James Kennison – Depression with the Funny Podcaster / Part-time Pastor

Funny guy, James Kennison is my fellow podcast pal. He’s the guy that helped me early on to get my podcast started when I couldn’t figure out how to plug in a microphone. I reached out to him because he has a network of podcasts that he produces. One of my favorites is called That Story Show, a clean-comedy podcast based on real life stories.He’s also a self-proclaimed “former and slightly-current” pastor and he wrestles every day with the demon of depression. He’s such an inspiration in how he’s managed to take care of himself through some really rough times.

James and I talk about how depression first engulfed him during his time as a full-time children’s minister. Depression is a unique struggle in most jobs, but in ministry, it seems to be even more daunting. And, I wanted to get insight into how it feels to struggle with mental illness as a man in ministry.

Before depression, James had the ability to really connect with the kids at church. He said, “If I can think it, I can create it.” He reminisces his time where he described himself an amazing pastor. He loved his life and loved his job.

For James, depression started as a tiny nagging feeling where everything is doomed. There wasn’t one incident that triggered things for him, he just slowly stopped loving life.

In the past, James judged people who had depression. He thought people should buck up and get over it. Because of family history, he even felt like people with a diagnosis of mental illness used this as an excuse to “get out of life”.

James’ depression manifested itself through sleep disorders and apathy. He said things got to the point where his wife carried everything up to the point where he was literally just working at church when necessary. The ability to feel good was taken from him. He says he was lacking serotonin and dopamine, a true chemical imbalance.

James felt a lot of shame in his struggle and just waited for the day that he was “over” the depression. He struggled with wondering what he did wrong spiritually because he had depression. The feeling of keeping up an appearance of “fine” at church was exhausting. He took it upon himself to get better and tried and tried and tried to change spiritually. His pastoral staff made is seem as though they accepted his depression, that it was ok to be broken. However, there was a point where that wasn’t the case.

After attempting to quit his job as a pastor three times, he finally had to walk away from traditional ministry.

James cried out to God, desperate for an answer, wanting a change in his life, and wanting to be free from the hold of depression. He says that ultimately this was a medical mental issue but not a spiritual one. What he needed was proper medical attention to attend to his health.

One blessing that James sees in the hard times is that depression has beaten his quick temper out of him. He realizes he now only has so much emotional and mental energy and choosing to spend it wisely (instead of wasting it on being angry on something silly).

James walks us through his road to recovery. He traveled from doc to doc, prescription to prescription and found that his health was a constantly under construction battle of self-care, grace, and acceptance of his situation.

James asked, “What if God chooses to never heal me from this? How will my relationship with God continue through this?” At this point, James found beautiful and sweet surrender.  A point where James let go, but God never did.

James helps us understand that God is always meeting us where we are. God gives us value and none of our efforts change that. This is where surrender becomes effortless freedom instead of shameful quitting. If you were old enough to view TV commercials from the 80’s, you’ll appreciate his NesTea analogy. 🙂 And this is precisely why I admire James. God created him to share his humor and his struggle. And it is so, so valuable.

If you’re younger than me, you may not even know what the Nestea plunge is… Enjoy 🙂