The Recovery-Minded Church

Loving and Ministering to People With Addiction

Jonathan Benz

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780830899395
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Ministerio cristiano

You want to have vibrant and healthy relationships with those who struggle with addiction in your church and community. But you find yourself wondering how to meet their needs in a wise, helpful and God-honoring way. The Recovery-Minded Church addresses the pressing questions you are facing in ministering to those with addictions. Here you will discover a clinically informed, biblical and theological framework to love the addicts in your midst and also practical tools to help you succeed in doing so, including discussion questions after each chapter for use in small group settings. God desires to welcome his prodigal children with open arms and a spirit of celebration. We need to reflect this same kind of grace and mercy in our ministry to those with addictions, to move our churches from being recovery-resistant to recovery-minded.

Section 1

Tools for Loving
People with Addiction

one

Responding to Addiction

The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

THE FUTURE CAN TIPTOE IN ANY DAY: One morning you’re leading worship, and in he walks, clearly high on something. Or you are in the office of the suburban church that you pastor, preparing for Sunday’s sermon, and she knocks on your door, asking for advice about her husband’s compulsive use of porn. Or your worship leader begins showing up to practice with the smell of liquor on his breath.

Any number of real-life scenarios can propel your congregation into its prodigal future. The question is not whether you will encounter addicted people, but how you will respond when you encounter them. Will you encounter addicts with an effective pastoral response that points them in the direction of recovery—or not?

Chances are that when one of these situations or a variation of them occurs, your first and most pressing question will be “How can I get this person into recovery?” And if you are asking this question, you are not alone. My survey of one hundred church leaders found this question to be the one that most plagues church leaders—next to its corollary, “How do I help an addict stay in recovery?” This chapter offers some answers.

The Essential Prep Work First

Far too often, even the most experienced pastoral caregivers with all the right recovery resources at their fingertips view their main task at this juncture as one of providing one or more referrals, such as to the local AA/NA group or a therapist. And knowing whom to refer to, so that addicts can connect with the right providers who can help, is a very important part of the answer.

But too often church leaders’ care for addicts ends with this referral step. Sometimes the referral can serve as a convenient way to hand off a thorny pastoral problem to the “real pros.” Busy pastors already have a multitude of other pressing concerns on their plates, and pastoral dealings with addicts can be messy and inconvenient. Beyond this, a church leader often feels less equipped than a trained clinician to deal with all the issues that might arise, so there is a certain level of comfort in knowing that the matter is now in the hands of a specialist. This feeling is not just understandable but even commendable to a degree. Pastors should not have to be, or expect to be, the experts on every issue that walks through their door, addiction included. Connections with trusted Christian recovery programs in your area, AA groups and therapists are essential, and you may find some in your own congregation.

Still, I want to correct the knee-jerk assumption that loving the addicts in your midst ends with a referral to the pros or a twelve-step group. When the homeless stranger on crack sits down in your pew or when a spouse unburdens the secret she has kept hidden all these years or when your worship leader shows up late to practice for the umpteenth time with liquor on his breath, that is actually just the beginning, not the end, of an opportunity to encounter the prodigal God who loves you beyond your wildest imagination. This critical first encounter with the problem of addiction in your midst can be the start of a life-giving transformation that happens not just in the life of the addict seeking your help but also in the very DNA of your congregation.

Such transformation is not essentially about learning to minister to an at-risk population. At its heart, this process of growing in God’s grace is ultimately about tapping into your community’s potential to be transformed into prodigal people by the grace of a prodigal God. And this ongoing journey can’t be reduced to a quick fix (pun intended) in the form of a referral.

When addicts are not just the heroin pushers or prescription pill junkies “out there,” but are in our pews and among us, we are in the right position to begin helping addicts step into recovery.

