Hope and Connection: The Church’s Role in Suicide Prevention

My suicide prevention colleague was standing at a McDonald’s counter, holding his “Suicide Talk” training manual.  A woman beside him, staring at it, grew increasingly agitated until she finally exclaimed, “Someone should do something about this!” pointing to his manual.  My colleague responded, “I agree, but tell me why you say so.”  She snapped back, “Because my 13-year-old daughter died by suicide two years ago, and I can’t find a person in this town who will talk to me about it. People cross the street to avoid me because no one knows what to say.”

When I tell people that I train faith community leaders in suicide prevention, I get a handful of reactions.  Some get awkward and say how depressing that must be before quickly changing the subject.  Some look at me like I am Mother Theresa and tell me what a gift I am to the world (if only my husband were around to hear that!).  And some tell their own stories, many painful, about how suicide has impacted their lives.  But few, if any, say what’s most true for me: “Wow.  What a joy and a natural place to begin to make the world safer”. 

There are many myths about suicide that I won’t have space here to debunk (for that, you’ll need to attend a Soul Shop training).  But one is that suicide is caused by depression.  When a person dies by suicide, you will often hear folks say, “I didn’t even realize they were depressed.”  It’s true that depression is a risk factor for suicide and that the majority of people who die by suicide have depression, but depression isn’t the cause.  As one friend puts it, ‘Suicide is the worst possible outcome from a variety of complex factors that often include mental health challenges”.  Suicide is almost never caused by just one thing.  Just take a look at the suicide data.

• The highest rates in America are 45-65 year-old white men, who comprise 70% of all suicides
• Rates peak for women around age 50 (empty nest and menopause ring any bells?)
• 6% of adults and 19% of adolescents are thinking about suicide at any given time
• 1 in 4 women who die by suicide were involved in domestic violence relationships at the time of their death. 
• Men who are going through a divorce have rates that are eight times that of women going through a divorce.

Have I depressed you yet?  This might be the point in the post where you say, “Yes, but what does this have to do with healthy churches?”  And I’m glad you asked. 

Suicidologist Dr. David Litts said that “people die by suicide for all kinds of reasons, but it basically comes down to a loss of hope and a loss of social connection”.  Now, put those lenses on and read back over the statistics I just shared.  People contemplating suicide feel hopeless and alone.  So here’s the good news for the healthy church:  we are experts at and called to respond to both of those things.

Many churches we work with wonder what to ‘be about.’  Many churches are pulling out their flip chart paper and trying to brainstorm how to be relevant to the next generation.  But the reality is that we ARE ALREADY about the right things.  The surgeon general has just declared loneliness a public health crisis.  How much more relevant does it get?  We can be places of hope and community by leaning into what we are best at.  And who knows?  You just might save a life.  

September is suicide prevention month. Learn more about the collaborative work of the Center for Healthy Churches-PneuMatrix and the Soul Shop Movement.