Soul Care Summit: Caring for the Whole Person — Part 3
Gen Z, Social Media, and Mental Health: Helping Young People Navigate a World of Emotional Overload
This article draws from a conversation hosted by FOR.NYC featuring Abbott Mental Health Counseling and other ministry and mental health leaders. The conversation also explored the changing mental health landscape among younger generations, particularly Gen Z.
Dimetra from Cares Network observed that many young people are looking for something authentic in their faith. They want more than information about God; they want opportunities to encounter God for themselves.
That has implications for ministry.
Rather than assuming that younger generations need more information, ministry leaders may need to consider how they can create environments where people can genuinely encounter God, develop their own relationship with Him, and participate in authentic community.
Social media can dramatically expand what a young person sees and experiences. They may encounter grief, violence, sexuality, political conflict, adult problems, interpersonal drama, traumatic stories, and the personal crises of people they have never met.
Scott Abbott described this dynamic during the Soul Care Summit:
“Social reach can exceed social capacity, and emotional exposure can exceed emotional capacity.”
The challenge isn't simply that young people are seeing more. They are often being asked to emotionally process more than their developmental resources were designed to handle. Scott also addressed the impact of social media and the idea of Window of Tolerance.
The answer isn't simply to remove young people from the world around them. Instead, they need wise guides who can help them process what they encounter.
Parents, pastors, mentors, and other trusted adults can help young people develop the emotional vocabulary, maturity, biblical wisdom, and relational support needed to navigate experiences that may exceed their developmental capacity.
Building Psychological Literacy in the Church
Dimetra introduced another important concept: psychological literacy.
Understanding basic concepts about how our bodies, nervous systems, emotions, and minds work can give people language for experiences they may otherwise struggle to understand.
Concepts such as the window of tolerance can help people recognize what happens when they become emotionally overwhelmed or move outside their ability to regulate effectively.
When churches develop a shared language around mental and emotional health, care becomes less dependent on one or two people.
Instead, the entire community can become better equipped to recognize when someone is struggling and respond with compassion and appropriate support.
Creating a Culture of Care
One of the strongest themes from the summit was that care cannot belong to only a select few people within a church. A healthy culture of care is shared. The panel agreed on the importance of integrating care throughout the life of a church—from staff and leadership to preaching, prayer, small groups, therapist and everyday relationships.
That means teaching people how to see one another.
How to listen.
How to recognize when someone may be struggling.
How to respond without shame.
How to know when a situation requires additional support.
And how to connect people with appropriate resources when the needs exceed what a pastor, volunteer, or friend can provide.
For churches, this can mean equipping trusted members of the congregation with basic mental health education and clear protocols for responding to difficult situations.
Charles described how Alliance Tabernacle has developed a network of people with backgrounds in social work and mental health who can help respond when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis within the church community. “The goal is to provide support while preserving the person's dignity and connecting them with appropriate resources.”
This kind of preparation allows a church to respond with compassion rather than fear when difficult situations arise.
Caring for Your Own Soul: Start Small
Near the end of the conversation, the panelists were asked a simple question:
If every ministry leader in the room could do one thing to care for their own soul in the next week or two, what would it be?
Scott recommended beginning with an assessment of the different kinds of rest a person may need. Rather than thinking about rest only as sleep or Sabbath, he encouraged leaders to consider physical, mental, emotional, creative, and social rest—and identify which area may need attention.
Charles' recommendation was considerably simpler:
Take a nap.
Sometimes soul care really can begin with recognizing that you are tired and giving yourself permission to rest.
The point isn't that everyone needs the same form of rest.
It is that rest and restoration need to become specific and intentional.
Soul Care Is Part of Ministry
The Soul Care Summit offered a reminder that caring for the soul isn't an optional addition to ministry. It is part of caring for the people God has entrusted to us—including ourselves.
For pastors and ministry leaders, this may mean developing trusted friendships, seeking professional counseling, learning the language of mental health, creating healthier boundaries, making room for rest, or building stronger referral relationships with Christian mental health professionals.
It may also mean acknowledging that no single person or ministry can meet every need.
Pastoral care matters. Clinical care matters. Community matters. Spiritual formation matters.
When these work together, ministry leaders and congregations can move toward a more holistic understanding of what it means to care for people—body, mind, and spirit.
And perhaps the first step is simply becoming willing to ask the question:
How is my soul, really?
Explore Parts 1 (When Pastors Are Running on Empty: Why Ministry Leaders Need Soul Care) and 2 (Pastoral Counseling and Clinical Counseling: Why Churches Need Both)