Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Suicide Prevention in the Church: A Biblical Guide for Pastors (David Gilleland)

Transcript

Suicide Prevention in the Church: A Biblical Guide for Pastors (David Gilleland) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: James Spencer and I'm joined today by a new author,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: David Gilland. David and I have been friends for a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: lot of years, but he's also a former pastor and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: he's worked with suicide prevention for a very long time
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and then just recently got his biblical counseling certification. And
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: he's written a new book called Holding Hope, a biblical
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: guide to suicide prevention for church leaders. And we're going
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to be talking through that today. This is a really
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: important topic. I've had Jeremy Stahlmacher on who does a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: lot of this work with vets who come back from
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: war and they're dealing with sort of the post-traumatic stress
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of that. And so this is just something that I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: think plagues an awful lot of people. And so, David,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: welcome to the program, man. And thanks very much for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: writing this book.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having me. What a cool way to
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: start my Friday. It's just... Like talking to an old friend,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: it seems like our journey from over the years has
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: really brought us on quite a journey.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I agree. No, this is cool. I was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: glad to hear you writing a book. I mean, I'd
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: kept up a little bit with what you were doing,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: obviously with the pastoring. And then I'm not as familiar
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: with all the work that you've done in suicide prevention.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And so I'm just interested, you know, talk a little
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: bit through what led you to this project? What, what
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: professional experiences did you have? What pastoral experiences did you have? And,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and then what would, what would prompt you to say, Hey,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: people really need to see this in book form.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, I wrote holding hope, um, because
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I saw, I had kind of the, like you said,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I had two parts of my life, right? I had the, the,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the secular and the, the Christian and they're not supposed
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: to be separated, but I really needed to bring these
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: things together. Um, And so I was suicide prevention program
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: manager for the military, for the National Guard, for the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Army Reserves for nearly a decade. And in the midst
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: of that, I somehow became a pastor. I have to
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: trust God on that one. But all those years of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: pastoral ministry and biblical counseling, and suicide prevention all came together. Uh,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: when I was at my church, I got called, they
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: know me as the suicide prevention guy who's now their pastor.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And one of the first things that happened was one
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: of my congregants said, Hey, is my brother in hell? Uh,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: cause he killed himself. And as I'm talking to pastors
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and I'm asking them, you know, who do I, who
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: do I go to when somebody's, um, when they need
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: counseling for something. Right. So it was kind of a
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: combination of all these different elements creating this perfect storm
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: because the church leaders were telling me, well, I keep
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a stack of business cards for a Christian counselor on
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: my desk. And I saw a lot of farming in
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: them out. And when I started asking them, well, what
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: kind of suicide prevention training did you get in seminary?
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: And they're like, yeah, we, I don't, I don't remember
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: hearing that word in seminary.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And so I just wanted to help church leaders kind
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: of bridge that gap between wanting to help and knowing
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: what to do, right? I'm not trying to turn pastors
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: into mental health professionals. I wrote the book to help
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: equip them to recognize warning signs, feel more confident in
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: having those difficult conversations, being able to respond compassionately and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: connect people with the help they need.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think for people who don't, no
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: seminary education right seminary education is um a very you
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: can think of it like a specialized discipline and so
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you get um fairly you get some widening in like
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a master of divinity or something like that where you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: might learn some preaching you might learn some ministry skills
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and you usually have a counseling class thrown in there
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: but it's one class And so you compare that to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the difference of you working with suicide prevention for over
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a decade. And most people are never going to get,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: even in a pastoral counseling class, you're not going to
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: deal with suicide prevention more than like, let's say, a week,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: maybe two. And so they just don't have that specialized
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: depth that you've developed over time. And so I think
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: this is a great way to bridge between what you
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: had been doing professionally and then what you were thrown
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: into pastorally.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Right. And, and, you know, the, just because we don't
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: talk about suicide in the churches doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Right.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, people who are struggling are already a part
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of our churches are already a part of our communities. Um,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: some of them may be sitting in the pews, but
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: some of them may be leading ministries. Uh, I believe
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I quoted a Barner research study where like 20% of pastors, uh,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: had suicidal thoughts.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Um, So it's something that's real, but also it's a
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: subject that can make us extremely uncomfortable, right? We're afraid
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: to say we might say the wrong thing, and so
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: we say nothing, right? Or we're so uncomfortable with it,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: we throw out, you know, maybe you should pray more
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: or here's a scripture, you know, for you. And that's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: not to, you know, to diminish those things. They are important. But,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you know, this kind of cultural dig at Christianity with
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the thoughts and prayers is there for a reason. It's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: because a lot of times people, when they're in that discomfort,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: they offer something that will get them out of it quickly. Right.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: And so what I'm saying is that the church doesn't
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: have to know everything to begin helping. Right. We just
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: need to be willing to acknowledge that suffering is real
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and it exists. It's in our churches. Let's ask honest
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: questions and walk with people rather than kind of leaving
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: them in their pain. We can't care well for a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: struggle that we refuse to acknowledge. Yeah.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I want to hop into some of the theological stuff,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: but I thought I'd ask this question first. When you
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: think about suicide in the church, there's obviously the gap
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: between you know, comfort and discomfort. There's a gap between
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: understanding and even being able to spot the warning signs and,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you know, having some sensitivity to, oh, I think this
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: person may actually have a bigger problem than just the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: thoughts and prayer line is really going to address. Like
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: there's a skill gap there. But do you also see
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a sort of a social stigma? I mean, it just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: strikes me that the question that gentleman asked you when
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you came in, you know, my brother committed suicide, is
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: he in hell? this has a really deep sort of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: sin-oriented stigma to it. And you sort of fold that into,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a bigger trend like in the United States,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we should be self-sufficient. We should be able
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to care for ourselves. We should be able to handle
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: our own problems. Like how much of a stigma do
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you think holds the church back from really addressing this
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: issue and recognizing it as not just a not just
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a present problem, but something it should deal with?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think the church is uniquely qualified to
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: help people in this space. We're supposed to be hope dealers, right?
