When the Pew Feels Heavy

Some Sundays you’re not walking into a sanctuary, you’re walking into a test of how well you can pretend. You smile, sing, and say “I’m good,” while something inside you is cracking. I call that the heavy pew, and if you’ve ever felt it, you’re not weak, broken, or “bad at faith.” You’re human, and you deserve more than silence. 

We start by naming what that heaviness really feels like and why performing wellness in church costs you over time. Then we go after the two stories suffering often writes in our minds: that God is showing up for everyone else but you, or that your struggle proves something is spiritually wrong with you. I don’t treat those as harmless thoughts, because the theology underneath your pain can either trap you or help you heal. 

Scripture has far more room for darkness than many church cultures admit. Elijah hits the lowest point right after a massive spiritual victory, and God’s response is tenderness and practical care. We also talk about the Psalms of lament, the prayers that sound angry, tired, and desperate, and why they’re not spiritual failure but biblical honesty. From there, we name the well-meaning church phrases that can pile shame onto depression and anxiety, and we paint a better picture of community support, wise counseling, and faith and therapy working together. 

If you’re in crisis or not safe, call or text 988 (US) or text HOME to 741-741. If you’re simply worn down, I’ll give you one doable step for this week: one honest moment with one safe person. Listen now, then subscribe, share with a friend who needs permission to be real, and leave a review so more people can find hope.

Transcript

Welcome And Safety Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to the Pew in the Couch Podcast. I'm your host JM, and this is the show where faith meets mental health, and neither one of them has to apologize for being in the room. Before we get into anything today, I want to be upfront about something important. I am not a licensed counselor, therapist, or mental health professional. I am not a doctor or psychiatrist. Everything you hear on this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you are struggling, please reach out to a licensed professional who can give you the real clinical support you deserve. And if you are in a place right now where you are not safe, where things have gone beyond heavy and into something that feels like a crisis, please stop and reach out right now. You can call or text 988. That is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also text home to 741-741 to reach the crisis text line. You are not alone and help is available to you right now. Please use it. What this show is, is an honest conversation. A space where faith and mental health sit at the same table and we talk about the things that don't usually get talked about on Sunday morning. That's what we do here, every single week. Faith, mental health, real talk. Now before we get into today's episode, I need to tell you about something because this show did not come out of thin air. It came out of a book that I wrote. A book called Navigating the Noise: Faith Meets Therapy, published by Iron Quill Publishing Company. And I want to tell you what that book is before I tell you what this show is, because the two of them are connected at the root. I wrote Navigating the Noise for a very specific person. I wrote it for the believer who has been told that faith should be enough, that prayer should fix everything, that if you're still struggling, something must be spiritually wrong with you. I wrote it for the person who has sat in church week after week carrying something heavy and never found a safe place to put it down. I wrote it because that person deserves better than silence. And for too long, the church has offered silence when it should have been offering something else entirely. The Pew and the Couch podcast is the living, breathing companion to that book. Every week we go deeper into the conversations that navigating the noise opens up. We talk about the stigma that keeps people quiet. We talk about what therapy actually is and why wanting it doesn't mean your faith is weak. We talk about forgiveness and community and crisis and resilience and what it actually looks like to walk with God through the hardest seasons of your life without pretending those seasons aren't hard. Everything you hear on this show, you can go deeper on in that book. Navigating the Noise, Faith Meets Therapy. Available now wherever books are sold. Go get it. And if somebody in your life is carrying something they haven't been able to say out loud yet, put that book in their hands. It will meet them where they are. Now let's get into episode one. Today we are talking about what happens when the pew feels heavy. And I know you know what I mean by that. Even if you've never heard it put in those exact words, you know the feeling. You've been there. Maybe you were there last Sunday. Maybe you're there right now, listening to this in your car or your kitchen or your bedroom with the door closed. And something about that title hit you in a place you weren't expecting, because that's exactly where you are. The pew feels heavy, and you don't know what to do with that. So let's start there. Let's start with what that actually feels like. Because I think one of the most powerful things we can do for somebody who is suffering is name their experience accurately. Not rush past it, not fix it immediately. Just name it. Say it out loud. Acknowledge that it is real and that it matters. Here's what the heavy pew feels like. It's a Sunday morning and you're getting ready, and somewhere between the shower and finding your keys, there's this moment where the weight of everything you're carrying just lands on you all at once. And for a second you think, I can't go today. I don't have it in me. But you go anyway, because that's what you do. Because people are expecting you. Because missing church when nothing is visibly wrong would require an explanation you don't have the energy to give. So you go, and you walk in, and somebody greets you at the door and asks how you're doing, and you say, Good thanks, how are you? And you move past them before they can follow up. And you find your seat and you pull out your phone and scroll until the service starts, because