LAKE FOREST, Calif., July 28 (UPI) -- Pastor Rick Warren, returning to his California pulpit four months after his son's suicide, said he hopes to remove the stigma from mental illness.
Warren and his wife, Kay Warren, received a standing ovation Saturday when they appeared at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The couple's 27-year-old son, Matthew, took his own life in April with an unregistered gun Rick Warren said his son obtained online.
During his homily Saturday, Rick Warren focused on his family's struggle to help their son through his mental illness, and how they have struggled since his suicide, ABC News said.
Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, said the sermon is the first in a series titled, "How to Get Through What You're Going Through."
At the end of the sermon, he said he wanted to help remove the shame associated with mental illness.
"In any other organ of your body breaks down there's no stigma," said Warren. "But if your brain doesn't work, why are you ashamed of that?"
Warren delivered the invocation at President Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009.
