The spiritual condition of America, Politics, Culture, and Current Events Analyzed Through the Lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Mental health. It's not something you hear talked about very much in Christian circles or certainly in church or ministry. Hi, Alex McFarland here.
Welcome to the program. We have a very special show today because we're going to talk about stress and depression and mental health issues in the lives of Christians. Yes, born-again Christians, indwelt with and filled with God's Holy Spirit, can still have pressures and issues that manifest themselves emotionally and psychologically. And we're going to talk also about a subject that you probably don't hear talked about much in ministry circles: about rest. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 23, verse 2: for the one walking with the Lord, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters.
Waters. And, you know, the Bible has a lot to say about rest and the stewardship of one's life. We're going to talk with Dr. Mark Mayfield. He is an author of a number of important books, and he is a mental health professional.
He's got a brand new book that I just learned of called The Mental Health Handbook for Ministry. And there's a lot in the news that we'll touch on as well. But without further ado, welcome Dr. Mark Mayfield. Thank you, sir, for being with us today.
Yeah, my pleasure, Alex. Thanks for having me. Yeah, these are very, very important issues that I want to get into, but I want to hear a little bit about your journey and how God brought you to where you are in your life and ministry, Dr. Mayfield. Yeah, absolutely.
And call me Mark. I Had my own mental health struggles. I am a suicide survivor, attempted suicide when I was 12 years old based off of some pretty significant bullying and abuse in my middle school. And out of that, I was introduced to a Christian psychologist. And my dad and I were able to make amends and move towards our healing journey.
Was rededicated and baptized when I was going into my ninth grade year by my father and rededicated. Really got a God place to call in my life to care for people. And as a late 90s kid that was the true love weights movement and different things like that, it was going to be, that was going to be done through being a youth pastor.
So I went and got my degree at Colorado Christian University and became a youth minister, youth and family minister for many years. And After some pretty tough times with kids dying from suicide and overdosing, just didn't know where to turn, and God led me back to Denver Seminary to get my master's in counseling. Uh and then went on to get my PhD and Uh, kind of the rest is history in that sense, but still doing youth ministry, still caring for the church, still caring for families and kids. And my whole hope and heart is just to take this complex stuff that we make complex in mental health and make it applicable to Churches and people and families and parents and kids in a way that can be executed properly. You know, isn't it beautiful that out of our own stresses and struggles and deep valleys, when we come out on the other side with Christ, stronger in his power, we're more prepared and ready to minister and help others?
Isn't that a beautiful thing about how God works redemptively and restoratively in our lives?
So, Dr. Mayfield or Mark, thank you. Let me share something that happened just last summer in one of our youth camps for quite a number of years, over two decades. Our ministry has done five to seven summer youth camps with 11 to 1,200 teenagers. And it's just one of our great thrills in ministry.
I have to tell you this: I preached at a church shortly before Christmas, and people were leaving, and a woman was in the vestibule, and she She said, Mr. McFarlane, I came to the Lord when you brought Josh McDowell to Greensboro, North Carolina. many years ago, she said I was thirteen years old. And you had Josh McDowell at the Greensboro Coliseum, and that's the night I accepted Christ. And I said, Praise God.
Thanks for coming. It's great. She goes, I'm 43 now. And I was like, wow, time flies, doesn't it? You know, that's awesome.
But we were at our youth camp last summer, one of our seven camps, and we were in Georgia, and we had a great night, praise band, a couple of great speakers.
So, a number of youth, probably 50 youth, they said, Can we just stay and do some QA? And I was like, Sure.
So there was a girl, and I think she was probably a high school senior, and she said, she raised her hand, and she said, I'm afraid. And I said, okay. And I said, What are you afraid of? And she said, I I don't know, I I just feel Afraid. And like a lot of the teens nodded in agreement.