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Or what's the old pastor saying? The church is a
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints, right? We
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: are the place where people come with their pain to
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: get hope, to to deal with their brokenness through Christ.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: And so I think one of the cultural things that
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: you're talking about is... So in suicide prevention in the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: secular world, in the military, it's not just about prevention
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: and postvention and intervention. It's about helping to reduce stigma
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: and taboo about even talking about the subject. And in
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: our churches, we especially.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I have no comparison about international churches, but it seems
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: like in American churches that cultural model that we have
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: of self-sufficiency, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, all
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of that has seeped into the church. And so we
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: spend a lot of time talking about victory in Jesus,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and I am more than an overcomer, and that we
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: should have joy, joy, joy in our hearts, right? And
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: that's not a lot of... that's not reality for a
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: lot of people in our pews sometimes. And I think
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: they get, they may feel like they can't express those
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: thoughts or even confess their sins in church, because that
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: might be seen as weakness where we've kind of built
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: this culture of, of strength in Christ, which we do have.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And let's not forget that, you know, a lot of
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the Psalms are about lament. You know, I think the
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Bible is, is remarkably honest about suffering. I was just
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: reading Psalm 88 the other day, which is so heavy.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, this guy is in deep despair, right? He's despondent.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And there's no neat wrap-up at the end of it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: But I know that you'll make everything better. No, this
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: is in the pit. He's lost his friends. Everything is bad. And,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and so I think that we, we neglect some of
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: that stuff because we're afraid maybe that that's off putting.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And I think we, we, should be allowed to have
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: more honest conversations about suffering and suicide. And yeah, I mean,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: is suicide sin? I believe the Bible make a case
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: that it is, right? The Bible places great value on
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: human life, like from Genesis 1 on. And I also think, though,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: that we need to be careful, right, not to turn
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: this kind of complex theological question into into a simplistic
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: verdict about a suffering person's eternal destiny, which was the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: case with this. And different denominations have historically treated this
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: subject differently. So I'm just saying that our responsibility as
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the common everyday pastor on a Tuesday afternoon or Friday morning,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: when that crisis comes, our responsibility is to protect life,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: offer compassionate care and help that other person, you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: receive support.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And it's worth saying, I mean, when you, even when
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: we think about the value that the Bible places on
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: human life and thinking about suicide as sin, anybody you're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: talking about or anybody you're talking to regarding suicidal thoughts
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: has yet to commit the sin.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And so you're always dealing with it preemptively when you're
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: dealing with it with a person, which is sort of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a great position to be in. It's unlike many other
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: sins that we might deal with, right? Where someone who
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: has committed adultery or someone who is addicted to pornography
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: or someone who has committed some sort of a crime
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: or what have you, where the deed is already done
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and now you're dealing with fallout. So I would think
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of times when you're looking, you're identifying these signs,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with something now proactively that doesn't necessarily, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: necessarily lend itself to just the blunt observation. Hey, suicide's sin,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't do it. You sort of have to work
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: around it. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I was I use the illustration in
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the book and I've used this a million times. I
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: was a pastor during COVID, which is, you know, is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: like PTSD. Just talking about thinking about it. But, you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and so you're in a church and any pastor that
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: was a pastor during COVID or really anybody during that
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: time can relate to. There are very strong opinions on
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: whether you should mask or not mask, whether you should
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: have in-person attendance or not. whether you should vaccinate or
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: not vaccinate. Statistics say this. Statistics say that. I know this, right?
