Improve Youth Mental Health Through Church

Youth and young adults are in the midst of a full-blown mental health crisis. It’s no coincidence that mental illness among them is at all-time highs while their religious belief and practice are at all-time lows. By turning their backs on God and church, they’re falling into depression, drink, drugs, and despair – in droves. Thousands of peer-reviewed studies have determined that people who regularly go to church are more likely to have better mental (and physical) health than those who don’t go to church.

This video highlights:

• The rapid rise in mental illness among young people in the recent decade (even before Covid), and the corresponding rapid decrease in religious belief and churchgoing among them.

• The astoundingly high percentage of college students who have “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function,” and the percentage who have seriously considered suicide.

• Atheist teachers and professors who lead students to believe there is no soul or spiritual world, prompting them to lose their sense of meaning and purpose, and fall into depression.

• Other professors who instill a sense of hope in meaning, and who emphasize the mental health benefits of religious practice.

• A Harvard study that calculates the extent to which the rise in suicide and mental illness is directly attributable to the drop-off in church attendance.

• Reasons why churchgoers tend to have better mental health.

Source material is from the book Holy Health: How Church Makes You Healthier and Happier.