Achuckallen

Instigating Better

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The Church and Mental Health

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by AChuckAllen 04.20.2021

Like many of my readers, I grew up in an era with zero tolerance for mental illness. We threw terms around that were harmful, hurtful, and disrespectful. We didn’t do that out of some weird bias or odd bigotry, but out of pure ignorance. Today, we all have a better understanding of the significance of our mental and emotional health. But have we stepped into the arena and determined to be a part of the solution instead of saying the usual “somebody ought to do something” line? As for me, I have experienced the oddities of the pandemic, just like you have.

Now is the time to step onto the floor of the arena and determine to
make a difference, and it just might start with you!

First, let’s accept the fact that we all have some sort of anxiety, restlessness, or stress in our life. I haven’t met anyone in the past year that has been able to say that they are stress or worry-free, at least honestly. The power of our brains is astonishing. Our brains are constantly attempting to course-correct our lives, but with enough stressors and insecurities, it can send all of the wrong signals to our bodies.

Did you know that when your brain’s pre-frontal cortex exposes your amygdala, that amygdala kicks into high gear with fear that sends stress hormones coursing through your body? That starts a reaction that creates digestive challenges, rapid heart rates, muscular tingles, and inflammation. None of that sounds good. But here is the good news. You can do something about it! My friend, Julie Homrich, LPC, has been coaching me on the brain and how mental health and spiritual health go hand in hand. She is a really bright human, and I’m continually grateful for our friendship and what she is teaching me. When I came to grips with the fact that we could literally accomplish what Paul wrote in the Bible book of Romans, when he said that we “Should not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind, so that we might know the perfect will of God,” I got so captivated that I began an in-depth study to help me understand the correlation with a passage of scripture written some 2,000 years ago and the modern brain.

Romans 12:2 NLT
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

In short, I came to this conclusion: We Need Help!

To keep from remaining in fear, anxiety, and an over-stressed state of mind, we need to know how to be transformed through the renewing of our mind. Maybe you are like me. Maybe you don’t have a severe mental illness, but you are stressed out, maxed out, and occasionally anxiety-riddled. If so, even mildly so, here is a three-step approach that has been scientifically proven to assist you.

1. STOP AND SUSPEND THE PRESENT NARRATIVE. Science has proven that it can take as long as 20 minutes to metabolize the stress hormones sent to our bodies from that fear-mongering amygdala. Stop and suspend your assumptions on the motives, actions, and predetermined conclusions of the present narrative that has your stressors on high alert. Stopping long enough to evaluate before acting is an essential part of coping well and retaining healthy relationships. Stop and allow your mind to ask three questions. 1) What if I didn’t understand the narrative as it was intended? 2) What if the person sharing or group sharing the narrative is in a difficult season or just a terrible day? And 3) What if I am stressed because I am part of the narrative’s problem, and my brain is firing our guilt signals. Suspend the answer and/or action long enough for the stress hormones to clear from your body.

2. ENGAGE IN DOING GOOD. Multiple studies, including a study from Stanford University, have proven that when we take action to help or serve someone else, we are fueling our brain and our soul with dopamine that instantaneously improves our mental and emotional health. If you lead a business, the new economy screams at you that “doing good is good for business.” The new understanding of our brain screams at us doing good is good for us! I know it doesn’t seem like something beneficial to mental health, but both God and science assure us that it is indeed perfect for us!

3. START YOUR DAY WITH PRAYER MEDITATION. I know I just lost half of you, but this is the one thing I would plead with you to do. It’s so simple, and it’s been proven to strengthen our mental and emotional health for centuries. Somehow, in the American culture, we determined we didn’t need that weird meditation stuff. But prayerful meditation isn’t some weird journey with incense and mantras. It is simply quietude, plus solitude, plus mindfulness = peace. I start each day with one question. What am I grateful for, and write it down. I then enjoy about 6 minutes of prayerful meditation through a great, free app, “SOULSPACE.” It is so simple. I listen and pray in a quiet space, and it gets me centered on God’s design for my day and gives me an attitude of gratitude, confidence, and peace. Once again, like serving others, meditation has been scientifically proven to strengthen our brains to transform us into healthy people. How great is that? I am living proof that six minutes each day can radically transform your mind, heart, and soul for good. If you knew me twenty years ago, or more, you might be thinking, “who is this, and what happened to Chuck?” The answer? I’m here, and I’m in the best mental, emotional and spiritual health of my life!