looking at your phone means you don't have to make eye contact with anyone and accidentally end up in a conversation you can't afford to be honest in right now. And then the music starts. And the music is good, it's genuinely good. The team is tight, the song is one you know, and around you people are standing and raising their hands and closing their eyes and singing like they mean every word. And you're standing there and you're singing the words because you know them. You've sung them a hundred times, but somewhere between your mouth and your heart, there's a disconnect that you can't close no matter how hard you try. Because the song is about breakthrough and you haven't had one. The song is about joy and you can't find it. The song is about the goodness of God, and you believe it theologically, but right now, in this moment, it does not feel true in your body, in your gut, in the place where your actual life lives. And so you perform. You do what you've gotten very good at doing. You match the energy of the room just enough to not stand out. You smile at the right moments. You nod when the pastor says something that lands. You write something in your notes app so it looks like you're engaged. And the whole time, underneath all of that, you are somewhere else entirely. You are in the silence of your own suffering, which is somehow louder than all the music in that room. That is the heavy pew. And I want to say something about it that I don't think gets said enough. That performance is costing you something. It is not free. Every Sunday you walk in and manage the gap between who you actually are and who you present yourself to be. That takes something out of you. It takes energy you don't have to spare. It takes emotional bandwidth that could be going somewhere else. And over time, over weeks and months of doing that every single Sunday, something starts to shift underneath the surface. The gap between your public self and your private self gets wider. And the wider it gets, the harder it becomes to close. Because now it's not just about one hard season you're going through. Now it's about the entire version of yourself that nobody at church actually knows. The real one. The one who cries in the car on the way home. The one who has been praying the same desperate prayer for six months and hasn't heard anything back. The one who is starting to wonder, quietly, in the places they'd never say out loud, whether God is actually there or whether they've just been talking to the ceiling this whole time. That person is real, and that person deserves to be in the room too. One of the things that happens when people perform wellness long enough inside a church community is that they reach a theological conclusion. And it tends to go one of two ways. Either they decide that God is working in everybody else's life but not theirs, that the promises are real, but they are the exception. That the breakthrough is available, but somehow not for them, and they don't know why, and they're not sure they want to ask out loud, because what if the answer confirms what they're afraid is true? Or they go the other direction, and they decide that the problem is them, that if their faith were stronger, if their prayer life were more consistent, if they were more obedient or more surrendered or more spiritually mature, the struggle would lift. And because the struggle hasn't lifted, the verdict is clear. Something is spiritually wrong with them. They are the problem. I want to address both of those conclusions directly. They are both wrong. Not wrong in a gentle, well bless your heart kind of way. Wrong in a clear, this is not what scripture teaches kind of way. And I want to spend some time on that because I think it matters. I think the theology underneath the heavy pew matters as much as the emotional reality of it. Because for a lot of people, it's not just the pain that's keeping them stuck, it's the story they're telling themselves about what the pain means. And if that story is built on a theological error, then correcting the error is part of the healing. So let's go to scripture. Let's look at some people who had a real, walking, breathing relationship with God and still found themselves in places of profound darkness. Because I think the church has selectively read the Bible in a way that cuts out the parts that don't fit the victory narrative. And the parts we cut out are often the most important parts for people who are suffering. Let's start with Elijah. If you know the chapter before it, chapter 18, you know what just happened. Elijah called down fire from heaven, literally. The prophets of Baal built an altar, he built an altar, and he challenged them to a contest where the God who answered by fire would be acknowledged as the real God, and his God showed up. Fire came down. The prophets of Baal were defeated. It was one of the most dramatic divine interventions in the entire Old Testament. Elijah was on the mountaintop in every sense of the word. And then in the very next chapter, he is under a juniper tree in the wilderness and he is asking God to let him die. He is done. He is physically exhausted to the point of collapse. He is emotionally devastated, he is afraid, and he has completely run out of whatever it was that got him through the day before. I have had enough, Lord, he says. Take my life. I am not better than my ancestors. Now, if Elijah were sitting in some of our churches today and he told someone he was feeling that way, what do you think the response would be? Pray more, have more faith. Remember what God just did for you on that mountain. Don't you know the enemy is just trying to take you out after your big victory? You need to get your eyes back on the Lord. And none of that is what God does. God lets him sleep. He sends an angel to bring him food and water. He tends to the physical body first. He doesn't rebuke Elijah. He doesn't correct his theology. He doesn't give him a word about what the enemy is up to. He feeds him, he lets him rest. He meets the human need with the most basic, physical, practical care. And only after Elijah has eaten and slept, after his body has been given what it needed, does God speak to him. And even then, what God says is not a lecture, it is a question. What are you doing here, Elijah? Not an accusation, not a disappointment, a conversation, an