Subject Area
Theology/Religious Education
Abstract
In the 21st-century Black Church, there must be a shift in the conceptualization of leadership and service to include issues regarding mental health and wellness. There is a dichotomy between ministry and time management. Particularly if one cares for and serves the Black community, the needs are great and require more than just a mere Sunday service. Ministry is really a seven-days-a-week calling and there is work that must be done during the week, inside and outside the walls of the church. Because of this fact, churches must do a better job promoting balance and providing new leadership models for what that balance entails. The Black Church also has to be creative with establishing policies that create balance for those who serve in ministry! Today’s new and upcoming church leaders must preserve their own wellness by adopting a discipline of respite and proper work/life balance. Similar to what the corporate world seems to promote, appropriate work/life balance is needed to ensure one’s own physical and mental health is a priority and is just as important as their spiritual health. The Black Church must instill practices of therapy and counseling, along with spiritual regimes to help combat mental illness in the African American community. The next generation of leaders should seek to redefine what spiritual responsibility looks like and ensure it is not at the cost of one’s mental health. By evaluating how the brain and spirituality are connected, this research will ignite a new spiritual awakening that advocates for change, rooted in sustaining mental health. By taking a meta-analysis study approach, which is “a study of studies, where researchers cumulate the patterns across a whole body of evidence, adjusting for the body of each data point…summarizing the results,” evidence will be provided for the connection between mental and spiritual health and its impacts to the body. [1]The result of this research should encourage the Black Church and its leaders to be more apt in fostering leadership models that promote wellness of the whole individual. By evaluating the neurological and spiritual aspects of mental health, it will assist in having positive, well-balanced, and nourished leaders in our Black communities.
[1] Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. (New York, NY: Viking, 2021), 26.
Degree Date
Spring 5-13-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
D.Min.
Department
Ministry
Advisor
Dr. Harold Recinos
Second Advisor
Dr. Susanne Johnson
Number of Pages
175
Format
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Grigsby, Nerissa, "Mentality & Spirituality—Two Sides of the Same Coin: Mental and Spiritual Health in the 21st-Century Black Church and the Next Generation" (2023). Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses. 24.
https://scholar.smu.edu/theology_ministry_etds/24
Included in
Biblical Studies Commons, Cognitive Neuroscience Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Cognitive Science Commons, Counseling Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons