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: This was my lived experience in those two or three
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: years of 2020 to 2022. I did more funerals in
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: those three years than in the other, you know, five,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: six years of my pastorate combined. There was not a
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: single funeral that I did where a statistic would have
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: brought comfort to a family member that was grieving, right?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you believe about vaccines or what
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: you believe about COVID. When that person has lost their
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: loved one and they are suffering, your opinion on it
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter. What matters is that we have hope in
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Christ and God is near to the brokenhearted, right? The
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Bible speaks to those things. It speaks about human suffering.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It doesn't pretend that faithful people never experience anguish or
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: fear or discouragement or despair, right? So I think we
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: can take these spiritual realities seriously while also recognizing that emotional, physical, relational,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: situational distress is real. And it's not our job to
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: base someone's faith just on what pain they're experiencing, right?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Our job is to care for them faithfully. And so
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I hope I answered your question. I started.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: No, that's helpful.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I started kind of rabbit trail. It's just a danger. No, no.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Former pastor.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I know that helps. I mean, I think
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: you've got two chapters and I appreciated the way you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: align them. Chapter three and chapter four, you have chapter three,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: suicide in scripture, tragedy and warning. And then you have
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is suicide a sin, a pastoral and doctrinal response. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: part of what I thought when I was reading through
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: those chapters was, I thought to myself, I bet pastors
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: deal a lot more. This would just be my bet.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I have no statistics to back this up. But my
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: bet is I bet pastors deal a lot more with
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: people who have lost someone to suicide than they actually
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: deal with people who are thinking about committing suicide.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And part of the reason we frame the question or
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the answers the way we do is because we're thinking
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it through from the perspective of a survivor, not through
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the perspective of someone who's struggling with this. Right.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, one of the dangers we
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: can run into in the. When we look at suicide,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: there are people who are in that mindset that think
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: what they're doing is the right thing. I'm doing this
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to remove the problem that I am on my family.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: You know, there's this almost nobility to to what I'm
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: what that person is considering. And I can tell you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: from dealing with people in the aftermath of suicide, that
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: is never the way it is perceived, right? I've done,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I've trained literally over a thousand soldiers and veterans on
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: suicide prevention. And one of the first things we do
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: in those trainings is we take some space at the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: very beginning to just talk about what our feelings are
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: about suicide and what our experiences have been with suicide.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: And every single time, James, there is somebody in those
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: discussions that start crying or emoting in some way because
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: they've never been able to talk about it. But so
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: many of them have a line that they can draw
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: to somebody in their life that's suicided. Whether it's a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: family member, you know, I had one lieutenant, she just
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: started crying beside me because her husband's suicided. She didn't
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: feel like she could she was allowed to talk about
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: it because it would be seen as a leadership failure
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: or something. But her biggest question was why, you know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I never understood why. And, and in, in the Christian context,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: we think that, I think there's this underlying implication that if,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: if you're a real Christian, if you really have enough faith,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: that's not something that you would do. But that's, you know,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: that's not, that's not really biblical. You talk about the
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: examples I listed in the book. There are five suicides
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that I found. But conversely, I also found five men
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: in the Bible who were suicidal, but then did not
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: kill themselves, right? So, you know, you have the famous
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Judas and Saul, but also Saul's armor bearer and Zimri
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: and Ahithophel, some of these like odd kind of things.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: But you also have the Jonas, right? Or maybe the
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: most famous Elijah under the broom tree in 1 Kings 19.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And Moses wanted to die at one point. Job is
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: clearly a picture of suffering. But these people all turned
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: to God, whereas the other ones didn't even really acknowledge.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: They just saw no hope whatsoever. And so I think
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: that's really where the needle moves is when people are
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: in that suicidal frame of mind, they don't see any
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: hope for tomorrow being any different from the days before it, right?
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Nothing is going to change. And that's where more people
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: lean towards suicide than away from it. One of the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: trainings that I do is we kind of explain how
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: suicide is a big deal, right? It's a very heavy choice.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's a very difficult choice to make. Most people, even
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: those that have survived suicide attempts, will tell you that
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: they didn't really want to die. But life is also
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: really hard right now, right? It's very heavy. It's very difficult.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And it's so hard that taking yourself out of life
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: seems like an option and so all what we do
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: what i do in in this training is say that
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: there is a third much safer option and that option
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: is um to stay safe for now right you don't
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: have to know you can't solve somebody's life problems in
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: one conversation all you need to do really in that
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: moment is just take the one next step. What can
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: we do to keep you safe for now while we
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: plug you into some of this other stuff, right? So again,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of wandering here, but that's leading more to
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the practical.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I guess. No, I think that's really helpful. I mean-
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We were talking before the interview and I mentioned the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: conversations I'd had with a gentleman named Benjamin Matthew on
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: these ideas of deaths of despair. And he echoed some
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of the things you're saying. This idea that life just
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: isn't going to get better is really a characteristic of despair.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: That it doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: where these things go. There's no real realistic way in
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: which my life is going to change for the better.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: It's going to be this until I die. And that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: sort of draws death a little closer because you start
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to frame yourself in these perspectives where you say, if
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: nothing about my life is going to get better and
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I can't do anything to effectively make my life better
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: until I die, why not just move death forward and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: save everyone the trouble? And I don't know that maybe
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you can help with this, but It doesn't feel selfish