Here is the key. These are simple solutions to a complex challenge. But these three simple steps have proven to make me a far better husband, father, grandfather, pastor, leader, and follower of Jesus. America is a mess, people. We might start with our own mental, emotional, and spiritual health before grumbling more about everyone else’s part of the problem.

I’m also committed to the firm belief that the church desperately needs to tackle mental and emotional health. It is one of the great American crises of the day. We, the church, have the opportunity to stop lobbing bible verse hand grenades at people in crises and offer real, tangible, God-honoring solutions. I’m in no way suggesting that scripture isn’t tangible. I am strongly stating that scripture and science are a hand in glove experience. Mental health is a practical part of Christian discipleship. As we learn to surrender our assumptions and egos to the will of God, we discover contentment. When we are contented, we can, as Paul stated, “do all things through Christ Jesus.” But surrender and contentment require a healthy state of mind and emotion.

It’s like a wheel that keeps rolling. Strive for mental and emotional health. Seek peace in that journey. Keep it sustainable, not just based on feelings. Surrender our lives and discover contented gratitude and boom! There it is, PEACE! That sounds exactly like what Jesus would invest in should He have chosen this generation to walk on the face of the planet. Oh, wait! That’s exactly what He did, as He walked across Israel some two-thousand years ago. Jesus cares about our mental and emotional health – Be more like Jesus!

Go in Peace,
Chuck

Four Lessons I Learned from COVID-19

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First, let me freely admit that I greatly underestimated Covid-19! I thought I would be a little sickly and get over it in a few days. Boy, was I wrong? I was one of those folks that had almost every symptom you can have. I was down and out of commission for the better part of two weeks. Over the course of those two weeks, I learned four critical lessons that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Hopefully, they will benefit you, and prayerfully you won’t have to have Covid-19 to learn them.

Here are the FOUR LESSONS from COVID-19

1 You are not in charge! You may think that you are, but you are not in charge. Here are three points that make this point.
– I did everything one should do to avoid Covid, but it found me.
– Every medication and every treatment might have been helpful, but God Himself chose to determine my timetable with this wicked enemy. – The only way to health is to stop trying to power through it.

Friends, this virus is the real deal. My encouragement to you is to recognize that we shouldn’t live in fear of Covid-19, but we should honor the fact that any of us can contract this thing, and we are all potential victims. I’m not too fond of wearing a mask. I hate the politicization of wearing a mask even more. I despise the need to cancel live worship and groups, but I would never want anybody to struggle as I did with this stuff! I’ve read and listened to so many varying opinions on masks and distancing that I really am not certain of “the science we are to follow.” I am however, keenly aware that if there is any way to keep people we love as safe as possible, why not give in and ride this thing out? In other words, just wear the mask.

You are not in control. As the Stoics were fond of saying, “The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier; we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting an unwinnable battle.”

2 There is a Purpose Within this Virus. For the last nine days of my fight with Covid-19, I started my day with a Gratitude Journal. Inside the journal and number one on my list each day was this statement, “Thank You for Covid-19.” No, I’m not as dumb as I look. I read more, learned more, prayed more, and grew more during Covid than I had in the previous six months. The Divine allowed my time with Covid to redeem my plans for 2021. He allowed me time to rethink almost every part of my life. I was determined to accomplish several things in 2021, but a few of those things have changed significantly! While I do not believe this virus was Heaven created, the Divine is certainly using it to accomplish much. What, I wonder, has He been teaching you? If you aren’t sure, then learn this lesson and slow the pace of your day down and listen for His still, powerful voice.

3 Solitude is Healthy! I speak for the many people that are introverts by nature, but also for people that are around people all the time. Solitude is necessary to think clearly. It is needed to meditate and pray consistently. Solitude can allow for serious planning, and most importantly, solitude will drive you to get off life’s hamster wheel and speak with your Creator and listen for Him to speak into your life. Covid-19 forced me to enjoy and now crave solitude.

