An Interview With XIII Minutes: An In-Depth Discussion on Mental Health

Midwest rockers, XIII Minutes, sat down with us at Uprise Festival for an amazing, hour long interview. It was so good, we didn’t want to cut any of it! 

This is Part Two, an in-depth discussion about mental health, HeartSupport, and how the church can better face the mental health crisis! Check out Part One, where they discuss the history of XIII Minutes and the inspiration behind their new music.

Solid Rock Unplugged: We talked a little about mental health in your interview. You guys have been pushing HeartSupport. Why do you support HeartSupport? Besides that it’s a great organization.

Jamie: Have you ever read Jake Luhrs’ devotional, Mountains? Honestly, that was my inspiration to really get involved. Jake is really raw about things, offensively so, and I love it. Very unpretentious about where he comes from, what he’s struggled with, how he’s overcome his mountains. Honestly, why would I not want to be part of that vision?

For me, it’s really just another tool to put in somebody’s hands to help them get through their day and to get to tomorrow. We’re not changing the world, but we are helping it. If you’re struggling and you need a resource, but you don’t want to be judged for saying “I’m hurting.” We have something for you, because that line is completely anonymous. 

Jerrod: The only thing I would add is I worked with teens for a long time. I worked in youth ministry as a leader when I was 15,16, as a volunteer. I worked on staff at a church for three years and I also worked going into schools and talking to kids about relationships for 12 years. As well as doing podcasting and videos and stuff on Youtube, reaching students and teenagers. 

So I’m very aware of how pervasive these mental health issues are in our culture. You don’t overcome something, you don’t defeat a problem by ignoring it. So that first step could be something like HeartSupport for a lot of people. Recognizing that you can’t do this on your own because we are made to be in relationship. God created us as relational beings because he’s relational. So we buy into this lie that I can be in relationship with people when everything’s good, when I’m solid and everything’s working out. That’s a great time to be in a relationship, but we need it the most when we’re hurt. And they need us the most when they’re hurt. 

That’s when these relationships are proven, if there’s any true value in them. If HeartSupport can be that first step for somebody, to reach out and say “Yeah, I am hurting and I can’t do this alone.” That’s when healing begins and ultimately leads to freedom, redemption, and new life. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: Following up on that, what is your personal connection to mental health?

Jerrod: I’ve seen the effects of unhealthy mental issues, through my family, through friends, through a ton of people around me growing up. Because of the field I worked in for 12 years, I also had to be educated on the actual studies and psychology behind it. There’s a lot of misinformation. There’s a lot of things people believe that have been loudly refuted, even in the psychological community. 

The cultural lie is that this is who you are. That your mental health issue is an identity that you will live with for the rest of your life. That it’s caused by chemical imbalances in the brain that you can’t control. You’re born with it and it’s never going to get better. That’s just not true. If you believe this is your identity and there’s no hope, and it’s never going to get better, well then, what are you left with? Without vision, people perish. So bringing truth, bringing light and actually saying “No, this doesn’t have to stay this way forever. You can be free.”

At my old job, I was talking with my co-worker, who had her degree in abnormal psychology and specifically studied these types of issues and brain stuff. We were on our podcast and I shared some stuff. She was like “I don’t think that’s right.” I pulled out the sources, like the president of Psychology Today, multiple sources. As someone trained in the field, she was given a doctrine that was just not true. She had been lied to. Even her therapist one day gave her a handful of anti-depressants and said “You’re going to be on these for the rest of your life.” It’s a life sentence that these people hear.

I’m not saying all pharmaceuticals are bad and all anti-depressants are the Devil or anything like that. But what I’m saying is, this is not a life sentence. There is hope. Your brain can actually heal. It’s designed by God to do so, but it can’t heal alone, without intervention of some kind. We need each other to start doing that.  Just to get that message out there, that you are not stuck, that you do have a hope for your future!

I have a family member who is convinced that she could never have a stable relationship. Even if she did, she was never going to have kids. And now she’s married and has two kids. She’s starting to realize, you can have a life beyond. But it took people telling her that, because the world is telling you a very different story. These are the issues of our day and we need to be willing and equipped to answer them rightly. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: What do you believe the church can do to better help with the mental health crisis facing our country?

Jerrod: Well, I am a pastor. My conviction is that counseling and therapy are meant to be ministries of the church. Not separate and outside. There’s a lot of unhealthy psychology in the world today that will just double down on these unhelpful identities, like “Oh, you’re depressed and you will be for the rest of your life.”

But we have both the ability to speak truth in these subjects and to come alongside and walk with this person. I don’t have to be a detached, Freudian psychologist that has no emotional response to this person. “How does that make you feel?” while they sit on the couch. I can actually be there with you, in the moment. I can come alongside you. I can hug, I can be a brother. I can be somebody that supports you in it. I’ll do that for free, I’ll come over any time, I’ll answer the phone whenever you want. 

If we think that it’s only something an elite few can do, who have a pad and can write prescriptions, then we’re never going to be able to live up to this aspect of ministry that is so clearly in Scripture, something that we are called to. “Whoever is hurting among you.” We cry with those who cry, mourn with those who mourn, weep with those who weep. That’s who we’re supposed to be.

So much of the problem is people think that they’re alone in this. If the church could just be the church and be unafraid to step into the mess, and actually love one another, shoulder each other’s burden, many of the things that we see would not have become the issues that they have become.

