This is part 3 in a series of blog posts designed to be helpful to people who are struggling with some kind of addiction or habitual sin. The intent of these blog posts is to be really practical and point people who struggle to hope. Part 1 focused on repentance and part 2 focused on radical amputation. If you have not read those blogs I would encourage you to go back and read those as well. Part 3 is all about the local church. Does it seem strange to you that a series of blogs on addiction and recovery would include the topic of the church? If it does, that’s ok but my hope is to begin to help you see that the local church is absolutely essential if you want your life to be transformed from struggling with addiction to walking in freedom for the glory of God.
A key component of the transformation process is accountability. If we are honest with ourselves, all of us who struggle with some kind of habitual sin need to be held accountable. We need a person or group of people who know how we struggle and can check in to see how we are doing. If we don’t have accountability we can easily stay in destructive sinful habits. One place we find accountability is in community and that leads to the question of where we find community. There are many different types of support groups where struggling addicts find community but I firmly believe that the best kind of community for struggling addicts is biblical community in the church.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines the church as “the whole body of professing Christians throughout the world”. That would include everyone all over the world who has repented of their sins and trusted in Christ to be saved by faith alone. The universal church or global church is broken down into local churches. These are the local congregations where we go to worship God along with other Christians. The church is God’s idea and God loves the church. Matthew 16:18 says “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Since New Testament times God has been building His church and no one will ever be able to stop God’s work in the church. God loves the church so much that He commands believers not to neglect meeting together (Hebrews 10:24-25). It is clear that the church is a big deal to God and because of that it should be a big deal for us.
A word to local churches:
The local church has not always been a place where those who struggle with addiction could find help and community. There could be many reasons for this, but one big one would be that addiction is always messy and hard. Many times pastors, biblical counselors, and members of local churches may not believe they are qualified to help. Also, the false disease model of addiction has turned addiction into something that requires help from “professionals”. Because of this many people have gone to find help for their addictions outside of the church. This is a scary reality because when you leave the church you don’t get God’s word and truth from the Bible, you get man’s wisdom which is not truth (Col. 2:8). A life that is built on the foundation of man’s wisdom is unstable because man’s wisdom is always changing. A community that is built on man’s wisdom instead of God’s Word is guaranteed to lead you astray.
The local church needs to step up and get involved. In Matthew 9:9-13 Jesus and his disciples are at Matthew’s house. Matthew was a tax collector and while they were at Matthew’s house they were eating with many tax collectors and sinners. This was looked down on by the Pharisees, they did not approve of Jesus being with tax collectors and sinners. Notice Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Matthew 9:12-13: But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” If our churches want to follow the heart of Christ we should seek to minister to those who are sick and those who are sinners, and people who are enslaved by addiction fall into those categories. We also need to remove the stigma that goes with addiction. I don’t mean that we should not take sin seriously, what I mean is that we need to work to create an environment in our churches where it is ok to not be ok. This type of environment will foster honesty from people who struggle instead of pretending that they don’t have a problem. This type of environment leads to change. I have been involved in biblical counseling and addiction ministry long enough to know that many churches have people struggling with some kind of addiction that would really surprise you because what you see of their life looks good. It might be someone who drinks too much but still goes to work each day, it might be someone who has started experimenting with drugs, or it could be a man or woman enslaved to pornography. It might be something more acceptable like a dad or husband who is angry all the time, or a mom or wife who is anxious all the time. It could be someone whose relationship with food is the same as the drunkard’s relationship with alcohol. The addiction struggles in our churches are not contained to alcohol and drugs they go far beyond that.
At The Refuge we are committed to equipping local churches to minister to those who struggle with addiction. We do this through Gospel Centered Recovery (GCR). GCR is a support group designed to be used in the local church. GCR is explicitly Bible-based and gospel-centered. At GCR the Bible is the foundation and authority for all we do. We don’t start with man’s wisdom and tag on a few Bible verses, we go straight to the Word of God which has supernatural power to set people free. A typical meeting at GCR is very simple. There are 30 minutes of Bible teaching and then after that, the large group splits up into men’s and women’s break-out groups to discuss the teaching they just heard, pray together, and hold one another accountable. GCR is a place where people can come to the local church and get help and find biblical community and accountability. This year The Refuge has focused significant time and energy on developing curriculum and resources for local churches who want to start a GCR group. The goal is to make it easy for local churches to get started.
A word to those who struggle:
If you are enslaved by some habitual sin (addiction) would you consider that a Bible-believing church near you is the best place to get help? I realize that we all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences in our past with the church. Some of those are good and some of those are not good, but if you have been burned by the church would you give it another chance? Maybe you would be brave enough to visit a church on a Sunday, or maybe you have a friend, co-worker, or neighbor that you know goes to church and you could talk to them about going with them.
Maybe you have struggled with addiction in your past and you found help outside of the local church. I praise God anytime someone finds sobriety but sobriety is not the most important thing. Mark 8:36 says: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? My greatest fear for people who have found sobriety outside the church is that their greatest need for salvation has not been met. If you found sobriety without Christ you are still lost and guilty before a holy God. Your sin separates you from God and will one day send you to hell if you die without Christ. You need more than sobriety, you need to repent of your sins and by faith alone trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to be saved. God offers so much more than sobriety, He offers salvation and transformation through Christ and through Christ alone.
I will end where I began, the local church is absolutely essential if you want your life to be transformed from struggling with addiction to walking in freedom for the glory of God.