Suicide Prevention in the Church: A Biblical Guide for Pastors (David Gilleland)

Suicide prevention in the church: David Gilleland, author of Holding Hope, explains how pastors can recognize warning signs, ask directly, and walk with people toward hope.

David Gilleland spent nearly a decade managing suicide prevention programs for the National Guard and Army Reserves before becoming a pastor. As a pastor, he found that most church leaders had received no suicide prevention training in seminary. He and James Spencer walk through his new book, Holding Hope: A Biblical Guide to Suicide Prevention for Church Leaders, from the warning signs pastors miss to why asking directly about suicide is the surest way to know. The aim is not to turn pastors into clinicians but to equip them to care faithfully.

The conversation questions a church culture shaped by self-sufficiency, where talk of victory leaves little room for the lament of Psalm 88. Gilleland contrasts the people in Scripture who took their own lives with Elijah, Moses, Jonah, and Job, who wanted to die but turned to God. James reads Saul’s end as the fruit of a life ruled by fear of people rather than fear of the Lord. They also ask whether suicide is a sin without reducing that question to a verdict on a suffering person’s eternal destiny.

In this episode:

• How can pastors and church leaders recognize the warning signs of suicide?
• Is suicide a sin, and how should pastors respond to grieving families?
• Saul, Elijah, Moses, Jonah, and Job: suicide and despair in Scripture (1 Kings 19)
• Psalm 88, lament, and a church culture of self-sufficiency
• Biblical counseling, professional care, and why referral can be an act of love

Guest: David Gilleland, former pastor, biblical counselor, and author of Holding Hope: A Biblical Guide to Suicide Prevention for Church Leaders.
Holding Hope and free church resources: davidgilleland.com

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, US).

Go deeper: Faith and Mental Health
About David Gilleland: thinkingchristian.org/guests/david-gilleland

Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don’t settle for a narrower vision than God’s word offers.

Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction.
Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org
About James Spencer: thinkingchristian.org/james
The Thinking Christian Framework: thinkingchristian.org/framework
Order Digital Discernment: amazon.com

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