When Brendan Voss had to turn to the person next to him at a table and ask if they had ever considered suicide — he felt the urge to almost whisper the word ‘suicide.’
“It feels like this is the kind of thing that you whisper … because it feels almost scandalous,” Voss said. “Using the name of that thing you’re scared of takes away some of its power over you, and it replaces (it with) some agency and it’s something that you’re able to face more earnestly and authentically.”
Voss is the director of Youth Ministry for St. John the Apostle United Methodist Church in Arlington and is in the process of becoming an ordained minister. He spent the day attending a suicide prevention training tailored toward people of faith.
The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation partnered with Soul Shop, an organization that focuses on faith-based suicide prevention training and education, for the first time on Feb. 27 at Universty of Texas at Arlington’s Fort Worth center.
“At times, it felt like they were just saying it over and over and over again. That felt empowering to me, at least by the end of the day, to be able to speak, to speak frankly and honestly about that,” Voss said.
The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, a Fort Worth-based suicide prevention training and education organization, was established in 2014 by Tom and Ellen Harris after their daughter Jordan Elizabeth Harris died from suicide in March 2012.
Even though the foundation is not faith-based, it believed there was a lack of faith-based suicide prevention in Dallas and Fort Worth. The organization believes faith communities are positioned to identify and respond to an individual’s needs, said David Umanzor, program manager for BIPOC initiatives with the foundation.
“This is the first time we’re going to be able to offer this in North Texas, especially on a regular basis,” he said.
Soul Shop’s workshops aim to address the obstacles centered around suicide such as stigma, fear and shame. The workshops also informed ministries on how to create a supportive environment while shifting the culture around how people deal with this subject and one another.
“Sometimes it can be very difficult, even growing up in the church, to navigate these conversations,” said Umanzor. “Churches are perfectly positioned in a way to not only gain skills, but how to minister to people that are experiencing suicidal desperation. Churches can also be a connector if a person needs mental health resources.”
According to Tarrant County’s medical examiner, there were 328 documented cases of deaths by suicide in 2023. The youngest person was 14 years old and the oldest was 93.
Addressing suicide in faith communities
Ebonie Freeman, 39, remembers walking up to the front of her church seeking prayer during altar service. Earlier that week, she attempted suicide.
She began to share with a member of the church what she had experienced but was silenced before she had a chance to finish, she said.
“People just kind of surrounded me. Then, of course, I was crying and I broke down and I just sat down,” Freeman said. “After getting into therapy at that point, I really had to work through not being angry (about) that moment and this community of support not being able to support me.”
In Freeman’s experience, certain topics — such as suicide — were not spoken openly about in her Black faith community and culture, she said.
“I grew up in a Black faith-based community, and I really struggled with being able to share what I was going through,” she said. “The feelings that I was having were against what I was being taught in church.”
In the faith cultures that Freeman grew up in, depression, anxiety and suicide were referred to as “spirits,” she said.
“You fast and pray, you go through, like, deliverance, and that is having a pastor or deacon or an apostle lay hands on you and praying over you to cast out that spirit or that demon,” Freeman said.
When Freeman reflected on that moment at the altar, a couple questions came to mind. What if rather than cutting her off, she had connected with someone who could help her? How could that have possibly changed the trajectory of her life?
Freeman also asked herself how this experience with the church might have caused her and others further anguish and suffering in her second suicide attempt.
Now, Freeman is a mental health advocate and is pursuing a career in social work. As an intern with the Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, she attended Fort Worth’s first Soul Shop event. She shared her story with clergy, pastors, benefit counselors, church members and mental health nonprofit leaders in attendance.
“Soul Shop is necessary to just start the conversation and to be able to provide faith-based communities the tools, education and knowledge,” Freeman said. “Not only to help the people in their congregation but their community because, in my experience, churches just don’t minister to those in the church house.”
Raquel Portillo and Celia Brannon are co-founders of Mental Health Advocacy Partners, a nonprofit trying to bring mental health and substance abuse training to secular and faith-based organizations.
Brannon recently taught a mental health class at New Harvest Missionary Baptist Church in the Stop Six neighborhood and hopes to bring more such conversations into churches, she said.
“We’re really trying to get more into the church groups. Because we believe that that’s the heartbeat of a community,” Brannon said. “If we can prepare that front line on a grassroots community level, then we really believe there’s a lot of opportunity to change how our community looks as far as being mentally well.”
Looking ahead for faith-based suicide prevention
Since attending Soul Shop, Voss said he doesn’t feel the need to whisper the word suicide anymore. He plans to take what he learned to help himself balance being in the moment in conversations about suicide and knowing when to offer resources or referrals.
“There was something that was keeping me from being fully with somebody if (suicide) ever got brought up or if I ever thought someone might be going through it,” Voss said. “But that afternoon at Soul Shop, I feel like I made a mindset switch and I began to understand the importance of being with somebody and not losing sight of the things I can offer.”
The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation hopes to grow the workshops across North Texas. The next Soul Shop workshops will be held in May and September.
“I want our attendees to understand the urgency when it comes to mental health issues,” Umanzor said. “I want churches to be intentional about forming communities that are safe for people who are showing (signs of desperation) and being aware of the blind spots, so at the end of the day save lives from suicide.”
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene.
David Moreno is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports on X.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.