There seems to be this anxiety, doesn't there? Especially among younger people, that there's just this vague, maybe it's hard to put your finger on it, but this anxiety that kids are feeling these days. Do you see that in your practice? I do. I see it in my practice.
I see it with my oldest is a senior in high school, and so I see it with a lot of her peers. And I think You know, John Eldridge mentions this in one of his books, but talks about this idea that we're not. Built to receive so much information 24-7 through our phones and through our devices and through our computers. And so I think it's, they can't put their finger on it, but it's this pervasive underlying river of anxiety that's just being. Fed to them through likes and posts and notifications, and then the pressure of performing and the pressure of.
Having to be a certain way, especially if they're growing up in middle class or upper middle class families, of you know, what are you going to do with your life? And, you know, the shoulds that go along with that, there's a lot that creates, and I think perpetuates that. And they can't put their finger on it. It's just there. Speak, if you would, at the way in which tech and data overload has impacted mental health.
Well, sure. I mean, think about a traumatic event. Let's say this: you witness a car accident. And you're the car behind it, right? Your body is going to tense up in a fight, flight, or freeze response just because you were close to it, you saw it happen, maybe somebody got injured and the ambulance was coming.
That's a one-time thing. And, you know, think back in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. You go home and you wouldn't, there wouldn't be a feed or something that goes along with that. It's just that was your experience. And you maybe process it with your youth pastor or your family, and you maybe move on.
Think about that experience happening. Twenty four seven three hundred sixty five, and they're being shown that on their devices, the reels and their news feeds and different things like that. Similar maybe not as a traumatic, but similarly producing events that jumpstart and activate their central nervous system for fight, fight and freeze. And so if that is kept on, They're always surveying for danger. They're always surveying for something that's out to get them or something that's there.
And the way God designed our bodies is to protect. And so if we're always on and always seeking to protect, That's going to produce an adrenal dump or a cortisol dump that's going to create anxiety, or that's going to create adrenal fatigue, which is going to create depression. And then we throw in, don't get me started on lack of movement and what we're eating and how we're eating and all the lack of sleep and all this kind of stuff. It's just creating a recipe for mental and emotional and physical disaster. But there are some pathways back.
And there are. When we continue our conversation with Dr. Mark Mayfield, we're going to talk about identifying where we are and, as a steward of our life and our mind, our emotions, a steward of our soul, how we can constructively, biblically face the stresses of the day without those stresses tearing us down. Alex McFarland here. We've got to take a brief break.
Stay tuned. We're back after this with more. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Would you invest a financial contribution to see young people saved, people give their lives to Christ, and people care about God and country?
If you would please make a donation securely online, you can give at alexmacfarlane.com or please mail a check to TNG P.O. Box485 Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. Your gift will be faithfully handled, fruitfully used, and we thank you in Jesus' name. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show.
Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. We're talking with Dr. Mark Mayfield. And in that first segment, we were talking about the impact of technology.
You know, Dr. Mayfield, I mentioned our summer camps, and one of the things that we do. Because we're wanting to see kids come to Christ and grow in the Lord and develop a biblical worldview. But we have, we tell the parents and teens up front. that um The cell phones have to stay at the camp office.
And when we're going to do a week of Christian camp, obviously if there's an emergency or something like that, but you have to leave your mobile device with the camp counselors. And most kids are okay with that. But we see in the first couple of days of camp, some kids just really, really have withdrawal. But by, and we, you know, 27 years we've been at this, but by about day three, when kids are out hiking. Or we're teaching them to ride a horse for the first time ever.
Many kids have never touched a horse. And we're in Montana, we're in Georgia, we're in Colorado, we're all over the country. It's so beautiful to see kids by day three, they have forgotten about their cell phone. And that's pretty healthy, in my opinion. Oh, 100%.
I love that. I think what happens is families don't understand the depth of. Distress that comes with that until they take it away. Yeah.
