If you don’t struggle with mental health, you probably know someone who does. About 20% of Americans experience mental health issues every year.
It’s not the easiest thing to find safe churches that embraces all aspects of a Christian person’s life that affects their mental illness—spiritually, mentally, emotionally, medically, physically, relationally, psychologically. To serve the 6th largest county in the USA, Orange County, California, here are churches where people can get help and hope (please add a comment if you know others):
Hope For Mental Health @ Saddleback Church, Lake Forest Campus
- Hope for Mental Health Community
- Support Groups
- Mental Health Ministry Starter Kit & other resources & more recommended resources from Kay Warren
East West Community Church, Anaheim
- NAMI Family Support Group – 2nd and 4th Tuesdays each month – for more info, please contact Wilfred & Neena Paltanwala at wpaltanwala[at]roadrunner.com
Eastside Christian Church, Anaheim
- Lifeline to Mental Wellness – weekly support groups, for men, for women
Trinity United Presbyterian Church, Santa Ana
- Hope’s Nest – 2nd Sunday of each month @ 12-2PM
New Hope Crisis Counseling Hotline, Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange
- New Hope Crisis Hotline provides telephone crisis intervention and suicide prevention services in Orange County. Trained crisis workers provide peer counseling to those who are struggling to cope with day to day life. Services are free, and are available 24 hours a day/7 days a week.
Call 714-New Hope (714-639-4673)
New Life Irvine
- ReNew Hope support group (contact [email protected])
Care & Recovery at Mariners Church, Irvine, California
- Support groups—including Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), Living Grace: For Women Mental Health Support, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), OCD Support Group, and more.
Community Mental Health Night
Community Mental Health Night meets weekly on Monday evenings. This group is led by a licensed therapist, at Crosspoint Church in Huntington Beach, CA.
St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress
MentalHealth.Bible
MentalHealth.Bible is a free website serving faith communities with a curated collection of mental health resources that are especially useful for churches, clergy, pastors, Christians, and others for whom faith is a key component of their lived experience.
Featured Article
“Support groups help break the mental health taboo in Orange County churches” (KPCC, November 2015)
“Besides St. St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress, three other Catholic churches in Orange County offer support groups and several more are opening dialogues about mental health with their congregations in English, Spanish and Vietnamese…”
“The National Alliance on Mental Illness has trained facilitators to lead support groups at a handful of evangelical and Baptist churches in Orange County.”
One More Resource @ NAMI OC FaithNet
About NAMI OC FaithNet
NAMI OC FaithNet is an information exchange network of NAMI members, friends, clergy and congregations of all faith traditions who wish to create more welcoming and supportive faith communities for persons and families touched by serious mental illness. NAMI FaithNet also encourages the role of faith in recovery for those for whom faith is a key component of their experience. namioc.org/Community
[ed.note: as of October 2024, it appears that NAMI OC FaithNet is currently inactive. No point of contact is known.]