Opioids: How We Must Respond As A Church

1. Problem - The Churches Approach to The Opioid Epidemic

The local church in the Dayton, Ohio area and throughout the country in general, has found itself facing a drug abuse crisis on a scale it has not had to deal with until now. Throughout the history of the church there have been problems with drug use in the community however, the opioid epidemic in Dayton, Ohio today has reached astronomical numbers of deaths and overdoses and the church has to find a way to get involved in an ever-increasing lack of spiritual guidance in our society.

    Dayton is the largest city in Montgomery County Ohio. According Sheriff Phil Plumber of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, “We're on a pace to have 800 people die this year due to overdose in our county," Sheriff Phil Plummer told NBC News. "Per capita, we're Number 1 in the nation in overdose deaths” (Soboroff, 2017). Montgomery County Coroner Kent Harshbarger stated that because his office covers one-fifth of Ohio, they are on par to see approximately ten thousand overdose deaths in 2017 which is more than the entire United States had in 1990.

2. Theological and Scriptural Basis for Our Approach

While prayer and bible reading are almost “given” answers to this approach, there are some other scriptural references we must take into account when approaching the opioid epidemic. The very first thing to point out here is we are all called to be like Jesus. So many people want to preach about Jesus but Jesus did not come to bring the good news of Jesus. He came to show us how to live, die, and love one another. Too often we forget that we are supposed to be imitating Jesus’s teachings, not teaching about Jesus.

    In Matthew 9:11-13 (NIV) we read,

“When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

What Jesus was saying is He came to earth to be with, eat with, sleep with, and be an example to the ones who were most lost in the world. Applying this to the issue of addictions, we are called to be like Jesus and be with the ones who are the most spiritually sick or hurting. Jesus led this movement by example so that His disciples would be able to not just teach what He was teaching, but get outside of the church and do as He was doing.

3. History of The Church Response

In the past, the church shunned away drug and alcohol addicts as if they were less than. They assumed, and some still assume today, that it is a simple choice to stop using or drinking and turn to Jesus. The problem we are seeing with this approach is application. Many who are experiencing addiction came by it through cultural and family norms and have no idea how or where to turn for help. Deck (2014) reminded us that, “Self-destructive, self-indulgent behavior like drug abuse and binge drinking is sin” and there is no way around it. This statement alone, while true, automatically makes the Christian community start to judge these “sinners” for their lack of discipline as if they have it all together themselves.

However, as the church relies only on prayer and no action, people are dying on a daily basis because we simply do not have a way to address it other than “read your bible, pray, and turn it over to Jesus.” The response by the addict is always, “yes, but how.” Without a proper response or a lack of knowledge in this areas, we may also give the occasional pamphlet for and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting with a warning to “remember who the only real God is because those AA’s only believe in a higher power.” What we have begun to learn is why “those AA’s” have been so successful with drug and alcohol recovery and it is based on what they call “sponsors.”

In 2011, after being an alcoholic for over ten years, God lifted the desire from me to want to live that lifestyle any longer. I found a treatment center online, and they told me to go to AA as much as possible and find a sponsor.  A sponsor, turns out was nothing more than another man who had walked the same path I was about to walk with someone who had walked it before him (or her). In the corporate world, we call this a mentor, and in the church, we call it a disciple maker.

Jesus was very clear when He told His followers to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Jesus Himself would use synagogues to teach in, but was often out in the world among the most broken people. Somewhere along the way the church has become a club that meets once or twice a week to feel good about ourselves and check off the box that we went for the week and we have again, gotten away from being like Jesus and only teaching about Him.

We have become the ultimate spectators in the sport of Christianity with Jesus being the best player on the field so we cheer about His greatness while we sit on our hands and do nothing but “pray about it.” I say, “pray about it” because we are very good at saying it to one another, but how often are we truly stopping in our tracks to do so?

4. Solution

As large of an impact as the opioid epidemic has had in the Dayton area, one can imagine there have been multiple meetings, townhall discussions, panels gathering, and taskforces put together to try to address the problem. There has been tons of money poured into treatment facilities that are full to capacity making it hard for anyone seeking treatment to get it. We have seen judges, politicians, and doctors involved trying to figure out how to put a band aid on the situation and nothing has seemed to work as inevitably, each program tries to do things on their own.

