Mental health ministry goes “global”
BURNABY, BC – Less than five years after it first met, the Living Room - a Christ-centred support group for people struggling with mental health issues - is about to launch what founder Marja Bergen calls a "global initiative."
Bergen started the Living Room in September 2006 as a way to minister to people in her own church - Brentwood Park Alliance in Burnaby - who like herself suffer from a mental illness. Almost immediately, she began hearing from others interested in starting their own group. Those enquiries are still coming in.
"I receive many emails from individuals asking if there is a group near them," Bergen writes in an e-mail.
There are now at least 13 Living Room groups operating. Ten are in B.C., including a new one at Simon Fraser University. The other three are in Saskatoon, Vineland, Ontario, and Miami, Florida. Groups in the Markham-Stouffville area of Ontario, and Atlanta, Georgia, are also getting organized.
"The most successful groups," says Bergen, "seem to be the ones that meet during the day time. People who are so affected by their disorder that they can't work come to these. There is a greater need in this group."
To try to raise the ministry's profile among churches and those in need of help, it has created the Global Living Room Initiative under the leadership of a four-member team.
Part of that involves partnering with a new group called Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, which Bergen says is just as "passionate about coming alongside churches to help them learn how to support people with mental health issues." It has also meant setting up a separate fund for receiving donations. Up to now, her church has done that.
One immediate goal is to have Living Room groups in every Lower Mainland community by the fall of 2012 through a series of workshops explaining the need for such groups. The first is scheduled for October 1.
"I'm hoping that if we get a strong representation of Living Rooms in one area, that word of what is happening here will spread and others will be encouraged," she says.
For the first time, they will also have a booth at next year's Vancouver Missions Fest.
"I'm thinking more and more how I would just like to see this become a movement, anchored and supported by our website and the tools it provides, like manuals and sample devotionals," says Bergen. "If we can get sufficient funding, I would like it to become a lot more active - perhaps some kind of blog or an online support group."
Bergen says the experience of leading the Living Room up to now has made her spiritually and emotionally stronger. But she admits it is not something her health will allow her to keep doing indefinitely.
"I'm praying," she says, "that there will be a person as passionate as me to take over
when I'm for sure no longer able."
One recent study found that more than a million Canadians go through a major depressive episode each year, putting depression on a par with "other leading chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes."
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