Well, the thing that that concerns me is sleep interruption. 'Cause I I know I I did a master's in developmental psych at Liberty. And one of the things that in the developmental psych, you know, during adolescence, Proper sleep is imperative. Yes. And kids, I mean, they routinely say they sleep.
And moms and dads, you know, this is true. And this is why, as a parent, you have to set boundaries. But kids sleep with their cell phones and they're checking text in the middle of the night. And we need good rest all of our lives, but especially during, you know, the growing up years. What do you say to moms and dads about?
their call from God to set healthy boundaries around technology. I often, when I do parent talks and I travel and speak to different churches and organizations about this, I talk about the idea that. A parent needs to be the one that creates a family mission statement around tech. And they have to you know, if you're younger kids, obviously you do that as a parent. But then if they're older, middle school and older, you bring them into that conversation.
So there's buy-in. But the worst thing you could do is what we call blue lighting. And it's basically the idea that their phone is on and they're getting notifications.
So there's a lot of different things parents can do to steward that. You know, the Wi-Fi goes off at a certain time. The phone comes into the parents' room at a certain time. But I love the opportunity to utilize new things like Bark phone, where there's no access to internet. A kid can have a phone to text and certain apps are allowed, but there's no access to internet or Wi-Fi.
And it limits that piece. But it has to be a relational thing. And I tell parents this all the time. If you've given your kid back when, you know, your kid a phone back when they were 10 and now you start to take things away. without reason a relationship, it's going to cause problems.
So, like Don't just go cold turkey and take it away. You've got to enter into the relational part of it and begin to explore all alternative options. You know, my mentor and just one of my absolute heroes in life, I mentioned in the first segment, Josh McDowell. And 25 years ago, Josh was saying this, and I thought it was just a great statement. Josh McDowell would say, Rules without relationship breeds rebellion.
A hundred percent. Yeah.
That's really true. Shortly before the new year, the London Times, I was reading a story and I've got a screenshot of it that I use in my PowerPoint. The London Times had done a study and the headline says this students will spend 25 years on their mobile devices. In deep documentation, they basically say that these digital natives, kids today, if they live to be 75 years old, they will have spent one-third of their life on a smartphone. Do you find that troubling or it's just reality in the 21st century?
If you would give me your analysis of that finding. Yeah.
I think it is troubling, and I think it's going to be interesting to see what Gen Zers do. Gen Z is become turning out to be a pretty interesting generation as far as church attendance, as far as kind of debunking and kind of going away from certain norms. I'm seeing a lot of changing things, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I'm seeing a lot of Gen Zers actually go against the cell phone. A lot of them are getting flip phones and different things like that. It's troubling in the sense that I'm seeing a lot of like old millennial generation and others aren't able to hold conversations, aren't able to hold relationally or maybe conversations that are, we disagree. There's not a whole lot of emotional intelligence or reflectiveness that I'm seeing.
So that's where I'm finding some troubling things. And we see that kind of on the national stage, you know, when we can't see even people that we've elected are able to have hold, you know, conversations of curiosity versus you versus. versus me, us versus them. That's where I see the issue because I think the phone. And that much time on the phone produces a us versus Them, you versus me mentality versus a emotionally reciprocal, relationally reciprocal.
Framework. Yeah, there's kind of this cultural ADD almost. But, you know, I'm glad you mentioned deep, respectful conversations, even with those with whom we may disagree. I'm going to show my age here, but back in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, there was a show called Firing Line with William F. Buckley.
And he was a scholar. I would encourage people to go on YouTube and watch some of the old episodes. First of all, it was an hour-long show, and he was a Christian conservative, Harvard grad. But he would have on my late friend the atheist Christopher Hitchens. He would have on People that were, you know, pro-conservative Reaganites who would have on, you know, Ted Kennedy.
And they would be, you know, spiritually and politically Polar opposites, and yet for 60 minutes on firing line, they would have very respectful, very deep conversations. And then, you know, William F. Buckley would give kind of the bottom line. I was watching some of these videos, and I thought, we've lost this ability to dialogue. Even philosophical disagreements, but substantive, productive dialogue, back and forth, reciprocal, as you say.
