Beyond Belief

Reverend Donna Allen,PhD uses her pulpit to preach the gospel of self-care.

- Summer Sewell

OURS ISN’T A large congregation. There are about 45 of us. So when you come here, you can’t be hidden. We’re gonna see you. We have older people, a few young adults, children. We call ourselves “radically inclusive.” It’s our desire to be a place for men and women, people with different spiritual journeys, people with different physical or mental abilities, people who, like me, are same-gender-loving, people who’ve suffered “church burns”—who’ve been left out, overlooked. We don’t feel Jesus is the only path to God. We talk about the importance of diverse experiences.

I’m transparent about mine. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I’ve dealt with depression, flashbacks. I’ve spoken in sermons about seeing a therapist for PTSD, taking medication. For years, I got rhetoric from the church that mental illness was equivalent to a lack of faith. Here, we don’t do that kind of harm. We challenge that stigma. We don’t tell people God won’t give you more than you can bear, or that it’s gonna be better in the morning. No.

The black community often doesn’t seek care. The messages we get from family can become our lexicon for mental health. My grandmother would say, “Pray it away.” A therapist wasn’t in her arsenal of things you turned to when you were sad. You were “too blessed to be stressed.” Well, no, I’m blessed and I’m stressed, and I need more. I need to pray, and.