Ours is the age of addiction.
As Christians, we must be realistic. Addiction is not an “out there” issue. The floodwaters of addiction have broken through the doors of our churches.
In 2018, Lifeway Research surveyed a thousand Protestant pastors to understand their congregations’ experience of the opioid crisis. Two-thirds said a family member of someone in their congregation had been personally affected by opioid abuse. More than half had someone dealing with opioid addiction in their congregation.
According to Barna Group research, 12 percent of youth pastors and 5 percent of pastors say they are addicted to pornography. Among the wider church population, 21 percent of men and 2 percent of women say they are “addicted” to pornography.
As God’s people, we live as “aliens and strangers” (1 Peter 2:11) in an addicted world. Addiction is a 360° issue. It’s behind us, shaping our personal and collective stories. It’s around us, shaping our communities and how our neighbors think, feel, and act. It’s ahead of us; all the evidence indicates that addictions of all kinds are on the rise.
How should we respond? How can we prevent addiction and promote recovery in our churches?
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First, we must engage with the addiction issue. A signature feature of the modern world should not remain relegated to the margins of the church’s collective consciousness. Nor should it be outsourced entirely to specialist services, even those who operate with a Christian ethos, or considered a purely “medical” issue beyond the church’s purview. Addiction needs to be one of the church’s core concerns, not a side hustle.
Church leaders, particularly those leading small groups, preaching, teaching, and working with young people, need to be addiction-aware and recovery-sensitive. We need to think about addiction, learn about addiction, talk about addiction, and pray about addiction.
As part of this, we’ll benefit immensely from turning for help to those in our communities with experience of addiction. The more we hear from those with personal experience of addictions of all types, and all degrees of severity, along with family members and specialists, such as therapists and recovery mentors, the better.
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The age of addiction needs church communities that go deeper with God. A Christian life characterized by event attendance, superficial relationships, performance discipleship-as-intellectual-exercise, feel-good sermons, easy answers, and low expectations might work nicely for some. For those in a battle to stay sober, “just for today,” knowing their next fix is just a WhatsApp message away, it won’t cut it.
Emerging from an all-consuming relationship with booze, betting, or masturbation, addicts-in-recovery need an intimate personal relationship with the living God and a true spiritual home amongst others who also know Him.
It’s what we all need.
We need a sense of His abiding and active presence in our lives. Daily, we need to hear God’s voice, feel His love, and experience His peace, comfort, grace, and mercy. We need access to the Spirit’s counsel and strength. We need to see that same Spirit bear fruit in our lives. We need the shalom that an abundance of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control brings to our lives and relationships (Gal. 5:22-23).
Being God-adjacent isn’t enough. Our churches must be God-connected communities that lead us all into a vital, genuine, life-giving relationship with him. Churches characterized by anemic spirituality and superficial relationships provide little of genuine value to those fighting off the siren call of a bottle, syringe, or hookup app.
This isn’t a matter of style, as if spiritual and relational depth is only possible if you sing the right songs or pray in the right way. It’s a matter of substance and a challenge to us all.
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The age of addiction needs church communities that place the practice of the spiritual habits at the heart of our life together. These habits—often known as disciplines or practices—include silence, solitude, sabbath, simplicity, fasting, and a daily pattern of prayer that includes worship, confession, and meditation on Scripture.
Life in addiction is so immersive, focused, and consistent. It follows familiar, comforting pathways through each day. It pivots around particular objects and actions.
The spiritual disciplines provide us with a new set of spiritual habits around which to build daily life. They give a concrete focus to the development of our relationship with God.
For those on the path out of addiction, the spiritual habits will function as a kind of trellis around which they can grow and experience the kind of rich, dynamic, satisfying relationship with God that precludes the need for the rewards delivered by our addiction.
For others, establishing these life-giving habits will prevent us from developing unhealthy relationships with the substance or activity that appears to offer the best solution to our problems.
