Making Room for Hannah

John Tillman
Ministry Accelerator
15 min readApr 5, 2017

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How can the Church make a welcoming environment for those in emotional distress?

A True Story…

The woman entered the place of worship along with others, but she didn’t fit in. She didn’t seem cheerful. She was obviously uncomfortable. She didn’t participate. She didn’t join in the joyful activities of worship. She was behaving strangely — standing and mumbling to herself.

To the old minister, she seemed to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs — coming down off of some high and staggering from its effects. “You’ll feel better once you give up whatever drugs you are on, young lady,” he offered.

But the old minister’s discernment was badly out of tune with what was truly happening.

The woman was staggering from grief, not inebriation. Her mumbling was not from the ecstasy of a high, but from agony — speaking her pain to God. The nausea she felt wasn’t a symptom of drug withdrawal, but from the anxiety and emotional impact of feeling that God had withdrawn his blessing from her. She wasn’t tripping — she was sobbing.

Her name was Hannah, and the old minister’s name was Eli. You can read of their brief conversation in 1 Samuel chapter one.

Better, but not by much

In the intervening millennia, churches and ministers haven’t gotten much better at receiving with grace those who are in emotional distress.

I do believe most ministers, and most church members, would hesitate to accuse someone in emotional distress of being an addict — out loud anyway.

The hesitance to call someone out in public like this is more a marker of our culture’s passivity and non-confrontationalism than any great passion or zeal for aiding those in distress. We don’t care about comforting others as much as we care about avoiding our potential discomfort in dealing with them.

Modern worship spaces and the liturgies that fill them reflect the unspoken belief that Christian Life has no place for sadness.

The problem isn’t ministers or volunteers falsely accusing people in emotional distress of being under the influence of drugs. The problem is that we don’t do a good job of making our places of worship a welcoming environment for those experiencing “negative” emotions. This problem is connected to our difficulty admitting — despite many articles, much research, and testimonies from life and from scripture — that one can be sad, depressed even, and still be a faithful believer.

Church has no place for sadness

Modern worship spaces and the liturgies that fill them reflect the unspoken belief that Christian Life has no place for sadness. We have made our churches bastions of the blessed life — full of extroverted, hand-shaking, grinning, praising, hashtag-blessed positivity. Churches are under a lot of pressure, after all, to be friendly, welcoming, life-affirming places. But if we fail to affirm life in its full spectrum of emotions we aren’t affirming life in total — merely positively charged life.

We have done a better job of accepting the exuberant dancing of King David than the distraught expressions of Hannah. We’ve swung the pendulum toward expecting extreme happiness and we’ve ignored or looked down on those in extreme sadness.

Those in emotional distress who walk into the foyers of our fortresses of friendliness can feel like fish hopping out onto the beach — unable to breathe comfortably in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Their feelings keep telling them they don’t belong here with these happy people — but they have chosen to come anyway. That’s a brave leap. A leap of faith. We can do a better job of being there to help them.

The struggle is real for individuals and churches

When I say that we can do a better job, I’m not talking about some easy solution that I can give you. I don’t have any illusions about this being easy. I have some ideas that might be answers. But I’m not sure they are the right ones. It’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to do and a few centuries of history haven’t made it suddenly solvable.

Just look at the similarity of the situation in Christ’s’ day. When Jesus told his parable in which the struggling, emotional prayer of the “publican” was scorned and thought poorly of by the religious elite, people recognized it as ringing true.

“Thank God I’m not like that poor wretch.”

This prevailing attitude was not a surprise to them. What Christ’s audience would have been shocked and scandalized at, was Christ’s declaration that God was pleased with the publican’s prayer and not the Pharisee’s.

If welcoming the full spectrum of emotions in the house of worship was easy, thousands of years after Eli and the Pharisees, we’d have it figured out. But the wisdom of ages hasn’t handed us much improvement on Eli’s error and the attitudes of Pharisees are still prominent in our churches today. It is temporal provincialism combined with a heavy dose of vanity to believe that we have progressed much farther than those before us in these matters.

In today’s climate, where the church struggles to be open and honest even talking about depression and mental illness, we force those in emotional distress to feel like the publican — that they must stand far off from those of us who have it together.

