My social anxiety can feel debilitating. It’s hard to attend church. What do I do?

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So I like in this question that the individual talked about anxiety bringing about terror and paralysis because that’s the nature of anxiety. It really is the way that it works. And, as we think about what we do with this, this individual wants to push into finding a church. But it could be that you’re having trouble going to the grocery store or being around other people or talking on the phone or making appointments. So it’s universal and what we talk about here is how to address it. But the foundation is going to be, who is God for us in this? 1 Peter 2:22 gives us a vision of God—a vision of Christ, who even though, in the midst of suffering, he did not choose to take matters into his own hands, but he continuously entrusted himself to a God who judges justly and who is good and trustworthy. That is our foundation. So in light of that, what do we do?

If God is near, we can choose to push into these things. And I would say, the best way to do it is bite-sized pieces—bite-sized pieces in which we embrace and face the terror and the paralysis. It has to start, I think, in our mind. How do you play this out in your mind: walking into the church, attending a service, or having conversations? And then, as you move from considering it in your imagination, you move to it in real life. How do you drive to the parking lot? Then you move, maybe, to visiting the church before Sunday hours. And then you go on a Sunday service, but you go after the service starts and before it ends. And then, maybe, at some point, you are able to get to the point where you engage it fully. But think about it as incremental, bite-sized pieces—that along each of those action points, you are believing and entrusting that God is near to you. He will not forsake you and he walks with you in this.