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to me. Like that logic doesn't feel selfish to me.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like I would like to exit this
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: life because life is getting way too hard for me. And,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you know, just damn all the people that care about me.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It feels more like you described, like they're thinking, wow,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm such a burden on people. I'd love to unburden
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the people that I love from just having to deal
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Right. And that's part of that rationalization process, right? We can't,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, the life in us, we are image bearers
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: of God. To end our own lives is really a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: very unnatural thing for us to do. And so it's
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: like with any other sin in the sense that we
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: have to find a way to justify the way we're
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: feeling or the actions that we were taking. We know that,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: you know, I know that going to the buffet for
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: the sixth time is wrong, but, you know, I justify
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: that by saying, but I spent $ 30 for this buffet
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: and I need to get, you know, all of it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And I know that's like, you know, a little bit flippant,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: but it's the same kind of principle, the underlying principle, right?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: There's a need to rationalize And I think that when
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: we get into that kind of a head space where
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: death seems like the only option, we have to find
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: some way to rationalize that because it's just not natural.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: And the way we do that then is to say,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be a burden on so-and-so. Another
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: example of somebody in one of my groups, um, when
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: we talked about how a suicide affected you in your life,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: when they were a child, when they were in third grade, right? Now,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: this is a 30-year-old soldier. When they were in third grade,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: one of their elementary school teachers killed themselves. And they
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: were children. They didn't really understand all of that. But
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: he said for his whole life, he and others that
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: he had talked to from that class wondered what did
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: they do wrong to make Mr. So-and-so, suicide, right? To
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: kill themselves. They took that on, even though that, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: this guy, it probably was completely separate from the classroom,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: but those actions have incredibly deep ripple effects that we
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: can't even see most of the time, especially if you're
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: in that space, because you are very self-focused, right? It's
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: not that you're selfish. It's that you're focused on yourself
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: so much. All of those biblical accounts are I gave of,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of suicides in the Bible, none of those people were
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: looking to God. They were all focused on themselves, right?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Whether it was humiliation, loss of power, loss of control, um,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: loss of, of position, you know, there was some kind
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of loss, but it, it was something that they weren't saying, um,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: God can change this, right? God can do something different here. Um, And,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: you know, in Saul's case, probably the army would have
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: come and killed him anyway. And, you know, they killed
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: all of his kids. They probably would have killed him anyway.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: But maybe not. Yeah.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And Saul is such an interesting test case, because when
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: you read his sort of narrative arc throughout the whole book,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: what you see is him making decisions based on his
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: fear of the people. Right. As opposed to his fear
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of God. And so this ending for him is consistent
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: with what we see across that presentation of him through
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: his whole life, which is he now has nothing. He recognizes,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: just like you're saying, that there's no one else around
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to protect him. The battle is lost. He's done. And
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: so he's not going to allow himself to be taken
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: in by people he doesn't trust, that he is afraid of.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: He is just going to kill himself. And he sees
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: it as, I have no hope because I have nothing
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: left in a lot of ways. I mean, I think
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that's a consistent read across his whole life. Whereas you
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: look at the way that David operates, and this is
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the contrast to the whole book, David is the one
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: who fears the Lord. Even when he makes mistakes, he
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: tends to lean back into God. the Lord and look
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to God for some sort of stability and hope. So
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: even when he's running from Absalom, right, he's refusing to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: kill Shammai. Like all of these areas, David is still
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: sort of sitting back saying, no, I still have some
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: scruples about me that God is going to bring me
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: through this and that I have faith in him. Then
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I just need to act consistent with what that is.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: But there is a real deep orientation there. difference between
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Saul and David that makes Saul's ending make perfect sense
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: within the narrative.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Right. He believes that this is the end. He believes
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: that this is the action he should take, right? There's
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: nowhere where he's really saying, God, what do you want?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I became a master trainer in this applied suicide intervention
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: skills training model, international credential model. I say it's the
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Cadillac of suicide prevention. And one of the things they
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: train you on is to listen to turning points when
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: you're having a conversation. Like, look, where is that life
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: spark speaking, right? Where is there something? And one of
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: the examples that they give you is that the person
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: at risk says to you, all I can think, the
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: only thing I can see right now is to die.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: All I want to do right now is to die, right?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And so where do you find a turning point or
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: a spark of life in that? Which is incredibly difficult, right?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: All I want to do right now is die. So
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: what do you do with that right now? Right. So
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: you say, OK, that's that's how you feel right now.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Is it possible that tomorrow you might feel differently or
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a year from now things might be different or 10
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: minutes from now you might, you know, things might be different?
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And so it's really a matter of to get that
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: focus off of themselves to think about what if. It's
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: more like what if. What if God did something, right?
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: And how many times do we see in life where
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: people struggle and struggle and struggle and struggle? And just
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: like at the moment they give up, something good happens, right?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Just like at the moment they give up. Right. It
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: speaks to our, you know, going back to kind of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the culture of the church, is we talk a lot
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: about submission and surrender, but we don't do it really well, right?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Jesus is my Savior, yes. Jesus is my Lord, well,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: you know, when it's convenient for me, right? And that's
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: kind of Saul, right? Jesus is my Lord, except I
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: want to do all these other things, right? And so really,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: do we trust God? And I'm not saying that people
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: who are in that suicidal space don't trust God enough.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that they need to continue to trust God,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: even when they can't see it, even when they don't know.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Because I don't know, you know, when I listen, when