    Recently, there has been a push to get the churches more involved as we realize the secular resources are not working as well as they could. With the Ohio Attorney General’s Office pushing for assistance, they have started to reach out to the church directly through an organization called the Community Overdose Action Team (COAT).

COAT is comprised of different recovery centers but is primary ran and organized by Thrivent and Woodhaven faith based treatment. COAT’s primary focus is putting together events called “Equipping the Church.” These seminars give the church and secular community resources an opportunity to come together and work on solutions as a team rather than one approach over another (HOW CAN I HELP).

It is in these seminars where we find information on groups like Celebrate Recovery which is a faith-based twelve-step recovery service operated primarily in the church. Celebrate Recovery works in a community like environment where everyone who comes in checks their egos at the door and is as open as possible about their struggles. What this does is lets the new comer see that it is a safe environment without the typical judgment of the church because everyone if vulnerable and open with their issues.

    Celebrate Recovery is based on the Eight Recovery Principles which are based on the Eight Beatitudes in the Bible. It is also a biblical approach to the twelve-steps which allows not only personal growth and recovery, but also a way to build relationships with sponsors and accountability partners in the program as we grow spiritually. It is in this sense of community that participants find self-worth and value which is generally enough to keep them sober “just for today.”

    The problem with Celebrate Recovery’s and even groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is the anonymous part and lack of willingness to be vulnerable outside of the rooms. It is almost like a catch 22 when we want to tell people how Jesus has saved me but feel we have to be anonymous and quite about the shame of addiction and other struggles in our lives. This is where the leaders in the church, particularly ones who are in recovery and can relate, have to do a better job at going to the problem instead of waiting on it to show up at church.

    This brings me to my very first solution of GO! One of the most popular verses in all of scripture is Matthew 28:19 where Jesus commanded, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The issue the church has right now is getting out of the building and doing something in the community that may make them vulnerable. Jesus did not say that we should “stay, build programs and they will run to you for your amazing worship.” Instead He himself traveled from city to city, eating, sleeping, drinking, and teaching the people right where they were.

    In Luke 10:1-23 Jesus

“appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road” (vs 1-4).

He continued explaining that the disciples must stay with the “wolves” in their own homes, eating with them, living with them, and teaching them the good news of the gospel. Again, Jesus was setting the example of going to the people who are lost and hurting in order to bring them the gospel. This was then, and still is the most effective way to make disciples and reach those who are lost and hurting. This is not to say we must go and live with people who are addicted to heroin, but we do have a call to get out of the church and go to their environment, meeting them at their “well” and being a light in a dark culture of drug use, hate, and violence.

    Once we are with those who are struggling with addiction and we get them to allow us to talk with them, we have just a few minutes to gain their trust by opening up about our own struggles and hurts. This puts everyone on the same playing field and we show them we are not there to judge them or look down on them, we are only there to show them love and tell them how we overcame out struggles. We can tell people to read their bible and pray over and over until we go numb, but what people really want to hear and see are results. They want to see that what you are saying is true and not just some made up stories in a “fictional” book that we call the bible.

    Now that we have their attention and are starting to build their trust, we offer to meet another time over coffee. Can we invite them to church the first time? Absolutely! However, you are more likely to get them to do coffee with you which also gives you more time to disciple one on one in a more comfortable environment than a strange church with people who “look at them funny.” Once again, we are going and taking the church to them.

    Now that we have built a relationship, given them some personal testimony, and taught them some truths about Jesus and hopefully dispelled some myths they heard from grandma growing up, we can invite them to a recovery group in the church. This is the second part of the solution which is open your doors!

    At this point you should have already selected a leader, assigned a room and days to meet, and organized any training for your groups leaders. Now it is time to open the doors and show that the church is a safe place that is judgement free and truly a place you can bring you “stuff” to the cross and lay it down. Too many churches want people to come to church on Sundays and start tithing right away and build those numbers up. The reality of the opioid problem is most addicts feel too much shame as it is over their addictions and they have very little or nothing left to give because they took all they had and even stole from others to feed their addiction.

