How Can The Church Do A Better Job At Helping People In Recovery?

1. How Can The Church Do A Better Job At Helping People In Recovery?

2. Premise for today • My estimate – half of addicts wounded by church, and turned off by church • Question I asked – if struggling and discouraged, would you go to church for encouragement? • Sadly, churches aren’t safe places for many addicts - Not real, judgmental

3. Healing • Education • Understanding Complex Trauma • Tools for healthy coping and relationships • Self-Awareness • Therapy – healing from wounds of the past • Positive Support System – Surrogate Family • Rats • Healthy Relationships • Learn to manage triggers • Grounding and mindfulness

4. I have many concerns about what I see in many (not all) churches today. So much damage has been done (I wrote down 30 things. They fall under 4 categories) • Present a distorted view of God • Present a distorted view of what the Christian life looks like. This greatly affects what they teach about recovery; and it often misleads and hurts people in recovery • Churches have become dysfunctional families who inflict spiritual abuse • Churches are out of touch with the issues of the new people who are coming through their doors. How they deal with them is not really helpful, and can even be harmful

5. Dysfunctional family • Person in position of power (authority) abuse their authority • Look for support for their self-serving position – if they can make it look like God supports their position, all the better. The Bible becomes their club • Dysfunction takes every virtue taught in the Bible and distorts it • Example #1 – Dad wants to be unchallenged authority – total selfishness • Ephesians 5:22-24 – “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church.”

6. Note: This is why spiritual abuse is one of the deadliest types of abuse – because it distorts God and the Bible to make it look like God supports their position • Requires distorting reality, distorting the Bible • They will still teach the Bible, but they subtly change the emphasis of the Bible. They emphasize some parts of the Bible and ignore other parts • Women – Ephesians 5:25-29 – “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean.In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies.”

7. Other stuff that is overlooked • The Bible always gives a balancing command when talking about relationships. To emphasize one more than the other always leads to damage • Rib - equal • Shared image of God - equal • God never supports selfishness or abuse • It results in a double standard • It enables them to turn everything back on you, to make you look like the bad guy – selfish, not a good Christian. But the reality is that you are trying to be healthy

8. Hundreds of rules (spoken and unspoken) are developed that focus on external behaviours. • They are told that this is how to please God • But it is really about not causing hassles for the one in authority, and for enabling them to remain selfish • Don’t talk – don’t challenge authority, don’t point out problems, don’t talk about your needs, don’t think for yourself, just submit • Only emotion allowed is happy • Philippians 4:4 – “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” • Ephesians 4:28 – “And don’t sin by letting anger control you.”

9. They don’t try to understand the people under their authority. They just want those people to conform to a behaviour that makes life easy for the one in authority. • If you were a missionary to another culture – to effectively reach them, you must understand their culture – how they think, their values. If you don’t, you can do a lot of damage • Don’t understand Complex Trauma • Focus on external behaviours more than on internal attitudes and understanding why a person does what they do • Overly simplistic

10. Worry, fear, shame, anger – “Just get over it” • Don’t understand how messy and difficult life is for a person coming from that. As a result, people with Complex Trauma who go to those churches always feel like failures • Stigma about mental illness • See everything as having only a spiritual solution • Anger, worry, addiction • Just need to surrender to God • Just need to pray and read your Bible more • Just need to drive out demons • Just need to be baptized in the Spirit • “Forget what is behind” – Philippians 3

11. Misrepresenting/distorting what the Christian life looks like • Sanctification – the process of growth; the process of changing from unhealthy behaviours to more healthy ones • They don’t understand the challenges people from Complex Trauma face • “Here’s the standard. Just decide to live this way and do it. If you don’t, you’re a bad Christian and God is mad at you.” • “It should be neat and tidy, not messy”

12. Note: A child learning to walk • They don’t account for the biographies of people in the Bible – Abraham, David • Miss Romans 7 – “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” • Living with a dark side is a constant struggle until the day I die

13. They improperly define godliness; they create a false standard of spirituality • External behaviours are the focus, rather than internal attitudes • Note: If you have the right attitude, the right behaviours will naturally follow. But it you start with external behaviours, people can easily do them, but for all the wrong reasons • Rituals and rule keeping – church attendance, giving, “swearing”, tattoos and piercing and how you dress • Note: Rituals can be very important if they are done for the right reason • They rank sin; they emphasize some sin more than others

14. Baddies- Smoking, sex, homosexuality, abortion • John 8 – woman caught in adultery – “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery.The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” He replied, “All right, let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” • Point – all sin is equal. Your gluttony, or self-righteous attitude…. Is just as bad as adultery • James 2 – to rank sin is sin – it leads to self-righteousness and to not loving others • If I responded to emptiness as a child by eating, and someone else responded by sex; what makes my actions better than theirs?

15. Overemphasize sensational experiences as the solution, the magic fix • “Holy hop” – will instantly get victory • My colleague – “Christians are the worst clients in addiction recovery” • Note: God does give people sensational experiences sometimes, but it never guarantees easy sanctification

16. They distort God’s love and holiness – He hates sin but loves the sinner • He hates sin because he loves the sinner so much. When you love someone, you hate anything that hurts them • They extend God’s hatred of sin to the sinner. They present God has hating the sinner because of the sin they committed • Point of the story of the Prodigal Son • They misrepresent God’s wrath • Consequences built into bad behaviour, not a special act of punishment. Passive • The consequences are actually an expression of love. The pain is designed to make you not want to do that behaviour again

17. God “giving them up” – stubbornly pursuing unhealthy behaviour will result in more painful consequences. God gives them what they want • They misrepresent God’s destruction of nations in history • God wipes them out only after giving them tons of warning, and years of opportunity to change • Doctor doing surgery on a cancer • Churches are often the worst enablers • Love = no boundaries • Give to ease their own guilt, when not necessarily good for person they give to

18. Be gracious to self – you were a child who was just trying to survive