We have a long way to go to get back to a place where that can be a regulatory principle. We can’t all just start being nice to each other and tomorrow everything is great. No, there’s repentance and there’s correction, of course, that needs to happen before we can get to baseline. But again, it’s possible and there is hope for that!

Solid Rock Unplugged: I think a lot of issues would be on a better path if people learned to be vulnerable. A lot of times, we’re missing that vulnerability. People go to church and they want to put out this projection that they have it all together, they’re perfect, or they don’t want anyone in their business. I was a youth pastor for six years, and I’ve seen a lot of youth pastors where there’s no vulnerability.

Jamie: It’s the fear of reprisal. What will people say? Now, churches need to stop gossiping, I can say that! A lot of people don’t feel safe in the church culture because of gossip, because of the fear of reprisal, the excommunication. Basically, we don’t want to lose our identity in the community, so we’ll hide it. That is contrary to what Scripture advises us to be as a church. 

I think there’s a tension there, because we live in a culture that finds identity in its issues, rather than its identity in Jesus. So there’s a balance in there to open this door and say “yes, be vulnerable.” But as Jerrod has mentioned many times, you don’t get to stay there. You don’t get to stay in your brokenness. We’re going to walk with you and we’re going to lead you to a path of healing and restoration. 

On the church’s side, we cannot gossip about these people. We cannot diminish them because they’re human. So there’s a double-edge sword here. Who’s going to start the movement?

Jerrod: How many times do you see a pastor being vulnerable? I was in pastoral training, it’s like, find another leader or find a leader that’s not in your church, somebody you can just open up to. So then, our people are supposed to look to us as an example. They’ve never seen us confess anything that wasn’t ten years in the past and now we’re completely healed and everything’s better. They are learning it’s “follow me as I follow Christ.” 

But rather than that, it’s just follow me as I keep hiding all the hurt and all the junk I’m dealing with, because you expect me to be perfect because I’m a pastor. So I have to keep putting on this facade, which then makes you feel like if you say something, well then you’re the weird one. You’re the ostracized one because the pastor is obviously perfect because he’s never confessed to anything. He’s never confessed to anything. He’s never said, “I’m having a hard time with this.” So it’s a self-replicating issue. 

We just keep doing it. But then every time it cycles back and multiplies and doubles down. It gets deeper and worse. That repentance I mentioned has to start from the head. The pastors have to repent and say, that’s pride. That’s fear of man. That’s fear of rejection that has caused me to not do these things. But the Bible tells us, “Confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.” The problem is we’re not being healed. We’re Protestant, we don’t do confession very well. I’m not saying Catholics do it exactly right either!

Jaime: But what they do in the confession box doesn’t go further than the confession box!

Jerrod: At least they do something and there’s a place for that. We need to understand healthy confession and that there’s freedom in it. Pride is a sin. It needs to be confessed. Maybe it’s pride standing in the way of opening up and sharing the dark things in my heart. Maybe my anxiety would decrease. Now there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s out there!

Maybe I wouldn’t have as much worry and fear if I brought these things to life. There’s a reason it’s a command. It says “be anxious for nothing.” That’s not a suggestion, which means it actually must be possible. Now, can we get there without Christ? Without the in-workings of the Holy Spirit? No. But it is possible, otherwise we wouldn’t be commanded to do so. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: I have a history of mental health. And I remember I was going through a dark place and I thought about sharing it with the congregation I was serving at. The lead pastor was like “No, keep that. Find somebody else.”

Jerrod: Bottle it up!

Solid Rock Unplugged: If I share this, I have nothing to be afraid of!

Jamie: I think we start with a group of trusted people. I don’t think everything needs to be put out there for everybody. That’s not safe. But if we find a group, a fellowship if you will, where we have the permission to be imperfect. Again, the tension is, just because you put it out there, doesn’t mean you stay there! But when it’s out there, we can look at it and say “ok, what’s next?”

Jerrod: As pastors, we do have a higher impetus of sharing and being open. Again, how will they know if they don’t see it from us first? That doesn’t mean every pastor has to get up on stage and share every single thing. But at least share something. At least be honest with where you’re at. 

For me, when I was working in youth ministry, it was pornography. That was the thing that was buried in hiding. I did go to pastors when I was a student, when I was on student leadership volunteering, when I was an adult volunteer, when I was on staff. I went to multiple leaders. I was like “I need help here.” The messages I kept getting were “Welcome to the battle! As far as being a man, you’re probably going to deal with this for the rest of your life!” I was like “Sweet!”

Jamie: That’s encouraging. “Let me pray for you, brother!”

Jerrod: Yeah, it was so empty, so void of hope. I did not experience freedom and healing until the confession became real. Until I went to the person that I knew I couldn’t tell at all, which was my wife. I had to talk to her. I knew if I did this, I could lose my marriage. But this is the path and God was very clear with me in making it known. 

Then from there, it was six, eight months later, I told my pastor. He already knew because I had been working with him and stuff. Every once in a while, checking in to see how it was going. Maybe once every eight months? Then we got to actually share in front of the youth ministry. My wife and I, as she is still wrestling with the aftermath and stuff. We were very vulnerable. 

From that, I had four or five of my leaders come to me that night and say, “One, thank you for sharing. Two, I needed that, because that’s exactly what I’ve been wrestling with, and I was afraid.” They don’t have to get on stage and tell everybody. But they now have freedom to see that it is possible. There is truth that will set you free!

If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, anxiety, or mental health in general, there is hope! Reach out to HeartSupport by texting 512-647-2871.

Check out XIII Minutes’ new single, “Fake,” dropping on Friday, October 3rd!