A Pastor's Guide to Providing Care for his Congregation within the First Year of it Being Touched by Suicide

Abstract

Suicide is as important an issue as any for a pastor to be prepared to handle. Over 34,000 people in the United States alone take their own lives each year.[1] Contemporary factors contributing to a rise in mental illness only continue to make the numbers go up. It may seem that this issue does not affect the church, but sadly, Christians can and do take their own lives. The goal of this paper is to equip pastors to be able to respond appropriately when their congregation is inevitably touched by suicide. The thoughts of the paper are divided logically into two schools of theology: systematic and practical theology. Part one deals with the systematics of suicide: understanding the shortcomings of the church’s past in this area and examining a better approach based on recent literature written in this area. Part two deals with the practical side of suicide, equipping the pastor to provide appropriate care to those working through grief. This is divided into the immediate care he provides during the first 72 hours of the tragedy and the ongoing care he provides within the first year.

[1]. H. Norman Wright, Crisis counseling: what to do during the first 72 hours (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1993), 128.