We wish they would struggle out of sight, and only tell their tales of sadness once they have a miraculous story of “breakthrough” to share. We’d prefer their story packaged in a nice, uplifting video element in a service — followed by a big praise anthem celebrating their deliverance.

If that sounds a little harsh, it’s because I’ve lived it. I’ve sat in a service with dark, angry thoughts in my heart and with guilt for not being “spiritual enough” to overcome those feelings. I’ve watched a beautifully produced video about someone who feels great and always has a praise in her heart now that she’s overcome depression through God’s power.

I’ve sat in the dark, thinking, “Maybe my church will love me too… if I can just try harder/feel better/pray harder/get healed.”

Individuals and Institutions are Addicted to Positivity

The pressure to always be positive is not just felt by individuals, but by church leadership. Leaders feel unable to admit their own struggles with anxiety and depression while simultaneously feeling pressure to constantly portray everything going on at the church in a positive light. Anything trending down — attendance, giving, volunteerism — gets downplayed, ignored, or even obscured in an effort to “be positive.” We are individually and institutionally addicted to positive marketing spin.

Proactive Emotional Welcoming

We need to do more, I think than just determine internally that we will be okay with people weeping in our lobby or sanctuary. We need to do something to publicly, tangibly show that all emotions are welcome.

We need to do something to publicly, tangibly show that all emotions are welcome.

As I started to think about what that could look like, I decided to give it a name: Proactive Emotional Welcoming. We need to proactively accept, recognize, and respond to emotional individuals with an emotional, physical, and spiritual welcome.

If we want to address people in emotional distress as Jesus addressed those he ministered to, we must love them before they are healed, and even if they never are. We need to, as the Savior did, move close to those like the publican, who stand far off, beating their breasts, or those like Hannah, who stagger in our doors, mumbling prayers of anger and hurt. We need to show love to those suffering from the very real hurts and disfigurements of the soul that are caused by emotional distress. We need to approach these people and love them as the Savior did — touching them, giving them our attention, and reminding all those who are gathered that these people are a part of our community.

When someone is part of your community, you make space for them. You don’t force them to make do. We need to clear out some space for people in emotional distress — theological space, physical space, and liturgical space.

It would be easy to end this article right here — on an emotional note, closing with my undefined metaphor of “making space” without suggesting any explicit course of action or practical solutions. But I think that’s too easy an ending for such a difficult topic.

I’m going to attempt to talk about some actions we could explore. As I do this, speaking in generalities about church practices, I want to make it clear that I don’t think that every church in America is failing in these areas. I admit that there may be some churches or faith traditions that are doing wonderfully well and I simply have not heard about them.

However, I think it is undeniable, when you take a wide angle view of American culture and the modern church that has evolved to serve that culture, that these areas are real problems that deserve more of the attention of the majority of church leaders.

The church needs to become counter-cultural when it comes to aiding those in emotional distress. I have a few ideas.

Making Theological Space

We need to make space for all emotions by addressing and countering false cultural messages ingrained in some Christian teaching.

American-pseudo-spiritual-self-help culture is pounding into our collective psyches that we just need to “cheer up” and “get over it” and “be positive.” These are not Christian messages even though some of them have slipped into sermons and Christian teaching. It is required of us to educate our community that those societal and cultural messages are antithetical to the Christian faith and the message of the church.

Imagine what could happen if the church became one of the only public institutions to embrace humanity by allowing and accepting the full spectrum of emotions.

Making Physical Space

We need to find ways of making space in our buildings, our liturgies, and our lives for grief, emotional distress, and suffering.

Personal Observation and Compassionate Response

The first step in making space is not really physical — it is personal. Or perhaps I should say, personnel. It starts with your people. Eli’s main error lay in his faulty observation of Hannah and his initial response to her. That is the first area we need to address. We need to train staff and volunteers to observe and respond.

People in your space need to be trained to smile and be friendly. That doesn’t just happen. It takes training. But they also need to be trained, at least some of them, to compassionately watch for those who seem distracted, upset, bothered, lost, or otherwise emotionally out of sorts.