invitation to say what's actually going on. That is the God of Scripture. That is the God who is the foundation of everything we're going to talk about on this show. A God who does not require you to perform strength you don't have before he shows up. A God who meets you exactly where you are, in the wilderness, under the tree, completely done, and starts with something as simple as, here, eat something, rest. You've got a long road ahead, and you can't walk it running on empty. Now let's go to the Psalms. Because the Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible, and I think a lot of people don't realize what's actually in them. We love Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We love Psalm 91, he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High. We put those on mugs and wall art and Instagram graphics, and those are real, and those are true, and those are beautiful, but those are not the only psalms. Forty percent of the Psalms are lament. 40%. That means nearly half of the prayer book God gave his people is made up of honest, raw, sometimes angry, sometimes confused, sometimes desperate cries directed at a God who feels distant or absent or silent. How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? That's Psalm 13. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's Psalm 22. The same words Jesus cried from the cross. I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. That's Psalm 6. This is not spiritual failure. This is the Bible. This is the prayer book that God inspired. This is the model he gave his people for how to talk to him when life is hard. Not performance, not pretending, not showing up with the right words and the right attitude, showing up honest, showing up with whatever you actually have, even if what you have is grief and confusion and a faith that is holding on by its fingernails. And here is what I want you to hear underneath all of that. The God who inspired those psalms was not embarrassed by them. He did not edit them out, he put them in the Bible. He preserved them across thousands of years and put them in the hands of his people and said, This is how you talk to me. All of it. The praise and the pain, the worship and the lament, the songs of victory and the cries of the person who is sitting in the wilderness, completely done, and asking if God is even still there. So when you are in the heavy pew, when you are performing your way through a Sunday morning while something inside you is breaking, I want you to know that you are not outside the story of Scripture. You are in the middle of it. You are in the exact place where more of the Bible is written than most people realize. And the God of that Bible is not waiting for you to get yourself together before he draws near. Psalm 34 verse 18 says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Not the put together hearted, not the ones who have figured out the formula, the brokenhearted, the crushed in spirit. Those are the ones he is close to. Close means close, not watching from a comfortable distance, not nearby in a general sense. Close, right there, in the middle of the crush, in the exact place where it feels like God should be most absent, Scripture says he is most near. Now I want to talk about something that happens in a lot of church cultures that I think is genuinely hurting people. And I want to say this carefully because I am not trying to throw the church under the bus. The church is the body of Christ. I love the church. This show exists because I love the church and I believe it can do better. But love that doesn't tell the truth isn't really love. It's just comfort. And comfort that keeps people stuck isn't kind, it's just easy. Here's what happens. When someone in a church community finally gets desperate enough or brave enough or broken enough to say out loud that they are struggling, that they are not okay, that they are dealing with depression or anxiety or something they can't name but it won't let them go, there are some responses that happen in Christian communities that are not only unhelpful but are actively harmful. Just pray about it, give it to God. You need to rebuke that spirit. Have you tried fasting? You need to come to the altar. God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Everything happens for a reason. If you had more faith, this wouldn't be happening. I want to be clear about something. Those responses do not come from bad people. They come from people who genuinely want to help and don't know how. They come from a theological tradition that has sometimes oversimplified the relationship between faith and suffering in ways that sound encouraging but land like accusations on someone who is already hurting. When you tell someone who is dealing with clinical depression that they just need to pray more, you are not helping them draw closer to God. You are adding the weight of spiritual shame to a burden they are already barely carrying. You are sending them home with more to carry than they came in with. And the person who hears that enough times learns something. They learn that their struggle is not welcome here. They learn that the honest version of their life is too much for this community to hold. They learn to perform, they learn to smile, they learn to say fine, and the heavy pew gets heavier. Now let me flip this for a second, because I also want to talk about what it looks like when the church gets this right, because it does get it right sometimes, and when it does, it is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. It looks like a small group leader who, when someone finally breaks down and admits they've been struggling for months, doesn't immediately reach for a Bible verse or a prayer. They reach across the table. They say, I'm so glad you told me. You've been carrying that alone for too long, I'm not going anywhere. What do you need right now? Not what's the spiritual solution, what do you need right now? It looks like a pastor who stands on a Sunday morning and says, I see a therapist. I have for years, and it has changed my life. Not because my faith wasn't enough, but because God uses people and tools and relationships and professional expertise to bring healing, and that is not something to be ashamed of. And the room goes quiet. And then something shifts because the person in