SOLA Network had the privilege of speaking to Monica Kim, Ph.D., is a Christian counselor, who has taught counseling courses as an associate faculty at CCEF and a lecturer at WTS. Monica Kim spoke to about how pastors can support their own mental health needs and the needs of their churches.
Their conversation included:
- How pastors may feel overwhelmed
- Meeting people with the Gospel message
- How pastors can and should lead culture change
- The complexities of talking about mental health
We hope you are blessed and challenged by their conversation.
Watch the interview on YouTube, listen to the audio on Podcasts, or read the transcript below. Please note the transcript has only been lightly edited and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
More SOLA Network Resources featuring counseling and mental health.
- Article: Simone Biles, Mental Health, and the Church by Hannah Chao
- Article: Diagnosing Your Emotional Health by Tim St. John
- Article: Friendship Essentials for Men by Tim St. John
SOLA Network: So how do pastors help people with mental health issues when they themselves have mental health issues?
Monica Kim: That’s a great question. I don’t think having a mental health issue as a pastor precludes you from helping others with mental health issues. I think, in fact, that might even provide a good kind of way of empathizing and building up that understanding or compassion, especially as fellow strugglers. So I don’t think mental health issues are not things or things that pastors should not struggle with because they’re people. And so as people, helping people, I think, again, pastors can still, with mental health issues, counsel church members and others,
SOLA Network: For a lot of currently serving pastors, mental health counseling and training is not a part of their seminary experience, their high school or college education. I think a lot of them feel really overwhelmed. What would be your encouragement of how they go forward without any training at all?
Monica Kim: First of all, I want to say that if they’re overwhelmed, they should be overwhelmed. Because you’re really getting to such deep struggles and vulnerable things that a lot of church members will bring to their awareness. And so if they are feeling overwhelmed, they should be because what they’re experiencing is the overwhelm of their parishioner, right? They’re really sharing in that kind of overwhelming experience.
That’s not to say then that if they’re overwhelmed, then they should be able to then counsel them and they should just kind of push through. So what I’m saying by that is—first of all, being able to acknowledge that with their parishioner, and then be able to love them in the midst by sharing how their issues are very important, and that they do have compassion about them.
Secondly, I think that in the midst of that kind of a conversation—I’m imagining when a person comes to their pastor—that the pastor can also, in humility, be able to share their lack of understanding or training to be able to help them in terms of specific counseling issue that they may deeply struggle with. And while they share the humility of their lack of training in that area, they can also share, however, that they do have training or understanding of the depth of the Word of God that can really minister to their heart in a powerful way, if the parishioner is open to that. So being able to build that kind of agreement together and acknowledgement of what the counseling or ministry could look like will be really helpful for the parishioner.
So having said that, oftentimes when parishioners come, while they deeply need the ministry of the gospel, oftentimes they may not be coming in for that, right? They may be coming in for, “I want relief from the suffering. Can you help me find some relief; I’m really struggling with an addiction or anxiety, or depression.”
And so they’re coming in for relief. So being able to understand that the gospel and word of God will really address the deep issues of their heart that might be behind the depression or anxiety is something that the parishioner can understand or the church member may need to understand. And then from that, they may have to also acknowledge if they really, really want relief of the suffering, that they should talk about that too. In that kind of instance, or in that part of the journey, a pastor being able to suggest and refer them to someone who could help them with their particular suffering and need for relief can be something that they could talk about.
SOLA Network: And that’s referring to therapy, counselors, or psychiatrists. That stigma has definitely shifted. But what do you see is kind of the way that that stigma maybe has still evolved? Or what is your hope for the Asian American church’s relationship with professional help?
Monica Kim: That’s a complicated one. There are so many kinds of needs in the Asian American church. There are so many different levels of needs or understanding. People are coming from so many perspectives. A first step in an Asian American church might be how you really start to raise awareness for the need for heart change in the midst of issues.
Maybe raising awareness in the church, like churchwide training or development. That might help church members to consider when they go out for counseling, that while their suffering might reduce in some way, it may not necessarily target their relationship with Jesus. And to know how it is important for the church to help the church member to be aware that that may be more important in light of eternity. Maybe not in light of the current instant, but definitely in light of eternity—how important that direction is. Does that make sense?
SOLA Network: It’s a conjunction.
Monica Kim: Right, right. That’s why I think it’s important [to teach that] while you send them out and they really get relief. Because God’s common grace is, it’s there. It exists. And by his common grace, he’s enabled folks to be able to address unbelievers to be able to address these kinds of issues and find a lot of relief, while we in the church understand relief may not be the core target.
But again, a relationship with Jesus is important. The Bible doesn’t ignore the importance of suffering and relief from suffering. So it is that constant relationship and awareness of how to talk about things as parishioners go out and then come back in.
SOLA Network: And then take that second part. What are some of the ways that you’ve seen Asian American churches provide that deeper application of the Gospel into people’s mental health, whether it be depression or trauma?