    However, if you open your doors on a separate night of the week and put someone over the ministry who has been down that road before and has some significate recovery, you will start to build that trust between the addict and the church. The last Celebrate Recovery I personally started grew to more than one hundred members per week. The trend we started to see was after a few months coming to CR on Mondays, many of them would start “checking things out” on Sundays as well.

The point is, while we understand the goal of getting them in church and directing their paths to be not only in recovery, but productive members of the Kingdom of God, we have to be careful how we approach the final destination. It is not always the same path for everyone. Some recovery quickly and some much slower. It is the destination that matters, not the time it takes to get there.

The main focus once we have the meetings is the open share recovery groups. Organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous have done this so well over the last one hundred years it would seem pointless to reinvent the wheel, but we do have to tweak it. Open share groups are designed to be a safe place to share our struggles and get some feedback from others who have been in our situation. We call it getting and sharing our experience, strength, and hope in Jesus Christ.

James 5:16 reminds us to, “…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” We live in a society that looks down on the weak so we tend to bottle up our struggles and sins so that we are not judged. However, the bible is very clear here that we must be able to share those problems with others so that we can pray for them and allow God to heal those issues for us.

I like to teach that our sins and secrets are like black mold hidden behind a wall in the dark. Left undiscovered, all they do is continue to grow and take over the entire house (body/life). However, if we tear those walls down and expose the mold to the light, it will die out and the walls can become healthy again. It is during this process of sharing in the group that we start to relate with others who have “conquered” their addictions and we asked that person to “sponsor” us in the program.

This is the third and final solution as I see it for not only the opioid epidemic, but the societal problems we face, and the answer is sponsorship which is also known as discipleship! The question now becomes, what is a sponsor and why do I need one? “In Celebrate Recovery, it is someone who has worked through the eight principles and 12 steps, has a history of sobriety (defined by the type of struggle they identify with), and models living their life by the recovery principles” (What is a Sponsor?, 2014). In other words, it is someone who has had victory over the same issues I am struggling with now and can guide me through the programs steps and principles and into a more biblical, prosperous lifestyle. The church would call such a person a disciple maker.

The reason for having a sponsor or disciple maker is really very simplistic. It is because my own thinking got me here. What that means is if I could think my way out of addiction, I would not need a recovery program or church, I could rely on myself. What we see in recovery programs is there are very smart people who end up addicted because they have been able to think their way out of everything in life until this biological addiction kicks in and hijacks their thoughts completely. A sponsor is there to guide you through and keep your thinking in a positive direction and “call you on your negative thoughts” that may very well send you back to addiction.

It is my firm belief that sponsors/disciple makers are not just for recovery, they are what Jesus intended for the church. At Celebrate Recovery at First Christian Church of Huber Heights, we had more than 60 sponsorship relationship built in three years. That is over 120 men and women (gender specific, male with male, female with female) doing life together in a biblical manner while recovering from addictions and other hurts. This is what Christianity is supposed to be about, people loving people. That is the ultimate goal in recovery, and should be in the church as well.  

5. Summary

The opioid epidemic has taken a grip in our communities and in our families. No one seemed to pay much attention to it as long as it was just a few people dying in their own homes. However, once it started to be a public eye sore and many families were being affected by it, the church could no longer sit and allow the secular world to attempt to fix it for us. We now have to go to the source of the problem, open our doors on separate days of the week and provide good leadership to those coming in, and be intentional disciple makers who are sacrificing our time to help others just as others have sacrificed for us. We can make all the excuses we want about being too busy, but nothing, including our salvation, is achieved without sacrifice. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be “busy” in the church or in our comfortable lives. It is time we sacrificed to bring other to His good news as well.

References

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events that spurred Ohio’s opioid epidemic. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/key-events-that-spurred-ohio-opioid-epidemic/TIYmXpiXlLxracpysZ07iI/

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What is a Sponsor? (2014, May 12). Retrieved September 12, 2017, from

https://celebraterecoveryontheplateau.org/2014/05/12/what-is-a-sponsor/