Churches should be safe places for those with mental health issues

All of us will know someone with a mental health problem. We don’t always know which of our friends, family or colleagues has a mental health problem, but that doesn’t change the fact someone we know will be suffering – and probably in silence. In fact, one in four of us will have a mental health problem at some point in our lives. This means many of us never escape the fact “we carry this” as part of our day-to-day lives. And there is still significant stigma attached to experiencing mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. But attitudes towards mental health are improving as more people talk about their own experiences of these issues. Encouragingly, over the past few years, this change in attitudes towards mental health has