Emmaus: Making Faith Sense of Mental Health, Part Two

May is usually carries an emphasis on mental health. Mental health is a massive issue in professional sports, especially soccer. So, as a chaplain, I have been asking, “how can we integrate more of our Christian faith so that it helps with our mental health?” I think certain texts in the Bible stand out to help us more and Luke 24:13-36 is one of my favorites. Today, I share two lessons in part two of this months feature. The first lesson notes that Jesus asks good questions and then, he listens. This is an oddity to most of our human experience. People struggle to ask good questions and truly listen, especially to our own personal pain. The second lesson that we see is that we can and should be authentic to ourselves and our pain and grief or mental health issues we are going through. We aren’t always right in our assessments of our own situations, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t tell our story in our way, with our language and be authentic with ourselves — remember Jesus is listening. He cares! I recently preached a sermon on this subject that you can view here on the Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church YouTube channel there might be some different stories or insights that you pick up here that aren’t in the podcast — whatever is helpful. From the Touchline is a short-feature (10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer). Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccrChapUtd, in the Apple and Google store.