the third row who has been thinking about calling a counselor for six months and has been too afraid of what people would think just got permission from the platform. It looks like a community that treats someone going through a mental health crisis the same way it would treat someone going through a physical health crisis, with meals, with presents, with check-ins that keep happening weeks after the acute moment has passed, when everyone else has gone back to normal, but the person in the middle of it is still rebuilding. With the understanding that healing takes time and that showing up once is not the same as showing up. That is the church this show is trying to help build. One honest conversation at a time. Now I want to say something directly to the person who is in the heavy pew right now, not the general listener, you. The one who resonated with something in the first few minutes of this episode in a way that felt a little too specific. The one who has been performing wellness on Sunday morning for longer than you can remember. The one who is tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix, and you don't know how to explain that to anyone without sounding like your faith is failing. Your faith is not failing, you are not the exception to the promises. Something being spiritually wrong with you is not the reason you are struggling. You are a human being with a mind and a body and a history and a nervous system, and all of those things are real, and all of them are affected by what you carry, and none of that is outside the concern or the reach of the God who made you. And here is what I want you to know about the next step. It is smaller than it feels. You don't have to fix everything today. You don't have to have a plan or a breakthrough or a testimony. You don't have to walk into your pastor's office tomorrow morning and lay everything out on the table. The next step is one honest moment with one safe person. That's it. Not the whole story, not everything at once. One true thing said out loud to someone you trust, even a little. Maybe it's a text to a friend that says, Hey, I've been struggling lately and I haven't told anyone. Maybe it's telling your spouse the real answer when they ask how you're doing instead of the practiced one. Maybe it's calling someone you trust and saying, I need to talk and I don't know where to start. Maybe it's making an appointment with a counselor because you've known for a while that you need one and you've been putting it off because of what it might mean, or what people might think, or whether it's okay spiritually to need that kind of help. It is okay, it is more than okay, it is wisdom. Proverbs 11:14 says, In an abundance of counselors, there is safety. Seeking help is not what you do when faith stops working. It is one of the ways God provides healing for people. He made with minds and histories and wounds that need more than a sermon to reach them. Professional mental health care is not the opposite of faith. It is one of the streams through which a generous God provides what his people need. And if you have been told otherwise, directly or indirectly, this show is here to tell you something different. And if where you are right now has gone beyond heavy and into something that feels like you might not be safe, I want to come back to what I said at the top of the show because it bears repeating. Please reach out for help right now. Call or text 988. That is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Free, confidential, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also text home to 741-741 to reach the crisis text line. And if you are in immediate danger, please call 911. You are not alone. Help is real and it is available, and you deserve to receive it. Please use it. Here is your one thing for this week. Every episode of The Pew and the Couch ends with one thing. Not a list, not homework. One thing you can actually do. This week, I want you to find one honest moment with one safe person. One true thing said out loud. That is where healing starts. It has always been where it starts. Not in the performance, not in the smile. In the moment when someone finally says out loud what has been true for a long time in private. That moment is the beginning of something. Take it this week, and go get my book, Navigating the Noise, Faith Meets Therapy, published by Iron Quill Publishing Company. Everything we talked about today goes deeper in those pages. The stigma, the theology, the practical steps, the vision of what it looks like when faith and mental health work together instead of against each other. I wrote it for exactly the person who is listening right now. You can find the link to grab your copy at the Compass Collective.com, NYC. Go there right now. We have resources waiting for you, the link to get the book, and everything you need to go deeper with what we talk about on this show every single week. That is, the Compass Collective, NYC. Bookmark it. Share it. Send it to somebody who needs it. Let's close in prayer. God, I am asking you right now to meet every single person who is listening to this episode. The ones who smiled through church last Sunday while they were falling apart inside. The ones who are exhausted from performing a wellness they don't have. The ones who have been carrying something alone for so long they've forgotten what it feels like to put it down. The ones who are afraid that their struggle means something is wrong with their faith. The ones who are not sure you're still there. Meet them right where they are, not where they think they're supposed to be. Right here, in this, in whatever this is for them today. Remind them that you are close to the brokenhearted, that close means close, that you are not watching from a distance, waiting for them to get it together before you draw near. Draw near now, in this moment, and give them the courage to take one honest step this week, one true thing said out loud. Let that be the beginning of something they can't yet see from where they're standing. We trust you with it. Amen. Thank you for being here for episode one of the Pew and the Couch podcast. Don't forget to visit us at the Compass Collective.nyc for resources, the book link, and everything connected to this show. I'll see you next week. Navigate the noise, find healing, walk in wholeness.