Transformation happens when we see our own crippling brokenness and need for God’s grace in the face and story of the addict in front of us. When addicts are not just the heroin pushers or prescription pill junkies “out there,” but are in our pews and among us, we are in the right position to begin helping addicts step into recovery. And this identification can’t be emphasized enough: my own secret cravings, patterns of self-destructive behavior and unchecked forms of consumption (of money, power, approval—you name it) may not manifest themselves in quite the same way as those of the crack addict in front of me, but they fall within the same realm of human bondage. So getting addicts into recovery means first standing in solidarity with addicts, recognizing that their plight and their stories are hitched to our own and in many ways are similar.

Few characters better embody the nature of addiction than the slimy underworld creature, Gollum, in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was once a man, but an obsession with a ring that makes him invisible has turned him into a sniveling, grasping, enslaved wretch, part man, part animal. Gollum’s pathetic, groveling submission to this one thing, the ring, and his willingness to do anything to have “My Precious,” causes repulsion even as it can strike a chord of recognition: at least a little bit of Gollum is in each of us.

A similar dynamic can play out in how we relate to people with addictions. If we are preparing to help an addict into recovery and find ourselves dealing with intense feelings of revulsion and disgust toward his compulsive behaviors, we have not done the hard work of looking at our own inner Gollum and sizing it up for what it is: a dehumanizing compulsion to choose our own enslavement over the Spirit’s life-giving freedom. Chances are, too, that the greater the repulsion, the greater the externalizing of that inner Gollum.

Philosopher Francis Seeburger at the University of Denver describes the dynamic this way:

At least part of what makes us react with such abhorrence to images of the depths of addiction, refusing to admit any community with addicts who have plumbed those depths, is our hidden fear that we are like them, or might become so, if we relax our vigilance. Perhaps we can, in fact, all too easily imagine ourselves in their places. Perhaps that is really what frightens us so.1

Effectiveness at getting an addict into recovery thus first requires some rigorous interior work done either alone with God or, preferably, with a close friend or accountability partner, before all else. The following components can belong to this spiritually formative process:

Make a moral inventory. A good place to start, if you are not already doing this daily work in your personal devotional life, is to “make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself,” to paraphrase step four of AA’s twelve steps.2 Here you are examining the messes in your own life and the areas where your soul needs a bit of housekeeping work. You may have issues with anger or fear or the use of your sexuality. In recovery groups like AA, step 4 usually takes place in the context of working with a sponsor, someone who’s further along in the working of the twelve steps; so, in the spirit of the twelve-step model, this work should be done with at least one other person, like a close accountability partner or spiritual mentor or director.

If this exercise in introspection seems daunting at first, some resources can jump-start and guide the process. The eighteenth-century theologian John Wesley’s “22 Questions,” developed for the sake of private daily devotional use by members of Wesley’s Holy Clubs—small groups committed to encouraging one another in the pursuit of a sanctified life—are one helpful tool; they are also easily accessible online. The Alcohol Addiction Foundation has also made a handy worksheet with a checklist for approaching step 4.3

An exercise in ruthless inspection before even approaching the task of getting other addicts into recovery is also in keeping with the advice of Jesus himself: to take the plank out of our own eye before taking the speck out of our neighbor’s (see Matthew 7:5). We all have at least one plank to assess and unload in the light of God’s tender love for us. Writing out a list of these things can help us to look them squarely in the eye. So ask yourself whom you resent. Do you find yourself harboring anger toward something or someone, and if so, why? What groups of people do you resent? Who has wronged you? Who do you need to forgive? What have you “done and left undone” (a phrase from The Book of Common Prayer)?

Review fears. Now review your fears. What keeps you awake at night, and what is the source of that fear? Where do you most seek to control outcomes in your life, and how? Do you worry about finances, a relationship or your reputation? If so, these things may be, metaphorically, idols that you need to let go of and let God replace. If addiction is in fact “a disorder of worship,” as some contemporary Christian scholars have called it—or if addiction is a matter of “disordered loves,” to borrow St. Augustine’s language—then unveiling these misplaced objects of love will help reorder priorities, so that God is at the center rather than at the outskirts. These blockages to real connection (with God and, in turn, with neighbor and self) may be feeding unhealthy patterns of behavior. Again, write these things down.