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I do interventions and people are talking to me and
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: they're in that space, brother, I'm telling you, their life
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: is hard. Their problems are real. And sometimes life really
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: does suck for them. Sometimes it's self-inflicted. Sometimes it's external circumstances.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, God is still
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: in control. God is still sovereign. We don't know what
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: God is doing in that suffering. And sometimes it's in
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: that suffering, it's in that place of despair where we
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: actually gravitate. closer to Him. We grow closer to Him
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: in the valleys than we do in the mountaintops. But
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: we all want the mountaintops because that's where it's comfortable
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: and where it's easy. But it's not necessarily where we grow.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And God wants us to grow more in Christ's likeness.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And those are the places when we Our nature is
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: to want to turn from him. God has given up
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: on me. I quit. Where we really have an opportunity
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: to lean into him. So I have this kind of
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: a funny story that I tell about when I was
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: taking teams to El Salvador, we had to raise money
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: to go on mission trips. And we were two weeks
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: away from going on this mission trip and we were
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: $ 10, 000 short. And the money was due right now. And
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I went to a good friend of mine, James Spencer,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: and I said, James, why would God, you know, let
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: me let me fail, bring me all this way. And
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: James said something to me that changed my whole perspective.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: He said, what makes you think God wants you to succeed?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: And I had no answer for that. It's just that
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: that's the the the way I learned church, I wasn't
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: a Christian as a kid, right? I learned church as
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: an adult. I learned church culture first. And it had
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: never occurred to me that God might want me to fail.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: He might need me to fail so that I grew
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: more in Christ's likeness so that I might grow closer
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: to Him. And so, you know, when somebody's in that space,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: that may be exactly where God wants them to be, unfortunately.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard, but God is in it for
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: our best interest, for his best interest. Right. And we
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: need to submit to that. We need to surrender to that.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And we need to say, I don't understand this right now.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't need to. Maybe I just keep showing up.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I keep praying, even though the prayers are hitting the
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: ceiling and bouncing back, even though I feel like I'm
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: talking to myself, whatever, you know, God, I'm just going
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to keep, I'm just going to keep coming. I'm going
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: to keep showing up every day. And, and that's what,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: And that's where he needs us to be.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting. We had a conversation, well, my
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: pastor's been doing a sermon series and part of it's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: in 1 John. And one of the things you find
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: in 1 John is this really interesting, compelling verse of
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: 1 John 1.9. You know, if we confess our sins,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: he is faithful and righteous to forgiveness our sins and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: cleanses of all unrighteousness. And when you start to realize,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and the way I can talk through it with my
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: small group is, If you look at the Old Testament law,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament law has these prescriptions of how we're
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: supposed to act, right? It does present an ideal. I mean,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: when you look at the Ten Commandments, there are these
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: prohibitions that say, hey, don't do these things. This is
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: sort of pushing you toward the ideal of society. And
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: yet there's this entire apparatus in the tabernacle that's given
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to make atonement for sin. And so the law doesn't
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: assume that we stop sinning. The law assumes that we're
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: going to need these moments to really pivot and seek
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: God and seek forgiveness and seek atonement and make up
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: for some of the things that we don't do that
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: are ideal. And I think there's an interesting parallel between
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the way you're talking about sort of the suicide stuff
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and that dynamic. Because so often I think we just
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: want to think that the Christian life, like once we
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: receive Christ and the Holy Spirit, we should just be perfect.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And there are times when we feel a lot of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: guilt about that. But the reality is that there's always
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: this mechanism for forgiveness. That's why confession, as in 1
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: John 1, 9, can become a marker of a Christian life.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Because it's assumed that we're going to sin and that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we need to be confessing that sin and moving forward.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But that suggests that the Christian life is lived in a,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: not a dark place, right? But a place of brokenness
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and sin and suffering that we walk through. It's not, hey,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: if you just had bigger faith, you wouldn't sin at all.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: It's never talked about in the New Testament, never talked
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: about in the Old Testament. It's always your faith is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: demonstrated by your willingness to confess your sin, repent and
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: follow God in a different direction. And so these darker
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: moments of our lives really are, I think, intended to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: draw us closer to Christ. It's just about the way
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: we respond within them. And some of the examples you've suggested,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: like Job, great example of it. But even as you
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: read that book, you realize Job is struggling with this.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: He's not, it's not a straight line for him. Like,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I know exactly what's going on. Let me give you
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: my three-point sermon on how to deal with suffering, right? Like,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He's going through it, man.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So I think there is a way of dealing with anguish.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And I think it's just a really crucial point. Let
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: me let me ask you this, because I think this
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: is an interesting I want to get to this. We've
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: talked a lot about, you know, sort of the dynamics
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of suicide prevention, the dynamics of despair. What are some
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: of those early markers, right, that you would say churches
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: need to be looking out for? As they're, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: looking at it, you're looking at your congregation or you're
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: looking at your friends in the congregation and you're saying, wow,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: this person is really struggling. How do you even notice?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Well, a lot of times. So if somebody comes to you,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: you know, straight up and says, hey, I'm thinking about
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: ending my life. How lucky are you that it's that
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: is that bold and clear? And that they trust you
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: that much to bring something so heavy to you. As
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: you were talking, I was reminded of one of my
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: counselees that said he doesn't feel comfortable confessing his sins
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: in church, right? I need to talk to you and
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: confess my sins because I don't feel like I can
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: do that in church, which is exactly where we're supposed
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: to be doing that. But some of the things are
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: common sense and they're statistically correct. There for a reason.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Giving away all your possessions, right? I tell people look
