Petition Text: 22780-GM-NonDis-O$

Understanding Petition Numbers

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I have been deeply moved to petition you on behalf of the mentally ill. This is a class of people in today's society who would have been thought of as lepers in the time of Christ. I believe that the universal church will be held accountable by God for its apathy and its lack of knowledge regarding the human mind, for it is the human mind that houses the soul of a man. It is the soul of man for which Jesus came to this earth, suffered, and died.

The only reason the Church can use as an excuse not to have a ministry to the mentally ill is that it does not know or realize the extent to which mental illnesses and its residual effects reaches. Mental illness is actually biological brain dysfunction. One in four families or one in ten persons has chronic persistent mental illness. The trauma caused by mental illness affects directly or indirectly at least 50 percent of the population at any given time, causing breakdown in societies, in families, and in relationships.

The systems that attempt to address or treat mental illness have failed. The Church, to my knowledge, does not address it as a ministry at all; however, society will not improve until this issue is addressed. Therefore, my petition to The United Methodist Church is to develop/fund a ministry to persons who suffer from mental illness and to their families.

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Petition Text: 22780-GM-NonDis-O$
1996 United Methodist General Conference