Noticing people is the first step to ministering to them. When you notice people, you start by acknowledging their presence and their humanity, then you can move on to acknowledging their need.

People come to church in various stages of distress. Some are in denial. Some have it under control. Some are on edge. And a few may be visibly losing it.

We need to be ready to respond to people no matter what level of distress they exhibit. Showing sensitivity to those who are on the edge and to those who are losing it, is the first step toward helping them. Then we just need to be prepared for whatever they need.

Some will want to talk and some to be left alone. Some will welcome moving to a more private area of the lobby or to a prayer room, while others may feel you are trying to “hide them” away from the happy people. We need to be sensitive to these feelings as we respond and help them.

If someone wants to cry in the middle of your foyer or atrium, it may make “normal” people uncomfortable, but at that moment, the only person we should be concerned about comforting is the one in distress. Perhaps seeing the church embrace someone in the midst of overflowing emotions, will help those in denial realize that there are emotions they have neglected to bring into the open in God’s house.

In order to be prepared to respond to needs, there are practical problems to think about in our buildings.

Emotionally Sensitive…Architecture?

There are certain social occasions in which crying is expected and normal. At weddings and funerals, no one hesitates or thinks much of someone publically crying.

But have you ever really needed to find a place to cry in a public place where crying is not expected? It’s a problem. You feel exposed. You feel embarrassed. These feelings pile right up on top of whatever trouble or problem that is already moving you to tears in the first place. It can be a growing snowball of emotions followed by tears and snot.

Often in this dire need, people rush for privacy and comfort to the one room designed explicitly for necessary bodily functions — the privvy, the comfort room, the necessary room. These archaic terms for toilet facilities tell us something important about the real, logistical needs of people in emotional distress. They need to feel protected with a degree of privacy. They need a place where messes are expected and allowed. They need a place to dispose of the bodily and emotional effects of weeping — tears and snot.

When people experience overflowing emotions in our spaces, is rushing to the bathroom really the best solution we can offer? When this is our only solution, we are unintentionally implying that there is something shameful about emotional venting. If there is something people in emotional distress don’t need more of, it is shame.

Buildings need multiple areas available for volunteers to take people who they have moved to help or that those in distress can find for themselves. You need an area, still out in public that’s quick and easy to get to for less extreme cases and those who don’t want to move to a private space. This could be an alcove out of the way of traffic with sofas or chairs. It could be a reserved area of a cafe or other public sitting area.

You also need a private space for aiding those with extreme emotions. This could be a prayer room, but it could also be an empty classroom, a nearby office, or a walking path outside the church with plants and benches.

In every place you designate, make sure it is equipped to deal with whatever you might need. There needs to be lots of tissue available and a trash can. If indoors, there needs to be business cards or other means of contacting church staff assigned to help with specific areas of ministry. There should be paper to make notes and pens and pencils.

When you start talking about buildings and physical environments three things happen very quickly. You run into practical problems, emotional problems, and financial problems.

Practical: Where will we store these extra chairs if we use this space for a ministry room?

Emotional: The Praise Team has always used that space for resting between services.

Financial: We can’t afford to allot space just for people to “get emotional.”

Architecture is perhaps the area of design that requires the most thought because, if you miscalculate or plan poorly, the costs to repair or redesign in the future are extreme. That’s why so many solutions to space problems of any kind are “making do.”

When it comes to making space for these kinds of needs, thoughtfulness of staff and volunteers can make up for a lot of shortcomings in your physical structure. But it takes vision and training ahead of time in order for staff and volunteers to make up the gap between what people need and what your space can provide. It rarely just happens.

Making Liturgical Space

When we ignore or push to the side the griefs of life, we misunderstand the nature of celebration.

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state — it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Celebration is meaningless without taking the time to acknowledge the pain, the emotion, the disaster that has been overcome. When we don’t allow time for that emotional journey, we allow our congregants to slip from true celebrative worship to positive entertainment with a biblical vibe. Part of the reason this happens is feeling that we don’t have the time.

Time has become a more and more precious resource for churches and congregations. Worship services used to last all day into the evening in the early 20th century and near one-hundred percent attendance was practically guaranteed. Today, many churches are fortunate to have faithful members of their congregations attend as many as two weekends in a row. In the not too distant past, people used to jokingly complain to the pastor on the way out the door when the service went even the slightest portion of an hour long. Now they just get up and leave.