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: for wide changes or broad swings in emotions or behaviors.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: So we think that everybody who's depressed is going to
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: be suicidal, which is not true, right? Not everybody that
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: suicides is depressed and not everybody that's depressed kills themselves.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: But it does statistically, depression is one of the signs.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I'm reminded also of a time when there was a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: chaplain in the National Guard who was a very, pretty
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: serious guy, not particularly friendly, just somebody who was gruff
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: a lot. that came to a prayer breakfast and was
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: totally different. I'm happy, you know, shaking everybody's hand, talking
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: to everybody, and then went home and killed himself. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: so sometimes if somebody's in a place where they're not
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: doing well, and all of a sudden they flip and
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: everything's fine, that may be an indicator that in their mind,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: they finally stepped across that line mentally. I'm going to
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: do it. I've committed to it. The pressure's off. now. Right. So, so,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: so Biden swings in behavior. Um, I think we tend to, um,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: so pastors can sometimes miss what people are saying because
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: it's couched in spiritual language. I can't wait to get
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: to heaven. I can't wait to, you know, meet Jesus. Um,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: but it's also more obvious things like, I, I think
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: people would be better off without me. I don't need
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: to be here anymore. Um, I think every pastor ever
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: has probably experienced this too. When somebody is in embracing
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: their sin or feeling despondent or in despair or depressed,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: you start seeing they quit showing up for church. They
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: start isolating, getting away from Christian people. I have a
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: friend and she will gladly admit this. She'll say, when I,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: when I want my sin, I quit going to church
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: because I feel convicted when I'm at church. So I
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: quit going to church so I don't have to feel
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: that guilt and conviction. And so when people are feeling suicidal,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: they may not feel like they have the joy, joy,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: joy of Jesus in their heart. And so they stay away.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: So look for people who are isolating themselves. I would
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: also say that community, I believe, is one of the
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: strongest ways that churches can create a protective factor for
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: people who are, uh, considering suicide as an option and
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: that participation doesn't necessarily equate community. Um, you can have
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: somebody that shows up every day and hands out the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: bulletins and goes home and isn't alone and, and, and
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: feels completely isolated from everybody else. So, um, I think
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: it's just a matter of knowing your congregation, right? Knowing
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: what's going on in their lives, uh, Take any kind
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: of loss seriously. Loss of job. Had one guy that
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: was going to prison. Loss of freedom, right? We even
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: had one woman who lost her pet, and that loss
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: had her considering suicide as an option. Because that, you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: her life was wrapped up in this dog. So any
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: kind of loss is something to at least minister to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: or to speak into or to check in with, right?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Check in with your people a lot, things like that.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: And also, I say in the book that, and I
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: know I'm slipping more into the practical side of this,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: but I think it's really important to ask very directly
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: about suicide. If your Holy spirit, Spidey sense, whatever's going off,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: ask the question and ask it, um, very directly, very clearly.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Don't say things like, uh, clearly don't say, are you
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: thinking of doing something stupid? Right. That, that demeans the
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: person that diminishes there. Who's going to answer that? Right. Yeah. Yes,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I am. I feel like I'm totally, thank you. Um,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: But also don't say things like, are you thinking about
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: hurting yourself? We say it like that because we want
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: to soften it on ourselves, honestly. But the person that's
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: in that suicidal space is thinking, no, I'm thinking about
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: ending my pain. I'm in pain. So I'm not thinking
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: about hurting myself. I'm thinking about stopping the hurting. And
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: this is how I'm going to do it. I say
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: be very clear, very direct. Are you thinking about suicide?
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: And if they say yes... then you have some steps
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: that you can take. If they say no and you
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: believe them, then you have still checked in on that
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: person and you can still walk with, doesn't mean you're like, okay, good,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: good to go. See you next Sunday. Right? You can
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: still speak into that person's life. You can still help
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: them with resources. You can still connect with them and
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: follow up with them. So it just gives you a, a,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: a point to, to know the, the, The way you
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: can for sure know somebody is suicidal is simply to
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: ask them. That's the short answer. That's the long answer
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: to your short question. That's how you know is that
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: you ask them. Yeah.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: And some of the warning signs are just like these
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: wild behavioral changes. And I don't mean wild like there
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: are these shifts in behavior that that should signal to
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: us that there's something going on there that's worth probing.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: That we need to start paying attention to this person
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: and not assuming that they're okay because the gruff chaplain
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: who is now, you know, exuberant and hang, you know,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: friendly and all those kinds of things. We sit back
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and say, finally, this guy's not a, you know, he's
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: not being a gruff jerk anymore. That's great for us.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: But we need to take the further step and say,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I wonder what's going on with him.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: This change has occurred.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: And so we need to be watching for some of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: those behaviors, watching for language. The way people frame and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: talk about themselves, even flippantly, is probably something to tie into.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: You know, if we're hearing things like, oh, yeah, my
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: kids don't need me anymore or something like that, that
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: can be just normal parenting transitional stuff. But it could
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: also be something quite much deeper and more serious.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: And the way we find out is to ask. And
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you that if the person is still alive,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: they have not obviously committed themselves to the idea of suicide.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: They are. So they are throwing out lifelines. in some
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: form or fashion, whether they're subtle or obvious, they are
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: throwing out these pleas for help in some way, whether
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: it's in a conversation or whether it's an action or
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: a behavior or whatever. There is something going on that
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: you can hold on to to say, I need to
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: at least check in with that person. So I have
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: never asked somebody directly about suicide that has gotten mad
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: at me for asking. I've either had people say yes,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: and you can see the relief on their shoulders. Yeah,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I am, you know, and I don't know what to
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: do with that. Right. That's fine. At least I know
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: where I'm at now. Or they say, no, no, not
