Phillip McClendon pastors one of the largest churches in the Joplin area. But the help he provides to his fellow man goes far beyond the walls of his church.
Take the latest endeavor of this humble Christian servant, who has just begun his 26th year at Calvary Baptist Church. Although he has been involved with mental health services since 1985 (when he served on the board of the Ozark Center in Joplin), he was unexpectedly introduced to another area of mental health assistance on last month’s trip to the Holy Land.
As McClendon has done so often over the years, he was in the process of delivering medical supplies, including free eye glasses, to people in the city of Bethlehem when his discussion with a doctor at a hospital there took an unexpected turn.
“We were talking about health problems they are facing and as the doctor picked up the glasses we got to talking about mental health issues,” McClendon said. “He said, ‘I would like for you to come over here and train people in our hospital.’ Then, he called the Bethlehem Police Department and they said the same thing. So now I am working on when to go back and start the training.
“Not only that but, also, in the college (Bethlehem Bible College) they wanted me to talk to their students because they can help people in the mental health area in their ministries. I never thought that just delivering those glasses that it would ever come to this point.”
With danger lurking throughout the war-torn land of Israel, stress has become a huge problem for many residents there.
“I know they are dealing with stress, but if they know how to help others, it will make their lives better,” McClendon said. “I saw the stress that the people there were living under and asked myself how do they face it and how do they deal with such issues as suicide bombers.”
The Calvary Baptist pastor said he hopes to go back to the Holy Land in October to begin training medical personnel, police officers and the Bible college students on how to deal with mental disorders such as anxiety, depression or substance abuse, to name a few.
“It’s 12 hours of training and it’s intensive,” said McClendon, who was appointed by the governor in 2006 to the Missouri Department of Mental Health Commission, where he served until March of last year.
As a qualified Missouri mental health instructor and trainer for Missouri’s Seventh District, McClendon said he has been working this month on setting up classes in the Joplin area to train people in schools, police departments and hospitals. The 12-hour session is fully accredited with continuing education units (CEU) available.
As an example of how the training can help, he cited an incident that took place in the Holy Land.
“One time in Israel a man climbed up a wall and in his mind he had gone back to the battlefield when he was a soldier,” McClendon said. “A guy who worked at the site where this happened started pulling the man down. But I said don’t do that. Let’s talk him off the wall. So we did and we talked him into coming down.
“I realized that this was just like anything where you can misjudge a person so easily by something they said or did. Why do we need to use force? I know that if police officers have had the training and could pick up on this, it might help save lives. In this case, if an officer had had the training, he might have said ‘Wait a minute; calm down.’ It’s just like I told that man on the wall to come down because we didn’t want him to get hit and all of a sudden he just released his grip and came down.”
There was a moment in the Joplin pastor’s life six years ago that provided another impetus for him to want to work in the mental health area, while also serving as a lesson on how not to prejudge people. He was asked to serve as a day-long chaplain for the U.S. Senate in which he led prayer on the Senate floor.
He had an appointment with Ted Kennedy late in the day at the senator’s office.
“I had always heard the bad things about Kennedy, but after meeting him I saw more of a man of faith and what that faith meant to him,” McClendon said. “But greater than that is I saw he wanted to help people and helped pass a lot of mental health legislation because he had people in his own family with mental disabilities. A lot of mental health legislation came from him. This meeting helped me want to do more.”
Although the Missouri Mental Health Program is a secular one, McClendon sees it as incorporating Christian aspects as well.
“Christian faith goes hand in hand with this program in knowing that we can help the whole person … that we are body, soul and spirit,” he said. “For a person to get well, we have to touch these areas of their lives.”
Address correspondence to Rich Brown, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802 or e-mail rbrown@joplinglobe.com.