This reality has bred in pastors and worship planners an attitude of efficiency and expediency in worship planning that comes from a positive desire for good stewardship of the time given in our culture to corporate worship.

In worship planning, from classes in seminary, to planning worship for churches, camps, special events, and curricula, one of the first questions I learned to ask involved time. How much time do we have to fill? How long will this song take? Can we fit in a video? An announcement?

Efficiency and expediency don’t leave much room for reflection or meditation. We leap from upbeat welcoming song, to upbeat announcements, to celebratory praise anthem, to more of the same. Even times of prayer are often underscored like an inspirational speech from a film, reaching a celebratory climax…that leads into another celebratory anthem.

It isn’t the musical style or era that’s the problem. This type of worship programming happens in churches singing Charles Wesley, churches singing Andrae Crouch, churches singing Chris Tomlin, and churches singing 21 Pilots.

How do we expect our attendees to learn meditative prayer without us modeling it in corporate worship settings?

Emotional journeys take time and can’t be made in only one step. They take regular moments of quietness, contemplation, and meditation. There is no reason why the modern church should relegate these types of worship to the private worship of our congregants. More importantly, how do we expect our attendees to learn meditative prayer without us modeling it in corporate worship settings? How do we expect them to learn to bring all their negative emotions to God in times of weeping, if we don’t explicitly teach them and allow space for it in our liturgies?

It isn’t just one time in one service that we need to do this. We need to stop expecting pain and suffering to be contained to only one song or one moment in our liturgies. Just because we have a downtempo song and then bounce right back into a celebratory praise-fest doesn’t mean emotionally struggling people can make that leap with us. We need to repetitively, every time we gather, provide this type of opportunity.

If we open up space for people like Hannah, we will be surprised at the turnout.

Pain with Purpose

I think if we open up space for people like Hannah, we will be surprised at the turnout. There is more pain around us than we might at first be comfortable acknowledging. We need to give it space for expression.

There are few belief systems in the world that have an answer for pain. That pain has a purpose is a uniquely Christian teaching. Yet often we strive for the cessation of pain rather than for the God who can give it purpose.

We need to make it easier for people to acknowledge that they are in pain without feeling that their faithfulness to God will be under doubt. We need to stop expecting a brief opening up of hurtful emotions to be a one time event or an insta-healed moment for people.

Pain and suffering and depression are chronic conditions. Often those afflicted with depression have more in common with the prophets of the Old Testament than preachers or congregants who cherry pick from those prophets’ writings glowing hallmark-card-worthy verses, expected to instantly heal the ones reading them.

Those who travel emotionally painful roads with God, have wisdom that we need to learn from. Too many times when we hear of painful experiences we instinctively listen for the solution to the cause of the pain, when we should be learning the lesson that the pain came to teach us. We need to allow the wisdom of our congregational pain to come forth. The voices of those in pain can teach us much about our position before a God who accepts us in our weaknesses and suffers with us through every painful moment.

Those who travel emotionally painful roads with God, have wisdom that we need to learn from.

Hannah’s restraint

Eli’s incident with Hannah could have ended in much worse fashion than it did. Hannah showed enormous strength and restraint in her response — rebutting Eli’s accusation respectfully. Eli also recovered well from his mistake — quickly pivoting to bless her and pray for her. It is only through God’s mercy that the outcome of such a bad beginning resulted in a lifelong relationship of respect and worship, and the raising up of one of the Bible’s greatest prophets and leaders.

If something similar happened today in your church, the likely result would be a viral Twitter rant and a public shaming of your place of worship. If we don’t make space for people like Hannah, the best we can hope for is that the people in her situation will show similar restraint and grace to us for our blindness.

May both the Eli’s and the Hannah’s of today learn from their example by relying on and granting to others God’s grace.

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Originally published at garagebandtheatre.blogspot.com.

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Writer, minister, actor, director, husband. Not necessarily in that order. Author at @TheParkForum, @GarageforFaith, and working with @MinAccelerator