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: at all. Not even close. Right. I'm not, I'm not
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: thinking about that at all. And that's cool too. Cause
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: then I know again where I'm at with it. Um,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: and I don't ask everybody I meet, are you thinking
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: about killing yourself?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Like a third question. So what do you do for
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a living? And are you thinking about, yeah.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, a lot of it, you just have to,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would say trust your intuition, watch for
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: signs and really know your, know your congregation, know your
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: people that you minister to what's going on with them.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: There are people that are elderly that are maybe have
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: some kind of medical issue in the hospital in deep
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: pain and deep suffering. And they just want it to end. Um,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: that you would never think, you know, a super saint,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: that you would never think would be suicidal. And even
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: if they don't have the means to do it, you
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: can still have that conversation with them. They may have
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: that feeling of, I want this to end, I want
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to die. And then as a pastor, how do you
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: speak into that? You know, with the hope of Christ.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: So it gives you an opportunity to have some really good,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: solid biblical conversations with people and really minister to their hearts.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: And in all those congregations, conversations that you're having, all
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: those sort of tips that you're providing is a picture
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: of community that I don't think we necessarily, it's very
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: difficult to actually articulate what community is when we talk
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: about it, because I think sometimes we get into that
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: sort of space of, well, it's just, you know, sort
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of a vague circle of friends that can get together
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and enjoy a meal or what have you. But this
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: sort of community that catches this is one that is
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: has developed instincts for one another where these micro changes,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: small statements that there's a level of intimacy there that
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: really you have to see in order to understand there's
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: an underlying problem here that needs to be addressed. There's
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: an underlying change here that needs to be addressed. And
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping it's a good thing. I'm willing to recognize
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: it's a bad thing. Either way, I'd like to find
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: out what's going on.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And, And, you know, one of the things as
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: a bivocational pastor, one of the things I told my
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: church right off the bat is that, look, I work
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: full time. I have a family. I am not the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: pastor that's going to fix the plumbing, preach on Sunday,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: mow the grass, visit everybody in the hospital. You know,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: I can't do all the things. This is not a
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: one person job, right? This is an everybody. This is
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: an everybody awareness kind of thing. So community might be
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: the Sunday school teacher. that's got six people in, in,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: in his class. Right. But he knows what's going on
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: in their lives through prayer requests, right? How are we
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: praying for each other? What's going on? And they can,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: at least this book is for them too. Right. I
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: don't think that there's a person that I cannot train
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: to do suicide intervention. We all have the skills to
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: do it. We just don't necessarily have the knowledge because
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: we haven't been shown the knowledge. And it is so taboo. We,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: we choose that to avoid it.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Um, instead of, of saying, okay, how do I quit
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: myself to, um, to feel confident? Because when, when, when
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: you ask somebody if they want to kill themselves and
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: they say, yes, it sucks the air out of the room.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it just, there's a weight to it. And so, um,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, if they don't, if they're, if
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: they're not equipped, they panic.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Um, In the Army, you don't take kids from high
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: school and give them a uniform and drop them in
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: a combat zone because they would freak out. You train them, right?
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: You train them, you equip them, you prepare them for
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: that possibly bad thing. So when that bad thing does happen,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: they rely on that training. Same thing with suicide prevention, right?
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: We talk about it, we educate ourselves about it, we
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: prepare for it so that when it happens, we know
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: what to do, right? We're not as freaked out about.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: We don't have a ton of time left, but I
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: want to, I did want to talk a little bit
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: about the biblical counseling. My experience with biblical counseling has been, uh,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: less than stellar. Just personally, I had a pastor back
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: in the day when I was in high school and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: he was a biblical counselor. And the experience was basically like, um,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: you're doing things wrong. Here's a Bible verse. You should
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: meditate on it and obey it.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: And, and there is a, There is an underlying dynamic
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to that that I get, right? Obeying God's word is
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: never a bad idea. And so, sure, like I get that.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: How do you approach biblical counseling? Is that a, was
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: my experience common or is there a better way of
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: thinking about biblical counseling? So I guess I'm wanting you
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: to give your understanding of how you do biblical counseling,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: especially in this realm. Because it seems to me that
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the way I've experienced it just wouldn't really work that well.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: What's your deal? is, is, is walking me to the
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: edge of a minefield and asking me to walk forward.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Um, it's exactly what it felt like.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Because, so I just went to the ACBC, uh,
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: annual conference in, in Germantown, Tennessee. And there's actually this very, uh,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: political schism between in the in the biblical counseling world
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: of you know if if the bible is sufficient or
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: the bible plus you know don't throw the baby out
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: with the bath water with some of these mental health
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: stuff things and my gosh there's such a line in
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: the sand over that and and um there are people
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: that are very passionate about it um i believe that
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: the Bible has everything we need for life and for godliness.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I also believe that there are people who might need
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: more than I can offer them as a biblical counselor.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's an either-or question. And this is
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: what I tell pastors, too. I was the pastor that
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: had the stack of business cards on my desk for
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: a Christian counselor, not a biblical counselor, just a Christian counselor, which,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: you know, some diehard biblical counselors would just be, you know,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: clutch their pearls about on their desk because I did
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: not feel equipped to help those people. I think the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: roles can actually complement each other. So for instance, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I'm going to use this illustration, if I break my
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: arm today and I am going to go to the hospital.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to a nurse and a doctor,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to get a cast on my arm.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to go to a biblical counselor to
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: give me a verse about brokenness to pray over, right?
