Is Church Good for Your Mental Health?

Part 2 in the Mental Health and Ministry Series

I know what you’re thinking. You clicked on this article expecting me to tear apart the church’s abysmal track record on mental health. Sure, there’s plenty to critique there, but the data tells a story that might surprise you.

While some of us have spent decades dissecting how religious communities wound and harm (rightfully so), there is a mountain of research showing that church attendance is a prominent protective factors for positive mental health. 

So, what do we do with this?

The truth is that our relationship with religious structures is complex, messy, and refuses to fit into neat good/bad categories. My purpose here is not to dismiss the real harm that religious communities have caused, but to highlight the research that challenges both religious triumphalism and secular assumptions about faith communities.

The Research – Attendance Matters

Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele, who studies religion and public health, has been at the forefront of this conversation. His most recent research found that participants who attended religious services frequently were 29% less likely to become depressed, about 50% less likely to divorce, and five times less likely to commit suicide than those who never attended.

Most striking was that those research subjects who attended services weekly were 33% less likely to die during a 16-year follow-up period than people who never attended. Additional statistics indicate a 27% reduction in all-cause mortality risk and roughly 29% reduction in the odds of subsequent depression for those attending services at least weekly versus not at all. 

Research consistently shows that it’s specifically religious service attendance (not just private spirituality or belief) that provides the strongest protective effects. VanderWeele emphasizes that “something about the communal religious experience and participation matters” more than private spiritual practice.

The protective effects are strongest for those attending at least once per week, with the most dramatic differences between weekly attenders and those who never attend. There seems to be a threshold effect where weekly attendance provides significantly more benefit than occasional attendance.

The Research – Engagement Matters

Merely attending church services is not the whole story for improved mental health. Religious engagement seems to exist on a spectrum, with significantly different mental health outcomes based on the type and depth of involvement. 

Several studies reveal that volunteering within religious contexts provides additional mental health benefits beyond attendance alone. One noted that “people who volunteer tend to enjoy better physical health, better mental health, and they tend to live longer than individuals who are not involved in volunteering.”  A Texas-based study found that “both other-oriented and self-oriented volunteering significantly mediated the relationships between participants’ religiosity and health outcomes, but more robust indirect effects through other-oriented volunteering were noted” This suggests that serving others (not just serving yourself through participation) amplifies the mental health benefits.

Additionally, the research shows that depth of religious commitment moderates the effectiveness of active participation and the beneficial effects of volunteering on health become progressively larger at successively higher levels of religious commitment. 

The Community Factor: Beyond Sunday Morning

This key to improved mental health isn’t about believing the “right” things or having perfect theology. Instead, the research points to something that progressives and traditionalists alike can agree on: community matters. Specifically, the kind of community that offers consistent support, shared meaning, and long-term relationships.

There is something about showing up, sitting with other humans, and participating in shared ritual creates protective effects that private spirituality alone doesn’t provide.

Religious communities provide important teaching about the sacred nature of marriage, extra support for families and children, and a sense of community with shared values. When done well, churches create what sociologists call “social capital” that points to the networks of relationships that provide practical and emotional support during crises.

For adolescents who already hold religious beliefs, encouraging service attendance and private practices may be meaningful avenues of development and support, possibly leading to better health and well-being. The research suggests that religious communities can serve as protective environments during crucial developmental periods.

Certainly, there is room for improvement for churches who create communities built on conformity rather than belonging, performance rather than authenticity, and exclusion rather than radical inclusion.

Denominational Differences Matter

Not all churches are created equal when it comes to mental health support. There are some fascinating denominational differences that challenge stereotypes on all sides.

Mainline Protestants were more likely to view depression in line with mental health professionals, as having a biological component, and more likely to see it as being separate from a religious issue. Pentecostals in particular were more likely to view depression as an issue that depends on the situation and felt depression was strongly influenced by spiritual causes.

When asked if depression is “due to a lack of faith in God,” Pentecostals wholeheartedly agreed with this statement more than other denominations, while mainline Protestant pastors disagreed more often. This isn’t just theological hairsplitting—these beliefs directly impact how communities respond to mental health struggles.

Progressive mainline churches often excel at destigmatizing mental health issues and connecting people to professional care. However, they sometimes overcorrect by becoming so secular in their approach that they lose the spiritual resources that make religious community unique.

