Endorsements for Troubled Minds:
“With no shortage of brains or heart, Amy Simpson courageously explores the realities of mental illness in the twenty-first century. With mental illness on the rise, all church leaders would do well to read this theologically and psychologically compelling volume.”
–Linda Lake, clinical psychologist
“Drawing on her own journey and extensive research, Amy Simpson gives deep insight into the pain of mental illness for those affected and those who love them. She makes puzzling concepts understandable, and she faces head-on the troubling questions raised by mental illness for people of faith. While I was reading the book, a homeless woman struggling with mental illness came to our church. Because of what I’d read, I interacted with her more patiently and effectively. I count this a must-read for pastors and church leaders.”
–Karen Miller, LCSW, executive pastor, Church of the Resurrection, Wheaton, Illinois
“Get ready! Amy Simpson takes you on a thoughtful, vulnerable and even painful journey through the complex landscape of mental illness. There is hope, but not until you go to the emotional and textured depths Troubled Minds provides.”
–John Ortberg, senior pastor, and Charley Scandlyn, healing minister, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
“In Troubled Minds Amy Simpson opens the door into the hidden struggles of those caring for a mentally ill loved one. Between descriptions of her own real-life experiences she eloquently presents information that every Christian should have on how to recognize and appropriately respond to those living with mental illness. This book will prompt you (and your church) to action among a suffering people.”
–Matthew S. Stanford, professor of psychology and neuroscience, Baylor University, and author, Grace for the Afflicted
“Having written about my own family’s experience with mental illness, I know what it must have cost for Amy Simpson to root her highly informative book in her family’s heartbreaking, yet hopeful story. Because of stigma and ignorance, far too many of us live with the pain of mental illness in silence and without compassionate support from our Christian communities. Troubled Minds has the potential to help free us from that quiet loneliness and bring our churches into fuller communion with those who suffer. I highly recommend it.”
–Christine A. Scheller, news and religion editor, UrbanFaith
Mental illness is the sort of thing we don’t like to talk about. It doesn’t reduce nicely to simple solutions and happy outcomes. So instead, too often we reduce people who are mentally ill to caricatures and ghosts, and simply pretend they don’t exist. They do exist, however–statistics suggest that one in four people suffer from some kind of mental illness. And then there’s their friends and family members, who bear their own scars and anxious thoughts, and who see no safe place to talk about the impact of mental illness on their lives and their loved ones. Many of these people are sitting in churches week after week, suffering in stigmatized silence.
In Troubled Minds Amy Simpson, whose family knows the trauma and bewilderment of mental illness, reminds us that people with mental illness are our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ, and she shows us the path to loving them well and becoming a church that loves God with whole hearts and whole souls, with the strength we have and with minds that are whole as well as minds that are troubled.
So you want to learn God’s Word. If you’re like most teens, you don’t know how, and the Bible becomes a confusing, contradictory book that brings guilt rather than wisdom and truth.
Now there’s another way. Author Amy Simpson offers an approach that shows how to understand the Bible with fun and interactive tools. God’s Word was written for you, after all. Experience the adventure of a lifetime in its wisdom and get away from the guilt trip.
This book is currently out of print but still available through Amazon and other sellers.
This book is currently out of print but still available through Amazon and other sellers.
© 2011 Amy Simpson.