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: When people come to me and they say, I'm on
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: this medicine, I'm on this medicine, I don't tell them
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: quit taking their medicines. I'm not a medical professional. I
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: am not a licensed clinical counselor or psychiatrist. I'm a
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: biblical counselor. I can tell you what the Bible says
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: about your issues. And I think those, all those things
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: have a place in a person's life, depending on the person,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: depending on their circumstance. I think pastors, church leaders, biblical
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: counselors can bring spiritual care, biblical encouragement, you know, great advice.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: stuff on working with heart issues and an ongoing support
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: of community. Mental health professionals can bring assessments or treatments
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: within their training and scope of practice. And we need,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: I think, we need to recognize that there are situations
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: where pastoral care alone isn't sufficient. But I also don't
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: believe that referring someone for professional help is a failure
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: of ministry. I think it can be an important expression
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: of loving that person well. And I want churches to
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: understand that both what they can do and what they
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: need to do to bring others alongside of them. So
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I come home from the hospital, my arms in a cast,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: and I can't do certain things. My church might be
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: able to bring meals. My pastor may be able to
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: come visit me in the hospital or, you know, some
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: friends from church might be able to come over and
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: help me do some chores or something like that. I
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: think they go hand in hand, right? We can work together.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: I have people that I counsel that, um, they only
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: want biblical counseling and that's fine. I'm not going to
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: refer them to anybody else. I'm going to share what
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: the Bible has to say about their issue, what it
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: has to say about their heart. And yeah, maybe I
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: might give them, well, not maybe I'm going to give
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: them some biblical things to meditate on and, and to,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: to let the Holy spirit do his progressive sanctifying work
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: in their hearts. Um, But I've also had people tell
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: me this isn't for me, you know, and I say,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: that's fine. It's not for everybody. So I hope that
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: answered your questions. I'm not a clinician. I'm a biblical counselor.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm going to stay in my
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: lane and not presuppose what other people can or can't do. Yeah.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: No, it's interesting. I mean, you describing that schism is
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: actually really helpful because It would remind me of I
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: just came back from Switzerland on this Reformation tour. And
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: a big part of the Reformation was you had the
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: folks who were saying, let's only change what really needs
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: to be changed. And so, you know, Luther. he wasn't
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: going to get rid of all the ritual and all
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: the art and all the symbology in the church. That
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't his plan. And so that's in part why you
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: have Lutheran churches that look a lot more Catholic than
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: let's say you're running the mill Baptist church, you know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: because there was another wing of the reformation that said, no,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: all of it needs to go. And it feels like that,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you, the way you describe that schism and
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: biblical counseling, it's like, that's what it feels like. You
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: have one side that's a little more radical and just saying, no,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: we got to get rid of all of it. It's
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: only Bible versus the other side that's saying, well, no,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: like this is really crucial, but we shouldn't just throw
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: everything else out too. And so that's helpful. I think
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: my encounter was probably with one of those folks who
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: was a little more, let's get rid of all the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: rest of it and just do this. Which was, again,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: I can see the wisdom in it. I don't, I
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: wouldn't reject biblical counseling out of hand. I think for
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: me at the time, I could have used some additional
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: different help.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: And he was very unwilling to give it.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Very unwilling to give it, right? Yeah. If I'm talking
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: to somebody and they say, Pastor, I feel like taking
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: my own life. And I say, Yeah. do you have
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: a plan? Yes. It's, it's six o'clock. There's a six
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: o'clock train and it's five 45 and I'm walking to the,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: to the tracks. Right. Um, I will, I'm going to
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: call nine one one. Yeah. Right. I'm still going to
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: minister to that person. I'm still going to walk with them.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: I'm still going to be there for aftercare. But if, if,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: if it's imminent and urgent, I'm still going to call
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: nine one one. I mean, there's a reason that those
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: things are in place. Just like, You know, like in
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: the tabernacle and the setup for sin, right?
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: There's a reason that it's there. And I think we
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: would be foolish to say, well, it's 545. Let me
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: counsel you on the way to the track and see
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: if you change your mind. Maybe that works. But I'm
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: going to call 911, just me personally. And I'm going
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: to stay with that person. I'm going to love that person.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to encourage them. I'm going to support them.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: as they go to the hospital, I'm going to go
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: with them. I'm going to be there when they get
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: out of the hospital. I'm going to minister to them.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to love them. I'm going to support them
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: and encourage. I want to do biblical counseling with them. Right. Yeah.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: But in that moment, in that context, I may need
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: to call 911 and get some, yeah, you know, some,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: some hands on that person to keep them safe because
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: ultimately that's what we want to do. Right. We want
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: to keep the person alive. So, yeah.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, bro, um, This has been a great conversation.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: And I know you're a little nervous about the interview,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: but you did a great job. It was awesome. I mean,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: your mastery of this material and your understanding of how
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: to work with these folks and help churches recognize when
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: someone might be in trouble, like you've just got so
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: much depth of experience with it. And so appreciate you
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: sharing that. I would encourage everybody who's listening, go out
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and check out the book. Even if you don't know
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: someone right now who's struggling with suicide, this is good
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: sort of prophylactic stuff to have in your back pocket
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to understand, like, you may be missing signs right now.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: And so great book by a great guy who's got
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: a depth of experience in these matters, Holding Hope, A
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Biblical Guide to Suicide Prevention for Church Leaders. It's available
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: on Amazon. The links will be in the show description. Um,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: anywhere else we can route them to find out more
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: about you, David, um, Amazon author page, obviously it's, it's
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: linked to the book, but any other, any, anywhere else
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: they can find more about you?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad you asked. I do have a website, uh, www.davidgilland.com.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: So D A V I D G I L L
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: E L A N D.com.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: And what I've done on there is, is a resource tab.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: that has all of the appendices from the book, like
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: for the church suicide policy, for emergency plans, all that
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: stuff is there for free download PDF. So, you know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: you don't have this little six by nine thing. You
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: don't have to retype it. You can just download it
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: and do it for your church. There's also a paid
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: resource on there, which is a workbook. that goes along
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: with the book that, interestingly enough, uses Saul as a
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: case study for the whole book, chapter by chapter. We
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: walk with Saul kind of through that. And then you
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: can also get on there if you want me to
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: come do some training at your church or speaking to
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: your church, anything like that. All that can be booked
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: on the website, www.davidgillen.com, and the book is there as well.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: You can check it out. Cool.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, both those links will be in the show description.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So I'd encourage you to check them out. Buy the book,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: check out David's website. And again, thanks for being here, man.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: This has been great. And we'll close it off there.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: But hope everybody enjoyed this very important topic. And um
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: we'll catch you on the next episode of thinking christian
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: take care everybody