What can your church do to address the growing suicide problem in the US?

A couple of years ago I was speaking with someone about the suicide problem we were facing. He told me that for the past several months we had been averaging one suicide per week. When you live in a county of less than 17,000 people that is a big number. Many of these were young people. In some cases, it could not be definitely proven that the death was caused by suicide so the actual number might have been even higher. Unfortunately, this is not a problem confined to one area but is a problem throughout our nation. Here we are, a nation considered by many to offer the greatest advantages of any country, with a serious suicide problem. How can our churches address this?

This is one of the issues I address in my latest book Is Your Church Ready for Ministry in the Coming Decade?. I wrote this book because the issues churches face today are much different than the ones we dealt with when I began my ministry in 1981. In the 20 years I served as pastor our congregation never had one suicide. It wasn't until I went into denominational ministry that a member of our church had a spouse commit suicide. The pastor who followed me would not officiate at the funeral so the family called me, and I agreed to minister to them. Unfortunately, today not many pastors can avoid ministering to a family dealing with the trauma of a family member taking their life.

In the book I cover how to minister to one who is considering suicide. I learned, through dealing with a family member who struggled with this, that they will give some obvious hints they are considering ending their lives. People like telling you their stories, and if you listen you will hear the story behind the story.  A counselor, who was treating this family member, called to tell me she felt this person was again considering suicide. When we confronted this family member, and she admitted this was true, we were able to get her some additional help and prevented her from going through with her plans. Do you know what to look for in a person considering suicide? I share some of those things in this book.

The book also addresses how to minister to the family of one who commits suicide. This is a devastating time in a family's life, and it is critical that the minister comes alongside them with wisdom and grace. I'm not sure how many seminaries adequately prepare the minister for this type of ministry even though this ability is needed today more than ever.

Many of the persons who read this blog and my books serve in smaller churches. I included this chapter in the book because I believe this will be a growing issue that will confront more and more churches and their leaders regardless of the size of their churches. If you want some help for this topic, or the others found in the book, it is only available through Amazon as an eBook. I encourage you to check it out today.