Monica Kim: I’m not sure if that’s there. I guess that’s why I’m hoping that more churches will start to really provide let’s say seminars, or even pastors may talk about it in their sermons. Will that part of the counseling ministry be developed a lot more so that it is not like, oh, maybe once in a while this happens? But it’s a constant kind of ministry that is built and developed to lay that foundation.
SOLA Network: Pastors a lot of time will take that burden onto themselves. It’s not always helpful. What does it look like in your experience, even just as a template? What does it look like to try to build that culture?
Monica Kim: Yeah, yeah. That is like the hardest piece. I do agree that pastors can’t take it on themselves to bear the whole burden of that culture change. But it does have to come from the top. And so being able to understand the kind of authority or position that they have to invigorate, to incite, to share their passion about the importance in the ways that they have available or the time that’s available, like in a sermon. How do they start to use that voice that they have, and be able to talk about it?
SOLA Network: As a former preaching pastor myself, there’s always this conundrum of, “Am I sharing things that I’ve processed or am I sharing things I’m processing?” For things like mental health, it’s really hard to tell. Like physical health, it’s easy to tell, “Oh my leg! I can walk again!”
What is helpful for pastors, especially preaching pastors? When is a good discernment to share these things publicly? Because with mental health, sometimes we don’t feel like we’ve ever fully healed.
Monica Kim: Yeah, because it’s such a journey, and it might be a lifelong journey. If we think about it in the context of sanctification, it is a lifelong journey,
SOLA Network: So how are potential ways that a pastor could try to make that discernment?
Monica Kim: I think that idea of discernment about whether they’re in process or have processed is a good question to ask. At the same time, I think more than “Am I processing or it or have I processed?” is [asking] “How are my sermons?” Or “How is my message being affected by my process or having been processed.”
You don’t have to make a really big distinction about it. But I think what’s important is being aware that it could still impact your message. Let’s say, for example, one doesn’t know that they haven’t processed it, but they think that they have. And then they feel like, “Hey, I’m struggling less.” And then, might the pastor start to say, “I did it, so you can do it.” And the journey might look different.
So will they be thoughtful about the angle at which they’re going to come while they’re preaching about their struggles or having struggled? I don’t know. That’s a hard question. I think that’s, that’s something to think about a little bit more.
SOLA Network: In terms of leadership beyond preaching pastors, we are now more aware of a lot of these warning signs of mental health illness that in the past we would have just pushed through or put on the back burner. But what does it mean in the sense of community, right? As a pastor, how do you bring those up with your friends, “Hey, I want to talk to you because I’m worried about you,” without it being attacking. Because for me, you don’t want to ever go to somebody and be like, “Hey, I think you’re depressed.” How do you kind of navigate dialogue?
Monica Kim: Yeah, navigate dialogue among pastors and leaders so that the culture of counseling ministry and their ability to be humble and open and genuine can be practiced from the top. That’s a really good question.
Conferences like this help to invite pastors and leaders to say, “Hey, slow down and recognize the importance of mental health or counseling issues.” So one of the challenges is that a lot of the times men, and a lot of pastors are men, and men historically have a little bit more of a difficult time connecting with the knowledge that they’re struggling. So it may not be just that they’re not being vulnerable or denying it. But it may be that they have grown not to really, actually be aware of it, too. So it is an issue to be thoughtful about.
I imagine that a lot of pastors and leaders hearing the talks about abuse in the church or spiritual abuse or counseling needs or the importance of counseling—I imagine that many of them are on board, “Yeah, we should do that.” But I also think it might be hard for them to know how they themselves connect to that, if that makes sense.
So it is a pretty complicated issue. I keep saying it’s complicated because it’s actually complex. It’s not like a simple answer: Here’s how a pastor should approach another pastor. Because oftentimes, pastors, while they recognize the importance of the counseling ministry, sometimes they’re really actually not aware that they do have that need, even though they’re very compassionate about it.
SOLA Network: Yeah, I think it’s, it’s, it’s helpful to hear that it is complicated. It’s easy to think, well, if I just follow these 123 steps, right, but it is this process of sanctification, understanding yourself, and understanding God.
Just in this current climate, where mental health issues are much more prevalent and being brought to the forefront, but as well in the world sense, there’s this battle between despair and hope. What do you feel are some of the things about God and about the gospel that really gives you hope? In the midst of all this.
Monica Kim: Personally, I know that the word of God and the hope that he gives to us in the promises that he has for me is deeply important.
As an aside, I’ve experienced a lot of physical struggles in the past couple of years, not only with the pandemic’s collective trauma, but I’ve gone through cancer. Just in the last two years, my husband, he also almost passed away a couple of years ago, after his heart surgery. And so it’s really impacted the way that I think.
So while I am both a biblical counselor and a psychologist-in-training, and having been trained in those areas, I do think that the greatest hope that I find in terms of all the suffering that we have gone through is the knowledge that we will be received because of Christ, and because of his sacrifice, and because of the power of the resurrection. And so that does give me the deepest hope—knowing that that can never be taken away, whether because I’m Asian, or whether I’ve done this or that or not done this or that or if I was about to die or not. The promise that Jesus indeed has received me by His blood is the greatest hope.