Identify false gods. Identifying the false gods that dictate how we live our lives is, as psychologist Ed Welch and pastor Gary Steven Shogren suggest, to fill in the blank in the following statement: “If only I had ___________, I’d be happy.”4 Alternatively, ask yourself what in your life, if you lost it, would cause you the greatest grief.

Look at intimate relationships. Finally, take a look at your intimate relationships (both past and present), and ask yourself where you have been hurt or caused hurt to others. Many addicts have experienced childhood trauma like physical, verbal, emotional, spiritual or sexual abuse. Such things need to be addressed (if they have not been already), ideally with the help of a good therapist. In this step, you will also need to scrutinize the places where you have been inconsiderate or disingenuous toward others. How have you used your sexuality to harm others?

This is not the time for moralizing, but for gentle, honest and rigorous introspection. Because twelve-step programs like AA seek to create a nonjudgmental environment and because they view problems with sex as on par with other problems, AA will not make your sexual choices and behaviors a litmus test for membership by ranking it above other issues.5 A review of your most intimate relationships within the context of step 4 is really about uncovering another dimension of your recovery by shedding light on your addictive thoughts and behaviors.

Following the above steps will allow you to assess what one thing, or two or three, you have pursued over and above a connection with God. We need to be brutally honest about these things. Do you find yourself constantly obsessing about a particular thing—like that bonus at work or a new car? Maybe you catch yourself paying more attention to your iPhone than to the person in front of you.

If a personal inventory unearths certain unhealthy behavioral patterns, that’s because nobody is invulnerable to addictive tendencies, regardless of where they fall on the continuum. So continue to ask God on a daily basis to reveal the fault lines in your soul that keep you from finding real freedom in the Spirit and deeper relationship with the One who most wants you to be happy, joyous and free. God will show you the areas where you, too, display addictive tendencies or compulsions, a clear measure of which will be the humble recognition that addicts are not “over there” but right here in our midst, among us, and even in the mirror.

In this way, our own homecomings are inextricably bound with those of the addicts we hope to help recover. And the adventure, messiness, joy and heartache—both the risks and the possibilities of a shared journey together—really begin with the question “How do I help this person get into recovery?” As is the case with most journeys, there are some ways you can prepare while surrendering the rest to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Soulful, meditative preparation is just the first of a number of things you will need for your journey home to the heart of God—but it is arguably the most important.

Our own homecomings are inextricably bound with those of the addicts we hope to help recover. And the adventure, messiness, joy and heartache really begin with the question “How do I help this person get into recovery?”

Recognizing and Identifying Addiction

Once you have inventoried your own issues, you are ready to begin the next step of helping addicts get into recovery. This step entails becoming familiar with the signs of addiction and the forms addiction can take. The summary that appears in the appendix can help, with the disclaimer that it is meant to be an introduction for laypeople and is by no means clinically exhaustive. Some recovery centers also offer free assessments for people who are unsure whether they or a loved one has an addiction, so you might consider connecting with one or two such treatment programs in your area.

The main thing to look for when identifying whether an addiction is at play is a repetitive behavior (be it drug use, sex or exercise) linked to a cycle of cravings and withdrawal that causes negative life consequences. Over time, as addicts build tolerance to a particular drug or behavior, they start craving more of it to get the same high, doing whatever they can to have their “drug” of choice, despite the consequences. And their cravings and withdrawal can manifest as a loss of control and responsibility.

A more recently studied phenomenon is our capacity to become addicted to certain human activities that generate pleasure. Process addictions can involve eating, work, sex, falling in love, exercise, gambling, shopping and technology. Such activities can become our taskmasters, unleashing similar dynamics to those of a chemical dependency, such as highs, lows, tolerance, craving and withdrawal. As the sex addiction expert Patrick Carnes writes in his book Out of the Shadows, “Addiction taps into the most fundamental human processes. Whether the need to be high, to be sexual, to eat, or even to work—the addictive process can turn creative, life-giving energy into a destructive, demoralizing compulsivity.”6

The seductive power of process addictions lies in the fact that so many of these activities are necessary to our survival in the modern world. Eating, shopping, technology—such things are the stuff of co...