Seems like we've almost lost this, haven't we? We have. I was talking with a friend the other day about a desire I had because I was watching some of these things you've probably seen popular. I won't say the names of the people that are on it, but that are in a room full of people that are opposed to them and they have a flag they can raise, and they come to the table, and then the timer starts and they start debating each other. And it's just for clicks and click, you know, likes and that kind of stuff.
The idea that I had was: what would it look like, kind of to what you're saying about firing line? What would it look like to just have a table? And to invite somebody that it was diametrically opposed to your opinion, pro-life, pro-choice, LGBTQ, pro, pro-same sex, same gender, and just lay some foundations out going, we are going to look at the relationship and we're going to look at curious questions and let's, you know, let's not. Be here for click, you know, and just go: what would it look like to teach a generation? To do that again, I think would drastically improve.
I mean, this whole, the whole thing right now with, Venezuela and Morato, you know, and and just going like How about we have a conversation? Yeah.
About instead of protesting and throwing things and calling each other names and that kind of stuff.
So I just think it would be great to pick up something like the legacy of William Buckley and go, what would it look like to do that again and teach a generation that we could have conversations and walk away disagreeing and still like each other. And, you know, folks, we've got to take a break, but the church has a great tradition of discussion. You know, even in the 20s during the Scopes trial, when evolution came to the public stage, G.K. Chesterton, who, by the way, had a great influence on the life of C.S. Lewis, but G.K.
Chesterton came to America to have open debates with H.L. Mincin, who was a pro-evolutionist. And I mean, it was spirited debate, but it was very substantive. And the church was able to really claim the intellectual high ground. We've got to take a brief break.
Alex McFarland here, along with our special guest today, Dr. Mark. Mayfield, mental health professional, and someone whose books I would encourage you to seek out. We are back after this brief break. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert.
Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Would you like a book to help you understand the biblical prophecies, the passages about the end of time? Hi, Alex McFarland. You know, for well over a decade, Bert Harper and I have been on the nationally syndicated AFR show, Exploring the Word. Over 3,000 shows we've done together, and Bert and I have a brand new book as of fall 2025: 100 Bible Questions and Answers on Prophecy and the End Times.
You can get it at booksellers everywhere. Our brand new book, Bert Harper, Alex McFarland, Exploring the Word, 100 Bible Questions and Answers on Prophecy and the End Times, published by our great friends at Broad Street Publishing. Check it out, and we believe it will help you understand how to live and thrive in these last days. Mm. Uh He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely.
Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Welcome back to the program. We'll resume our conversation with Dr. Mark Mayfield in a moment, but I want to talk to you about the Cove. I'm going to be at the Billy Graham Training Center in Western North Carolina.
This will be, if I recall, my 22nd summer, glory to God. And we have such a great time. Hundreds of people from, it used to be all over America.
Now it's really from all over the world. Last summer, a family from India came. We've just had so many wonderful experiences. And this summer, July 17 through 19, I'll be teaching Daniel and Revelation, Bible prophecy based on my brand new book on 100 Questions on Prophecy and the End Times. But then, and folks, this is very significant.
July 27 through 31, I'll be there with Gary Habermas, the world expert on the resurrection of Christ. And it will be an overview of apologetics and defending the biblical worldview. Very rare opportunity, folks. And so, if you would go to the website, thecove.org, T-H-E-C-O-V-E, thecove.org. And again, space is limited, it always fills up.
And so, I would love to see you there. And then, of course, if you would go to my website, alexmcfarland.com, and look at this initiative that we are very much invested in, United in Prayer. There's a growing prayer movement for a move of God in our nation. And so, check out United in Prayer. And we'll give you prayer alerts every week and just inspirational thoughts and verses to pray about and to pray for.
