Community of Care

How Churches Can Impact Suicide 

Contributed by Dustin R. Young DSW, LCSW, MSW

Content Disclosure: Content included in this article will include topics of suicide, grief, death and loss as well as posttraumatic growth.  

Introduction 

Suicide. This is a word that at times is whispered instead of spoken. It is a word that is rarely preached about from the pulpit, let alone having a multi-week series planned around the topic. Yet when we begin to speak openly about the many facets of suicide, it has the power to heal and comfort in miraculous ways. I was 12 years old when suicide became a reality in my world; I witnessed my brother’s first suicide attempt and would grow up with the trauma related to the event as well as the impact it would make on my career choices within crisis response and clinical social work.  

By definition, suicide is the act of ending one’s life voluntarily or intentionally (Suicide,n.d.). Within this article the term suicidal desperation will be used to describe that state in which people may have a desire, plan or act toward ending their own life. Approximately 726,000 people die by suicide globally every single year (World Health Organization, 2024). That is not a misprint of data; 726,000 is the number of confirmed deaths worldwide by suicide, with suicide being significantly underreported which indicates that this number is likely much higher. It is common for intense anger, confusion, judgments, bargaining, or blaming to accompany the grieving process for those who may lose a friend or loved one to suicide.  

 

How Can Faith Communities Help?  

Faith communities, especially within health ministry areas of service, are vital to mental health and suicide awareness; it is more likely that a person will disclose suicidal desperation to a faith leader or teacher than a mental health expert (Heseltine-Carp & Hoskins, 2020). It is the community, in which a person is a part of, that helps walk alongside to get them to the trained experts who can work on treatment. It is the community that will support the recovery of those facing suicidal desperation; hope and healing grow when that community is safe to also be a struggling human.  Here are some approaches that help in cultivating a soul-safe community that fosters healing and hope:  

• Expand Personal & Community Awareness.  We must first be aware that something is happening within our faith and our community before we can even do anything about the concern. The Bible has so much to say about suicidal desperation, suicide attempts, death by suicide, and lived experiences of those who have recovered from suicidal desperation. A great way to expand awareness is to listen to stories, experiences and families who have walked through suicide. This can be done through local listening events coordinated with suicide prevention groups such as American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (afsp.org), connect with local suicide prevention coalition groups, the International Association for Suicide Prevention (iasp.info) or reaching out to local mental health professionals.  

• Plan.  Planning for loss and crisis is another way faith communities can help support those who may attend church services or as a way to reach out to others in the community. This is more than hosting a training. While hosting a training is a great strategy/starting point, planning for a mental health crisis, suicidal distress, or death by suicide is an intentional reflection on policy, process, preparation and implementation. This planning process can include the prevention, interventions, and postvention aspect of suicide and might look something like this:
  • Prevention 
    • Workshops: Host a suicide prevention seminar to help train community members on general suicide awareness, how to have a conversation about suicide, and how to connect struggling individuals with helpful resources.  
    • Education: Collaborate with mental health experts on sermon content, coping skills, and other mental wellness approaches that are woven within the Bible to highlight during services.  
    • Mental Health Providers: Consider creative collaborations with mental health providers within the community. Have you considered having a licensed mental health provider available at your church or on hand during meetings? This can help answer people’s questions about counselors while reducing barriers to getting connected with a provider. 
  • Intervention.  Suicide intervention is a direct, intentional effort to prevent a person from taking their own life. Community leaders and volunteers do not have to be mental health experts to do interventions, yet it is helpful to have added training surrounding how to do interventions that will not increase stigma, shame, or risk during the process. We want to save lives and help toward healing, not create more harm. A great illustration of a suicide intervention in the Bible is found in Acts 16:23-28; Paul and Silas stepped in to save their jailers life! Consider the following for how your team might develop an intervention process:  
    • Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) (https://livingworks.net/training/livingworks-asist/): This type of training provides simulations, discussion, and coaching surrounding how to intervene and support as individuals are getting connected with additional supports. This is a deeper understanding of how community attitudes about suicide may impact disclosures and access to help.
  • Postvention.  The term postvention is an organized response in the aftermath of a suicide; this is a short and long-term plan of how to promote healing of those grieving the loss and trying to help support for those with an increased risk of suicide themselves. This is a part of planning for crisis and it is important to note that it is an intentional response, not a rapid response, of all members of the community. Here are some considerations when thinking about how your ministry may assist after a death by suicide.   
    • Response Teams: Develop a response team network that has had additional trainings surrounding suicide intervention, postvention and faith-based context. Complicated grief surrounding suicide is not a time for those supporting hurting individuals to increase stigma, shame or condemnation; response teams need to be trained on how to navigate what survivors are experiencing.  
    • Develop a Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors team: Postvention is minimally discussed in suicide awareness, and it can help to see how others have created resources. A L.O.S.S. team (https://losscs.org/launch-a-loss-team/) can be powerful at reminding those who are grieving that they are not alone in this process; it takes grieving individuals an average of four years before reaching out for support. What if your faith community helped reduce that span of time and assisted in shouldering the grief and loss?  

 

Where To Start?  

Suicidal desperation is not a topic that faith communities need to stay quiet about or be slow to respond to. Mental health ministry is a powerful way to cultivate hope and SHOW the good news of the gospel.  

Jesus was not a person who only spoke about the possibility of healing; He stepped into the stories of those He met and actively healed bodies, hearts and minds. He also mentored His leaders so that they could see those who are hurting (awareness), respond to save lives (intervention) and comforted those whose world seemed to be shattered due to loss (postvention).  

As you review this packed article, take one area and bring it to your leadership team. What is just one thing that you can begin today to remind those who you serve that they can hold on to hope and that they are not alone in their heartache?  

 

Healing & Hope  

While the impact of my brother’s struggle with suicidality influenced my life in a significant way, it was my faith community that showed up to support my family. It was my teachers, pastors, and sports coaches that allowed the emotions to show up while also accepting me in whatever stage of grief I was wandering (or at times stumbling) through. It was my faith community that also continued to reach out to my brother in a variety of ways to remind him that he was not alone. This community provided connections that not only allowed for healing my trauma but to also build post-traumatic growth. The grief is complex within the context of suicidal desperation; for those worried about loved ones, those that we lose due to death by suicide and those who may be thinking about suicide at this moment. It is the connections and communities of care that can prevent, intervene and support at each stage within crisis. With intentionality, faith communities can continue to cultivate a space that provides hope and reduces the suicidal desperation people experience. Consider how you might build awareness within your ministry today.