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Can vibrant Christian faith and depression coexist?

What are the myths about depression still prevalent in the church?

What information, resources, and coping strategies alleviate the burden of chronic depression and instill resiliency as a Christ-follower and servant?

Those questions shape the slant of my new blog.

My purpose?

I am a blogger, author, and teacher

who helps despondent Christians

find the support and hope needed

to live a more joyful, fruitful life.

Terry Powell

My posts will beam rays of light to guide your walk in the dark.

I am not a psychologist or a physician, nor have I played one on TV. Yet I’m all-too-familiar with the nemesis of depression. During decades of ministry in churches and as a university professor, I’ve experienced recurring bouts of deep despondency, sometimes without a cause I could identify. I’m a fragile, desperate, bloodied soldier of Christ who marches with a limp. Yet by God’s grace, I’m still engaged in the battle.*

Will you join me in the fight for joy?

As a broken-world person who’s eager to pass along what sustains and empowers me, my posts will consist of the following types of content:

• Identifying and debunking misconceptions about faith in relation to depression
• Personal stories and things I’ve learned the hard way about day-to-day coping with despondency
• Stories of other believers past and present, renown as well as obscure, whose frailty didn’t preclude their usefulness to God
• Interviews with counselors, authors, and other experts whose knowledge will inform our response to depression and to others who experience it
• Reviews of books, blogs, and articles offering helpful information
• Up-to-date research on prevalence, causes, and treatments
• Bible truths/verses that instill hope and refute false beliefs often spawned by dark moods. (No matter what causes our depressive episode, there’s a spiritual battle to wage.)

I’ll post at least once each week and reply to your responses or inquiries. We’re in this together, so I expect to learn from you as well.

Sign up to receive the blog, and you’ll automatically receive it in your email. I’ll also send news and helpful information in an e-letter a couple times a month.

For signing up, you’ll receive two free gifts:

I’ll give you a part of my book Serve Strong: Biblical Encouragement To Sustain God’s Servants. These four stand-alone chapters deal with how God gets glory through our weaknesses, brokenness, failure, and pain. The Bible truths and stories in the chapters will buoy your spirit and instill resiliency in your ministry, whether it’s as a volunteer or vocational leader.

Your second gift for signing up is a set of four detailed, from-start-to-finish Bible lesson plans that I wrote on the theme of fellowship. These lessons examine key “one another” texts in the New Testament, and focus more specifically on the topics of mutual encouragement and intercession.  Each plan comes with study questions to ask a class or group, as well as my commentary you can use to supplement learner responses.

I’ve served on the staff of three churches for a total of a dozen years, several of those years full-time. Since 1981, I’ve taught Church Ministry and leadership classes at Columbia International University in South Carolina. Married to Dolly for 46 years, we have two grown sons, one daughter-in-law, one grandson, and a dachshund. My constant prayer is, “Lord, make me half the man my dog thinks I am.”

BLOG POST: "I am depressed, but God is good"

BLOG POST: "A Reason Not To Take My Own Life"

Listen to my testimony about depression: