Fresh Hope for Mental Health

We look at our mood
disorder as we do with all things: through the lens of faith, faith in a God Who is the God of the
universe; Who created us, made us, and is all powerful and all-knowing; the true God; the God
of the Scriptures, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the Father Who loved us so much that He sent His
only son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. And we don’t apologize for it.
With that said, understand that we don’t get hyper-spiritual in our Fresh Hope meetings, either.
People are where they are, and we’re fine with that. I’ve seen many people who have little to no
faith at all, or may even have a different faith, come and be quite comfortable; because more than
anything, it’s a safe place. It’s a safe place to experience God’s love and not have the Bible
shoved down your throat or somebody coming at you.
When people speak from their own experience, it’s hard to argue with them, especially when
somebody says, “This is how I’ve experienced the Lord in my recovery.” But the purpose of the
group is not to be a Bible study, nor is it supposed to be a debate about spiritual matters. Instead
it is a group that is there to help extend hope, where hope is extended from a Christian
perspective to those who have mood disorders; hope that God is able and quite capable and will
do something great.
Our groups are peer-facilitator-led, vs. group-led or by an outside facilitator. Our leaders are
trained to give some direction to the group, not in a therapeutic way as a therapist would lead a
support group, but different than just letting the group take its own direction. There are topics
and a specific plan to follow, especially for the first half of the meeting time.
Our tenets are based on a model of faith-filled wellness. You might call it faith-filled recovery
principles. Our belief is that one can manage his or her own recovery and live a fulfilling and
joy-filled life. Now when I say “manage one’s own recovery”, this means that you’re the lead
active person in it. You’re the person taking active responsibility for your recovery, with your
doctor assisting and helping, but you are pushing through and choosing to live.
We recognize that even when we’re sick, we still have the power to choose. We believe that faith
enables us to continue to operate. And sometimes faith is all that we have when we are at our
sickest.
We recognize the difference between our brain, our mind, and our soul. Our brain is the organ,
and our mind is what the brain does. The Lord uses our minds to feed our souls through His
Word; our faith is part of our soul. This distinction is fundamentally important. It is because of
the distinction between our brain, mind, and soul that we maintain that at times our brains are not
chemically balanced; causing the function of the brain to bring about unhealthy/unbalanced
thinking and actions. These unhealthy thoughts and actions are not a true reflection of who we
are. The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do. It is especially

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during these times that we need to call upon our faith even more in spite of what we are thinking
and feeling.
Faith is the key element that enables us to overcome and makes Fresh Hope different than other
recovery models. From our perspective, our faith is what enables us to not lose hope, and in fact
is our source of hope even at the most hopeless times of our journey. Faith in Christ is not only
the source of our hope; it gives to us the power to renew our minds (Romans 12:2). Because of
Christ, our hope and faith, we do not simply live our lives “coping” with a mental illness; instead
we live out our lives in wellness despite our mental health challenges.
We see Fresh Hope as an environment where people listen, where people share only from their
perspective. We don’t preach at each other. We don’t tell each other how to do something, what
to believe, or how to respond. We encourage one another, and we share our journey with one
another. We do challenge one another at times. But it’s a safe environment. It’s a safe
environment where equipping people to successfully manage (self-empowered wellness) their
mood disorder is the goal.
Fresh Hope is a belief that God can use our brokenness for our good, and that when God uses us,
He has a purpose and a plan for our lives, mental health challenge or not. Feeling like we’re
broken and shattered in a million pieces, or not, God has a plan.
In fact, Fresh Hope believes that until we’re broken and recognize our brokenness and our need
for God, He really can’t use us all that much.
In Fresh Hope, we infuse hope and faith that God loves us and empowers us to become victors,
and to live as victors in Him, in spite of anything in our lives – maybe most of all, our mental
health challenges.

What are the goals of Fresh Hope?
The first goal is to empower the person who has a mental health challenge to successfully
manage his/her recovery, choosing wellness to live a happy and fulfilling life.
The second goal of Fresh Hope is to empower loved ones to understand and appropriately relate
to their loved one who has the mood disorder, and come alongside their loved one in recovery, so
that they too might enjoy life.
The third goal is that we provide a safe place for sharing both pain and hope without fear of
judgment by anyone. In other words, we want to make it a safe place where self-discovery can
happen and people can be honest and transparent with one another.
The fourth goal is really the overarching goal, and that is to offer healing for the past and hope
for the future.

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What blessings can you expect?
Fresh Hope as a peer group support system is phenomenal. It blows my mind – no pun intended
– at how powerful the Fresh Hope experience has been for people and how it’s helped them. I
know self-help groups help people, but I have never seen lives changed like this in all my years
of ministry.