By Cassidy Klein
While at an ELCA gathering of young adults in New Orleans, John Christensen, the project officer for disabilities advocacy and mental health with the World Council of Churches, recalled a moment during a Bible study he once helped lead. That Bible study focused on Mark 5:25-34, where a woman “touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak and is healed,” Christensen said. “There was a 14-year-old who stood up and said: ‘I know that I don’t like crowds. I know that when I’m in a crowd and I get touched by a random stranger, that kind of puts me on edge. I wonder what Jesus’ mental health state was in that moment.’”
Christensen, who has been part of the ELCA for his whole life, often thinks of that moment. “We can be taught by those that we think we’re teaching,” he said. He has seen how younger generations are more open to talking about mental health, and that it’s at the forefront of their minds. Christensen is working with the WCC on a mental health and wellbeing modular course, as a way to provide faith leaders with more training on mental health to support their communities.
Many ELCA rostered leaders and programs have been centering youth mental health, recognizing that, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, youth mental health issues have escalated.
Derek Stienmetz, director of student ministries at Grace Lutheran Church in La Grange, Illinois, said mental health is part of almost every aspect of their work. “Once I finished my MDiv, I recognized I did not have the training that I needed to support the realities of our young people, specifically around mental health,” Steinmetz said. This led them to go back to school for a degree in clinical mental health counseling.
Stienmetz helped reimagine the model for Grace’s youth ministry, which led to the creation of Gen G, a paid fellowship program for 10th, 11th and 12th graders. This year, 25 young people are involved. They participate in running audiovisuals (AV), children’s ministry, leading music, helping minister at worship and more.
“Our 10th through 12th graders have so much on their plates,” Stienmetz said. “Any school can name that reality, but I think especially in these high-performing suburban settings, these kids have so much pressure on them. They need a place to belong. They need a place to just be. As they started to feel like this was their community, tough realities started to come out, [and] individuals shared traumatic experiences.”
Over the last year, Grace has held monthly sessions on mental health topics. Open to the community, the sessions deal with topics like social media’s impact on young people and AI’s influence on learning and development. For Stienmetz, involving the whole community in these conversations allows young people to “show up and say, ‘I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know how I’m going to afford college.’” It’s also an opportunity for older members “[to] hear these realities because, oftentimes, they don’t have to bear witness to these experiences,” they said.
Being well-connected to the broader community helps ministers meet the needs of young people. “I don’t have the means to respond to every mental health crisis, but we are connected with community resources that are going to be able to meet those needs,” Stienmetz said.
One of the biggest challenges Stienmetz navigates is the pressure young boys experience to perform masculinity in a certain way—pressures that come from social media, politics, popular culture and more.
“I was in high school 11 years ago, and I can’t relate to it at all,” Stienmetz said. “There’s a lot to unpack with the manosphere and toxic masculinity. Our boys are internalizing that in a way that is impacting their ability to show up in community. …I would say 80 to 85 percent of our young leaders are female-identifying. I think that speaks to the way our gendered norms have impacted the way we think we can belong.”
Often, when working with boys, Stienmetz said, “it feels like pulling teeth to invite them to be a part of a conversation.” Stienmetz is aware that larger, systemic factors contribute to this. “How can we help them recognize that there are not parts of you that you have to hide?” they asked. “You do not have to perform in this space. You can show up exactly as you are.”
Although Stienmetz is nonbinary, they “try to be a healing masculine presence in this space,” Steinmetz said. “I try to model that although we’re masculine, we can show emotions. We can be vulnerable. We can allow our guards to come down and let our community see us for who we really are.”
Stienmetz hopes to continue creating a space where “instead of feeling shame around their experiences with mental health,” young people feel validated and welcomed unconditionally.
Cassidy Rose Klein, is a journalist, writer and editor based in Chicago. She writes about religion, arts and culture for U.S. Catholic, Sojourners, the Chicago Reader, and more.
This excerpted article appeared in the Fall 2026 issue of Gather. To read more like it, subscribe to Gather.
