Us Be the Church.

If this article raises concerns for you, support is available: Lifeline 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14 (24/7); Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 (24/7); 13YARN for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 13 92 76 (24/7); NSW Mental Health Line 1800 011 511 (24/7). In an emergency, call 000.