4 Everybody Really is dispensable! While I continued working from home, I had people that continued the good work and the good word of Sugar Hill Church. I had friends that prayed for me, covered my bases, and did all manner of caring for me and feeding me. Thank You! I watched as my team functioned wonderfully. I saw them lead and lead well. I was blessed by how they were both concerned for me, but also how they were even more concerned about the health and ministry of our faith community. I felt missed but never required. I felt blessed and never completely essential. Jenny was amazing, as usual. She put up with my whining and griping and moody ways. The girls all checked on me, daily and my dearest friends were more concerned for me than they were for themselves when they had Covid. I discovered, and I’ll bet that you would as well; that you are not indispensable, but you are deeply loved and cared for.

There are dozens of additional lessons learned during my battle, but I’ll stop for today. Thanks to all of you that prayed for me and shared your kindness with my family!

Peace, Chuck

If I Were 17 Again

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If I Were 17 Again by AChuckAllen

Even with the odd graduations of 2020, it would appear that we will be going back to school this fall. As a result, I started thinking about the things I would do differently if I were about to start my senior year at South Gwinnett High School again.

I enjoyed my high school years, well at least a couple of them. My dad moved us several times during my four years, but I wound up attending three schools, but two schools for three years. I know, it was odd.

I have fond memories of my short time at Southwest Dekalb High School, which I attended for one fall and then we were off to South Gwinnett. There we stayed for almost two full years and we made a stop in Lubbock, Texas. I attended a few Summer School classes attempting to avoid sitting out a year of varsity football. That summer turned out to be a great year and held one of my favorite adventures of high school. I was 15 years old, living with Mom and Dad in Texas. I would have had to sit out a football season and so, moving back to Georgia was my highest priority. So, I left Mom, Dad and the sweetest little girlfriend, Deanna and drove myself (remember-15 years old) from Lubbock, Texas directly to Camp Bow and Arrow for football camp with my teammates – The Not So Mighty South Gwinnett Comets. That trip at 15 years old included a night of sleep in the back of my Monte Carlo in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Sometimes being stupid will cause you to grow up in a hurry. So, after that little bypass, here are my re-wishes.

If I could relive a few of those senior days, I would have:

1. I wish that I had been less of a butthead and been a nicer human being. Especially to kids that were struggling.

2. I wish I had been a real Follower of Christ, not a convenient Christian with no spiritual guts at all.

3. I wish I had played every single play like I was one yard away from winning the Super Bowl. I loved playing ball!

4. I wish I would have said yes to Troy.

5. I wish I would have focused more on literature and actually listened to Mrs. Adair. I didn’t particularly like her.

6. I wish I had started intentionally reading earlier in life…like as in at 17.

7. I wish I would have made that one tackle that got away from me while playing the coldest game of my life at Elbert County. That dude was big.

8. I wish I would have kicked the guy playing over me as I was long snapping while at Habersham County in the privates. I don’t even know his name, but I still hate him.

9. I wish I would have treated my Mom and Dad with more respect. When you are 17-18 years old you really are an idiot.

10. And finally, I wish that I would have honored my coaches for the painstaking efforts they poured into me. I’d still try and run through a wall for any of them..especially Coaches Strickland, Johnson, Carter and Sawyer.

We don’t have the luxury of reliving our past, but we can pass along our hard earned knowledge to those that come behind us. So, feel free to share these and your desired mulligans with the kids that will start their Senior years this Fall.

Go in Peace, AChuck

Open When?

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Open When? by AChuckAllen

Let’s face it, if we open too soon, the critics will be screaming. If we open too slowly, the critics will be screaming. So, just to play the role of Captain Obvious here, no matter what you do, someone is going to be screaming at you. Got it!

But that isn’t the end of the story. This “I caught you doing something wrong” mentality that we have allowed to spring out of glorified shock-jock media entertainers is pressing us into a powder keg that is ready to explode. You pick almost any subject, then google that subject and you’ll discover that America is roughly 50-50. Split right down the middle on almost every topic other than we need to rebound from this shutdown…safely.

To do so requires we Americans to fight back and press on. Fight back, not at your governor, or your president, but fight back against the insane rhetoric that is spewed from both sides of the media aisles. Americans need a voice of reason, and that voice is already in many of us. Why can we not regulate what we are willing to listen and watch with a better intent than watching a train wreck. Have we not learned that counting on Washington is a fool’s errand? Have we not recognized the foolish hate talk thrown around the newsroom?

The answers are not to be found in the halls of Congress. The solutions will not be discovered in the offices of senators. I can promise you that the answers will not be found in the pundits that propagate shouting matches as to who is worse.

