Suicide Prevention Resources and More

In the wake of the bullying incidents and resulting suicides of GLBTQ teens and young adults that have drawn national attention in recent weeks, we are naturally receiving a number of inquiries seeking resources for holding compassionate conversations about a variety of topics including:

• gender identity and sexual orientation
• bullying and cyber-bullying
• depression and isolation
• suicide prevention

Please note the previous post on this blog about the "It Gets Better" project on You Tube. Please also follow this link to Sharon Ely Pearson's Blog post on the topic. Sharon is the Christian Formation Specialist at Church Publishing. She makes it her business to learn of and share resources. Thank you, Sharon!

Please post the resources you have found/created/used on these topics by using the comment feature on this blog, or by posting to the FaceBook wall at www.facebook.com/episcoyouth . Quick links could be shared at the EpiscoYouth Twitter feed as well.

The advantage we have as a denomination is the blessing of abundance in resources, as long as we share them! Please weigh in. This is Kingdom work as we live more fully into our Baptismal promises individually and as a Christian Church organized as a denomination. These are dignity and justice issues.

Please reach out to the teens in need in your community. Please respond to the cries for help with compassion and appropriate resources, even if that resource is a suicide prevention hot line number. Youth ministry can certainly be about life and death. Please don't hesitate to embrace the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a child of God!

Grant, O God, that your Holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, and especially the hearts of those who choose to bully and harass and abuse, that barriers which divide us crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Prayer For Social Justice, The Book of Common Prayer, p.823