And I think it will be transformative in your life. And as always, we depend on the prayers and financial support of partners like you that enable us seven days a week to be on radio and television. Events, publishing, broadcasting. Every year, I give God the glory. We see thousands and thousands make a decision for Christ, many young people.
And so, thank you for praying for us and standing with us.
Well, somebody who also God is using in a great way, and I'm just very blessed to cultivate this friendship, is Dr. Mark Mayfield. He's the author of the Mental Health Handbook for Ministry and many other things that I would encourage you to check out. Dr. Mayfield, where may people find your books and the work that you do?
Yeah, I mean Amazon's probably the quickest way to do it. Also, uh my website, mentalhealth made simple.life. Mental Health Made Simple.life, where we try to take these concepts and really make them applicable and accessible to anyone that wants to use them.
Well, God bless you and thank you for being with us today. And I'm hopeful that you and I will have many visits on radio and television to help and encourage people. My heart broke yesterday, the news came out that a beloved leader, I've interviewed him, he is just one of those iconic names that I would have never thought this would happen. Philip Yancey, former editor of Christianity Today, really. Has written a number of books that are modern-day classics.
And yet, it was divulged that he's been in an eight-year adulterous affair. and um is very shattering and One thing that really made my heart heavy, Dr. Mayfield, is that In the articles on secular news, In the comments below the articles, many people were very dismissive of all Christian leaders and said, Oh, you know, just in two weeks it'll be somebody else. You know, these shepherds that fleece the flock, they're fraudulent. It does taint.
The gospel when a high-profile figure like that falls. But I guess I would ask: you know, what was your initial reaction? I've got a follow-up question, but. How does this happen? when there should be accountability and integrity.
In all of our relationships, certainly in our marriage. But give me your take on this, Dr. Mayfield. Yeah.
I will say this: I love the church. Amen. I'm also a big critic of the church in a lot of ways, of the Western Church, and how we've established things. And I think one of the things that has gotten us in trouble is the celebratizing of our faith leaders. And not so much that, obviously, if you're going to put yourself out there on books and TV and radio and podcasting, all that kind of stuff, there's going to be some semblance of a following, and that's fine.
We got to steward that well. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think what happens is the mindset that creeps into those that are. in that role. That I don't have anybody I can talk to or confide in.
I don't have anybody that can help me when I'm struggling. Hey, I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z. And if I say something, it's going to, you know, then the temptation is it's going to mess up my ministry. It's going to, you know. Whatever that might be.
And so it's not so much what I think our society does to these leaders, it's what we do to ourselves when we begin to isolate and remove ourselves from care, from support, from accountability, from people that have the privilege the opportunity. Uh and the permission to speak hard truths. Into us. But I also think, and we talked about this before we got on, I think it's also the fallacy. that we can't take a break.
And find rest or sabbatical, or maybe I am struggling with drinking a little too much. Maybe I'm struggling with, or drinking at all, maybe I'm struggling with pornography, maybe I'm struggling with, and I can't take a break because my publisher needs my next book, or I need to, you know, make money for my family, or the ministry, if they found out that I was even struggling, I'd get fired. Like all this stuff creates. this isolation and loneliness that we just then accept and then something like this happens. Do you know one of the most famous atheists in the world today, and I'm not going to give his name, but we've debated, we've been on radio this and he's a very influential atheist, sadly, but he was a youth pastor.
years ago. And his road toward atheism came when he had marital struggles and he got fired from his youth pastor job. Right. And I'm not saying it's right, but I'm just saying I want to make a plea to my fellow pastors. If you have a member or staff person who's going through some struggles, that's not the time to kick them to the curb.
It's the time to do our best to lift each other up and bear one another's burdens. I had the great privilege of working for James Dobson. Rest his soul. He's in heaven now. Just one of the greatest people ever.