Conservative evangelical churches often provide strong community support and meaning-making frameworks, but their theological interpretations can inadvertently shame people struggling with mental health issues.

Additionally, this protective effect isn’t unique to Christianity. Similar beneficial outcomes have been documented for attending Jewish religious services once a week or more. The magic isn’t in the specific doctrine—it’s in the consistent, communal practice.

Churches Getting It Right

Some communities are finding ways to harness the protective power of religious community while addressing mental health with both spiritual depth and scientific literacy.

The PEWS (Promoting Emotional Wellness and Spirituality) Program has successfully implemented Mental Health Ministry Committees in churches, focusing on education, stigma reduction, and treatment promotion. These churches recognized that addressing mental health requires both pastoral care and professional intervention.

Organizations like Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries have created resources like The Sanctuary Course, which explores mental health topics while drawing upon insights from mental health professionals, church leaders, and people with lived experience. These programs help churches become places where people with mental health challenges feel safe, supported, and valued.

The United Methodist Church has developed comprehensive resources for mental health ministries, emphasizing that “Christians are called to offer healing and compassion to all those who suffer whether their pain is physical, emotional or mental in nature.”

The Internal and External Work Required

For churches to become genuinely good for mental health, both individual and institutional transformation is required.

Internal work means confronting the theological assumptions that create shame around mental health struggles. When over 30% of Evangelicals say mental illness could be overcome with Bible study and prayer alone, we have a problem. This kind of magical thinking not only fails to help—it actively harms by suggesting that ongoing struggles indicate spiritual failure.

Churches need to develop a theology that doesn’t explain away pain but creates space for lament, confusion, and the long journey of healing. This means teaching that God is present in depression, anxiety, and trauma, not absent because of them. 

External work means restructuring church systems to be accessible to people with mental health challenges. Currently, only 27% of churches have a plan to assist families affected by mental illness. Churches can train leaders in mental health first aid, develop referral networks with quality mental health professionals, and create multiple entry points for people who can’t handle traditional church programming.

A Pathway Forward for Church Leaders

If you’re a church leader wondering how to make your community genuinely good for mental health, here’s your roadmap:

1. Acknowledge the Research faith communities have unique mental health benefits. Own the data while refusing to use it as spiritual superiority complex fuel.
2. Train Your Leadership Currently, 49% of pastors say they rarely or never speak to their congregation about mental illness. This has to change. Provide mental health first aid training for all staff and volunteer leaders.
3. Develop Professional Networks Create relationships with licensed mental health professionals who understand religious communities. Not every therapist gets faith; not every faith leader understands trauma-informed care.
4. Create Multiple Access Points Traditional Sunday morning worship isn’t accessible for everyone struggling with mental health. Develop support groups, educational workshops, and alternative worship experiences.
5. Address Systemic Barriers Look honestly at your community’s assumptions about mental health, success, and spiritual maturity. Are you inadvertently creating environments where only the “mentally healthy” feel welcome?
6. Normalize Mental Health Conversations 65% of churchgoing family members of those with mental illness want their church to talk openly about mental illness. 59% of those actually suffering from mental illness say the same. Your people are begging for these conversations.

The Bottom Line

Clearly, this is not meant to be an exhaustive research piece on this topic. And, there are legitimate quesitons about how the researchers cam eot o their conclusions. 

Yet, we see from a glance at the literature that the church can be good for mental health, but only when it stops trying to be a mental health substitute and starts being what it’s uniquely called to be: a community of radical belonging where people can encounter the sacred in the midst of their struggles.

Weekly, in‑person, communal worship is linked with striking reductions in depression, suicide, and premature death. But those benefits flow through a culture of belonging, not around it. Communities that shame struggle, ignore professional care, or marginalize vulnerable identities can cancel out the gains, and may even flip them into harm.

When churches combine sound theology, trauma‑informed practice, and partnerships with mental‑health professionals, grace stops being an abstraction and becomes a community habit that can protect, and sometimes transform, mental health.

Healthy Members Lead to Healthy Churches

At the Center for Transforming Engagement, we wholeheartedly believe that leaders should care for their bodies and their souls. If you are in need of a safe space to begin your own practice of self care, we invite you to consider our Resilience Circles.