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In his recovery memoir, Coming Clean, the attorney Seth Haines attributes his ability to find lasting freedom from his addiction to alcohol to the support he found in his church community.
“My friends in Austin taught me it takes a village to break through to freedom. These cycles of addiction (no matter the addiction), the breaking of them—it’s tricky business.” (2)
When so many feel isolated and disconnected, God’s people need to pull together, moving closer and going deeper. Not just for the sake of those walking the path of recovery from addiction. But also as a means of “addiction-proofing” ourselves, particularly our young people.
The age of addiction needs church communities that pursue richer relationships with one another. The kind of close community we need involves more than simply developing a few close, intimate connections with people we naturally resonate with. The community we need is more diverse than that.
We all need the kinds of close friendships that feel “easy” and life-giving, but we also need a “12” who will help us grow and a “72” with whom we can serve and look outwards (Matt. 5-7, Luke 10:1-23). We need spiritual brothers and sisters. We need spiritual parents and grandparents. We need the help of “experts” and “specialists” who can strengthen us to face specific challenges.
The church we need is a community where we see every person’s gifts expressed. It’s a body whose every part is vital to the well-being of the whole. In this context, the language of village is helpful. A village is a multigenerational, potentially multicultural, community of people who share a sense of history, purpose, and identity. It’s a diverse network of interdependent relationships that helps everyone flourish. Indeed, this is precisely the kind of community each of us—addicted or not—needs to protect and sustain us through the inclemency of life in the modern world.
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“Ninety meetings in ninety days!” is often the first suggestion a newcomer to AA or any other twelve-step fellowships will hear. The idea is simple: as you start in recovery, you need the fellowship of others in your community—and the strength, encouragement, and wisdom it provides—every day, not just some days. As churches, perhaps there’s something for us to learn here.
How would our churches look if there were daily opportunities for those who want to gather—perhaps over a simple meal or coffee—just to be together?
The idea isn’t that everyone meets every day. Rather, some people gather daily so that everyone knows they have a place/people where they will find friendship, support, prayer, and wisdom.
Such a space would play a critical role for those dealing with addictions as a complement to mutual-aid groups such as AA and Celebrate Recovery. It would also be a preventative intervention for those vulnerable to developing addictions and a source of blessing to those new to faith, who feel isolated and lonely, or who are struggling with mental health or other personal issues.
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The age of addiction needs church communities that appoint recovery champions.
For too long, addiction has been confined to the margins. We need to hear from those who have wrestled with addiction. We need their leadership. That doesn’t mean placing addicts in recovery on pedestals that stop them from sharing their struggles honestly, setting them up for a fall. It means encouraging their influence on our worship services, discipleship groups, outreach projects, and social activities.
What a recovery champion will do will vary according to their gifts and the nature of the church. A recovery champion may act as a point person charged with integrating newcomers in addiction/recovery. They may facilitate training for leaders and volunteers to help them support those in recovery. They may run recovery-focused small groups, lead recovery-focused service programs in the local community and provide pastoral support to members dealing with addiction within their families. They may connect the church with other services and organizations in the broader community, such as 12-step fellowships, counseling services, day programs, and rehabs. Recovery champions may help guide the whole church community as it reflects on difficult questions, such as how we relate to alcohol in social settings or how best to support a member who has relapsed.
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We need to establish healthy partnerships with addiction specialists and services in the wider community. This will include statutory services and those provided by the private and charitable sectors. As an active part of an addiction care network, we can effectively engage with the needs we encounter both in our churches and the wider community. As we do this, let’s be quick to see opportunities to use our resources generously, for example, by offering a comfortable meeting place to mutual-aid groups like AA or encouraging our members to support the work of Christian charities working in the addiction field.
Sources Cited:
(1) Judith Grisel, Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction (New York: Anchor Books, 2019), 3. Kindle.
(2) Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 118-119. Kindle.
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