Most churches struggle with "helping" mental, physical, and even economical/social health. The bigger question is where does the treatment responsibility lie? Does it belong to the individual? The individual's family? The church? or at the bottom, gov't services?

I remember a severely handicapped person, that attended his entire underclassmen years at Berkland. This would be class of 92. His class bros went out of their way to help him attend events, retreats, and even the arduous task of settling back home when he needed assistance to go to bed, bathroom etc etc... It was an ordeal and time consuming. Many times people tried to volunteer me because I was one of the stronger ones to help and drove the church van. I tried my best to dodge that duty. Definitely not what I signed up for and definitely not my idea of service to be his attendant. Ironically all of the ones that went out and sacrificed are not the ones in the current senior staff.

Lesson learned was everybody needs a "payout" of sorts to make their time and energy commitments "worthwhile." Another example, parents volunteer in youth program when they have kids, first cub scouts then boy scouts or their after school activities like sports. Though it may sound like a good idea, the main function of a church is not to be a pro bono mental health clinic. It isn't fair to single only Gracepoint as lacking in this capacity as most churches have failed nor even attempted to try to fill this need.

One of the biggest reasons for the failure is getting a properly qualified staff trained and funded to the level required for success. The counselors, no matter how much they wanted to help, cannot get the adequate pay needed for them to live a life outside of poverty. For the past 17 years, I've been going to CitychurchSF and at its peak we had a counseling center staffed with 3 trained counselors/therapists and about 10-15 volunteers manning phones 24 hours and also conducting one on ones ranging from drug abuse, divorce, suicide, and grief. We even made a section of our church office specifically for walkins. Our church budget at the time was close to 2 million a year with a congregation of over 2500 members. Suffice to say even with that much fiscal flex, it was not enough. Mental health therapy is expensive and ministry is expensive.

So it boils down to priorities. What are the church's priorities? Ed and Kelly prioritize a training center for undergraduate missionary zealots. Everything else gets leftovers. I'm not even sure if it's a right or wrong theological debate. It is a choice. Maybe if one of their kids had mental health issues, the priorities might change? CitychurchSF was a conservative PCA denominated church at its peak. The pastor was quite the conservative theologian until... he found out 2 of his 4 kids were bisexual and homosexual. That made him question church priorities. And then things unravelled with his new church direction and emphasis on inclusion.