At our 5 pm Sunday communion service this week, we will begin discussing spiritual influences on mental health. This is a topic that we often avoid, partly because we’re told psychiatry knows better than the stories of mental distress and possession we read about in the gospels and partly to shield those struggling with mental health from false accusations and the trauma of bad advice or treatment. Even so, the holistic approach of the bible to human health and its insistence that the spiritual world is real and influential in our world resonates deeply with people from traditional cultures and increasingly with those raised in secular Melbourne. Our service on Sunday evening will include a time of prayer for healing.