The answers we seek are found in Americans truly trusting that the Divine Creator of the Universe is waiting on us to seek Him first and in all our ways acknowledge that He is God and we are not. The odd thing about that is that it costs us nothing to stop, take an accurate inventory of our situation and know that whether it is a pandemic, economic collapse, or a fully public moral failure, our Creator is the only way out of the present mess. I know that seems like a simple man’s answer, but I would argue that it is a thinking person’s answer.

  • If we are to admit who our Creator is, we have step one.
  • If we are to acknowledge that all wisdom comes from on high, we have step two.
  • If we were to seek that wisdom, He promises to faithfully grant that wisdom, step three.
  • If we were to admit, acknowledge and seek, we then could eagerly obey, step four.
  • If we were to obey, we might just fall to our knees and offer proper praise and thanks for the fact that the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has heard our prayer. That we might just turn from our self-filled ways and hear from Him…Then we would hear from Heaven and will be forgiven our sins and our land would be restored. There it is, step five.

Simple, right? So, when should we open? Do I need to go back through numbers 1-5 again? Let’s be ready to open the second He gives us the green light. Should we happen to be bright enough to actually follow these steps, what an awesome way to return to our places of worship, and continue streaming our message, and care for those in need and maximize our efforts to love people with the life-altering message of Christ.

Go in Peace,
AChuck

GRIT is Your Superpower

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GRIT is Your Superpower by ACHUCKallen

John Wayne was one of America’s great actors and great Americans. He somehow seemed bigger than life, and that may have been a result of the fact that he was popular in the age before social media took over!

My two favorite John Wayne quotes are:

# 1 “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”

# 2 “Courage is being scared to death…but saddling up anyway.”

John Wayne won his only Oscar in 1969 for the movie “True Grit.” In the movie, 14 year-old Mattie says to Wayne’s character, Marshall Cogburn, ”They tell me you are a man with true grit.”

Angela Duckworth did her research on what seperated successful people in various high stress situations, from those that crumbled. After an extensive study, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t IQ. It was grit.”

The best definition I’ve ever heard of grit is: “Grit is doing what you don’t want to do, to be what you want to be.”

If you want to succeed wildly, you need to develop grit. True grit or more properly put God-honoring GRIT is your super-power. And here is how you get that kind of grit.

Guard Your Heart

Proverbs 4:23-27 ”Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. [24] Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. [25] Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. [26] Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. [27] Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil. …And just how are we going to do that? Let’s start with our emotions.

Reel in Your Emotions

A person with true grit will never give in to the list of following seven emotions. There is a difference between being attacked by these things and allowing them to take you over. The list includes: “anxiety, fear, doubt, guilt, depression, discouragement and jealousy” It is not mind over matter for the Follower of Christ. It is the continual applying of God’ Word to overcome your negative emotions.

Here are the seven.

Anxiety. Philippians 4:6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

Doubt. Mark 11:23 says:I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.

Guilt. Isaiah 43:25 “I-yes, I alone-will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.

Depression. Psalm 40:1-2 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.

Discouragement. Deuteronomy 31:8 Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

Jealousy. 1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

Tenacity What does the Bible have to say about tenacity? What does the Bible have to say about tenacity? Hebrews 10:36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.

Amelia Earhart once said: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

The strength of a person’s character. . .their grit and drive to success is determined by whether or not they can finish what they started.

Philippians 1:6 “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

If God doesn’t change, and He doesn’t. If His word doesn’t change, and it doesn’t. If God’s promises remain the same, and they do. Then it’s pretty obvious: We need to change.

Acts 3:19 in The Living Bible says: “Now change your mind and attitude to God and turn to him so he can cleanse away your sins and send you wonderful times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord.”

But hear this,“faith is a fact, but you’ve got to act.” Life is full of people who talk about what they’re going to do someday. I have a friend who is one of the most creative people that I’ve ever met, but he has a totally unrealistic view of what it takes to make the things in his mind become a reality. Here’s a word of truth: A creation without implementation with never come to fruition.

Do you want to move from where you are to where God wants you to succeed? Then do something instead of talking about it. Take one step and let Him propel you thru the next 30!

When you read or listen to God’s Word, then simply obey and act on His Word. And when you do, God will bless you and reward you! This is True Grit!

This is how we push past pandemics, failures, market crashes and circumstances outside of our control. Go get your grit on!

CHUCK ALLEN Pastor · Speaker · Author · Coach

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