I'm indebted to Dr. Dobson on so many levels. But he talked about when he was a boy, his father was a somewhat high-profile minister and very successful. But his dad took a sabbatical for several years from ministry to raise his kids. And did secular work and then went back into the ministry.
There's no sin in taking a break. It doesn't mean that we've abandoned God's call or failed the Lord. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah.
A mentor of mine before I left Colorado was doctor Wes Stafford, and just an amazing man, amazing leader, somebody that has finished well. And I asked him this question once when we were sitting around coffee. I said, how What is like the one thing you would tell me? And a way to finish well. And he goes, Mark, he goes, sit down with your wife.
and pre plan any battles that you see coming. And I'm like, that is just, I never thought of that. But You know, when I travel, what's my temptation? What is something that I need to make sure that I pre-plan so that I don't, you know, X, Y, you know, and Satan get a foothold and go down this road. But even the pre-planning, what I say yes to, what I say no to, and what am I chasing?
Am I chasing a New York Times bestseller? Am I chasing God being faithful to the message God has given me? That's something that has stuck with me. It's been five years, you know, four or five years since I last saw him, but that was something that has just stuck with me and I use when I'm mentoring young pastors and others now, too. And part of that is, I ask these to young pastors all the time: when is your sabbatical?
And they look at me like, what are you talking about? I said, okay, can you get me in front of the deacons or elders of your church so that I could advocate for what this looks like?
So that you can find rest and find healing and find some break from all that. And we don't, it's just not. It's not, I don't know what it is, if it's just a Western American mindset or what it is, but it's just our human mindset. Regardless of size, you know, rural, urban, big church, small church, give us in closing some suggestions that you like to see as churches begin to. Speak about the stewardship of one's mental health.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's a couple different levels. I wonder how many Sundays in a row a pastor can miss. And it better be more than two. I wonder what their vacation package looks like. I wonder what their sabbatical looks like.
Is it every three years they get a month and every seven years they get 90 days? What does that look like? But then I also want to know: is marriage, a marriage retreat, a marriage seminar? Is counseling paid for? How many sessions a year do they get?
Are they, you know, all that kind of stuff is really important that I look at when I'm helping coach and consult with churches. And that is not just for the lead pastor or the teaching pastor. This should be for all staff. What does that look like? Because we want a steward Faithfulness, we want to steward longevity, and we want to steward health.
And you can't do that if you don't have some of these things in place. Your most recent book, The Mental Health Handbook for Ministry. What will people find in that book, sir? It is instead of having to go back and get a master's in counseling or certificate in counseling, the whole idea was to have a reference book. It's not a read-through, go get some tabs like you would your books of the Bible and tab out the chapters.
And if somebody comes in and is struggling with depression, there's a whole chapter on depression. What does the Bible say? What can you do? What is above your pay grade? And how do you refer on if you need to?
And so we do that with everything from depression to bipolar to personality disorders to addiction. And it's just a wanted to bring about 21 voices together. To go, this is a trusted place for you to get good support and not have to go to Google or DuckDuckGo to find your answers. Yes. Well, Dr.
Mark Mayfield has been our guest. I appreciate the work that he's doing. Obviously, we've just touched the tip of the iceberg. But, folks, in Psalm 127, verse 2, the Bible says regarding the believers resting in the Lord, it says, He giveth his beloved sleep. And, you know, life is just not this frantic sprint.
I know in the West and certainly in affluent America, we just were consumers, we want to go and get. But let's remember: if you're a born-again Christian, you're a citizen of heaven, and your standing with the Lord is not based on performance, but your identity. You're in Christ. And Colossians tells us we are complete in Christ. Rest in that.
We'll talk further about it. In the meantime, thanks for listening. Thanks to our guest, Dr. Mark Mayfield. AlexMcFarlane.com is the website.
I would encourage you to check out United in Prayer. And remember, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. Alex McFarlane Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmacfarlane.com.
You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YESGOD and the number 1. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarlane Show.
