Josh has been part of our Woodland Hills community for over twenty years. He is a big music fan and has used his musical talents playing bass guitar as a Heroes Gate volunteer. Another volunteering area where Josh combines his love of Jesus and love of music is through an organization called HeartSupport. Here he shares how he celebrates the unsurpassable worth of music fans.
How did you get involved with HeartSupport?
Three years ago, I started volunteering with HeartSupport, which is a nonprofit bringing mental health support to music fans. I started out writing replies to people on YouTube who asked for support after watching one of our videos, and now I’m the team lead for HeartSupport Minneapolis.
What does your volunteering look like now?
I attend major rock music festivals around the country, as well as local concerts here in the Twin Cities, where we offer a Support Wall, which is a physical safe place where fans can write messages to each other in real-time. A person seeking support writes on a red tile on the top of the wall, then other fans write words of solidarity and support on the grey tiles below. We want the person who wrote the red tile to come back at the end of the night and see that other fans, complete strangers even, wrote them words of love, hope and encouragement. I like to describe the Support Wall as a live comment section, but only for positivity and hope and healing. That one small brave act of writing on a red tile, even if they might be unsure how to put it into words, can greatly turn the tide in their own journey.
As a volunteer, what do you want to see happen through these interactions?
The main thing we want to offer is human connection—to know that even if you are dealing with something that you feel is too dark, or scary, or that no other person on the planet would understand, you are NOT alone. You deserve hope and love and wholeness. Nobody is too far broken or gone to be excluded from society and feel like taking their own life is their only option. We want those who are lost or broken to find hope and healing. This sounds oddly familiar to the Gospel doesn’t it? A rebel race of humanity trying to do things their own way realizes they can’t and are headed down the wrong path … but there is light, there is hope, there is love, and when that true power is unleashed, it is unstoppable and transforms lives. We just use music as the medium to get that message across.
You are a metal fan, so do you mostly connect with metal fans?
We work with all music genres, but have built a consistent presence at hard rock and metal shows. The metal community is one of the best places where people show up as their authentic selves, embrace their brokenness and share their own stories to help others along. While the metal community gets a bad reputation as being dark, evil and scary—and those elements are present occasionally—most concert goers find hope, healing and empowerment in the lyrics to let their true emotions out and to build themselves back up into the amazing creations they were meant to be. Countless lyrics are cathartic for hurting people, since they often give voice to people’s emotions when they are battling their own demons or struggling with addiction or depression. Music is medicine and can be very uplifting even in the darkest times.
What is your own experience with mental health?
I have had my own ups and downs with mental health in my adult life, first with some difficult breakups in the past, and more recently with mid-life struggles with anxiety and depression, and juggling the pressures of being a husband, dad, full-time teacher, Christian and friend. Life just overwhelmed me a few times. I really battled with perfectionism and trying to be everything to everyone else, that I neglected taking care of myself. I wish I had known about HeartSupport when I was in those seasons of mental health struggles, because it was a dark and scary place to be. I felt all alone in my own misery and depression, questioning my faith and all I believed in, and I didn’t really know where to turn for help. I know now that it is OK to not be OK, and it is totally normal to ask for help and seek support from peers, and professionals (and God!), and there shouldn’t be any stigma around asking for this help, especially among men—because our challenges and responsibilities are real, and we shouldn’t try to do it all on our own!
Thanks, Josh, for bringing Kingdom light to fans of metal and music of all genres! We love seeing how the Body of Christ is expressed through unique interests and talents in all sorts of ministry avenues. If you have a story about how your own interests tie into loving our neighbors, let us know! Email info@whchurch.org
