God Even Calls Broken Believers into Ministry

Editor's Note: Testimonies can play a huge part in encouraging one another in our walk with Christ, our ministry journeys, and in fostering unity within our community of believers. For this reason, I've included this story told by a ministry leader (below). Hundreds of thousands of people are now in recovery from their deepest hurts, habits, and hang-ups thanks to Celebrate Recovery, which is now a ministry featured in over 25,000 churches. Founded by John Baker as a signature ministry of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered approach to finding healing and wholeness.I’m a grateful believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with insecurity, anxiety, and sexual addiction, and my name is Andy.

BY CELEBRATE RECOVERY - PASTORS.COM

I was raised in a wonderful home, the middle child of three brothers, and a son to a mom and a dad who loved their children dearly. My parents both grew up in homes with alcoholic fathers who would occasionally turn abusive. Due to this, my parents endured a great deal of dysfunction growing up but promised each other that their children would grow up in a stable home. Mom and Dad achieved this to the best of their ability. They gave my brothers and me a home where we were loved, and they raised us to work hard and always do our best.Growing up I became quite competitive with my siblings, particularly my older brother. When I compared myself to him I always felt like I fell short somehow, and I began to deeply resent him and became jealous of him. I wanted to show him that I was better than him, that somehow I had worth and value. It would mean that I wasn’t as fat or slow or stupid as I always thought I was when I compared myself to him. Over time this desire to prove myself would bleed into other areas and relationships in my life.Throughout school I learned that I could prove myself worthy of the love and affirmation I thirsted for through my behavior and good grades. When I succeeded in that, I felt fulfilled and content. When I failed to meet the standard I thought everyone had for me, my soul ached and longed to feel loved. I also developed a reputation as a “nerd,” which hindered me in finding relationships and affection from the girls I liked. My hunger for love and acceptance ultimately led me to cope using pornography, starting around seventh grade. I longed for love and acceptance, and porn never rejected me. So it became my drug of choice for the next 12 years. My heart would run to porn anytime my relationships, my performance, or my situations failed to leave me feeling worthy, accepted, or loved. This pain ultimately led me to start drinking and partying in order to fit in and feel accepted toward the end of high school. This had won me most of the “acceptance” I had always thought I wanted. Still I felt a profound sense of emptiness inside me.In the fall of 2009 I started my college career at a private Christian school in Missouri. I went from partying and drinking with my friends from the high school football team to living in the dorms with a lot of very sheltered, highly judgmental Christian students. My gut told me the only way I would survive this place was to keep my mask on and hide any guilt or shame for my past mistakes. So I did. Over the next four years I hid my pornography addiction, my drinking, a two-year-long unhealthy relationship, a lifestyle of partying, an extremely low self-esteem, and multiple negative physical relationships with girls around the college. It seemed as though I was looking for love and affirmation anywhere but from God. I thought there was no way he could love me or use me. Thankfully, God had other plans.During college, I started to serve at a campus ministry where I was asked to lead worship and eventually train others to do the same. God placed me in a leadership role that I had no business being in. I would lead worship on Monday nights and sing of the grace and love of God, all while secretly seeking to be satisfied by my sin. Even in spite of my brokenness, God used me and called me into full-time ministry.By 2015 I had moved to Arkansas. I had been working as an intern at a church for six months and was about to step into a role with a ministry called The Landing. I was no longer struggling with alcohol and bad relationships. But I was still addicted to pornography, extremely co-dependent, and completely terrified. How could God call me to a recovery ministry and lead students when my life was a wreck and I couldn’t manage my own sin struggles? The answer to that question came as my friend and supervisor, Rodney, asked me to join a Step Study he was leading.I thought opening up about my sin and shame would result in the end of my ministry career. But what I found was a deeper experience of God’s grace. Walking through the principles and steps of Celebrate Recovery®, I found I really was powerless to control my life and that I wasn’t alone in ministry, even as a young pastor. I learned in a deeper way that God really did care about me personally and that I had the freedom through Christ to live as God wanted me to. But more than anything, I learned that my struggles with porn, alcohol, and shame over past decisions were a result of thirsting for love, affirmation, and acceptance in things that could never satisfy. I have come to experience through Celebrate Recovery that God is the way, the truth, and the life, and all of my longings and desires are satisfied in him.I am so thankful that God led me to Celebrate Recovery. It has completely changed my life, my marriage, my ministry, and my relationship with Jesus Christ. I have found freedom from porn, and God continues to peel back more layers of my heart in order to make me more like him. I’m not “out of the woods,” but with the help of my forever family and the tools God has given me through Celebrate Recovery, I know I can continue to grow closer to him each day. Thank you for letting me share.Published with permission from Pastors.com. To learn more about Celebrate Recovery go here.

Opioid Crisis: As Death Toll Rises the Church Offers Hope

The White House reported this week that the opioid crisis is worse than previously thought. New estimates from the White House Council of Economic Advisors show opioid-related fatalities have been underreported by 24 percent, raising the death toll to more than 40,000 in 2015 alone. By all accounts, the opioids crisis worsened in 2016, as synthetic opioids flooded the heroin market.

By ChurchLeaders.com (Staff)

It is not an overstatement to call this a crisis. In 2015 alone, drug overdoses killed more people than the entire Vietnam War. Drugs are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50.  And opioid deaths outnumber car crashes and gun-related deaths.

SPIRITUAL CRISIS?

While the death toll has risen sharply these last few years, there is one aspect of the epidemic that hasn’t changed: Many believe this phenomenon is fueled by a spiritual crisis in America.Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, wrote in the Hill.com:

“There’s also a reason why this is all happening now. Long ago, people found purpose in their responsibilities. They lived for their spouses, to whom they sought to bring feelings of preciousness and love. They toiled for their children, whom they struggled not just to support, but to show constant affection, giving them a sense of self worth. People were also more spiritual, and in a treasured connection to God they found a sense of purpose that gave context to their existence. Often, they also fought for a cause, be it their communities, their countries, and their values. And it was in this fulfillment of a purpose that people got high. It was in causes that were larger than themselves that they found an escape from the ordinary and mundane.”

TRYING TO FILL A GOD-SHAPED HOLE

Opioids are just the latest substance Americans use to find happiness and joy apart from God. A 2015 study found 30 percent of Americans had an alcohol abuse disorder at some point in their lives.The crack epidemic of the mid-to-late 1980s hit a peak of two overdose deaths per 100,000.Then there are prescription medications for depression and anxiety. The United States leads the world in per capita consumption of these drugs, with roughly 11 percent of the population over the age of 12 using them.Damon Linker, writing for theweek.com, says opioids are the new trend, “What is clear is that the United States is filled with people pursuing various forms of relief from various forms of profound unhappiness, discontent, malaise, agitation, and emotional and/or physical pain.

A PLACE FOR MINISTRY

If the problem is indeed spiritual, churches are best equipped to help, and many are responding.Belmont-Watertown United Methodist Church in Belmont, Massachusetts has hosted 12-step recovery programs in the building’s basement for several years. Pastor Mike Clark told WBUR one of the first things he noticed was the number of people coming to church, but not for the service upstairs on Sunday. “I realized that people’s lives were being saved every day in this building. And that it was happening in the basement, it was happening outside our angle of vision—and that’s fine, it was happening anonymously—but that it was an amazing story of human transformation.”

READ: The Harvey Weinsteins and Broken Male Culture Can No Longer Hide

While many might see two different churches at the Belmont-Watertown United Methodist Church, pastor Mike Clark says they are more alike than many will admit. “In my experience, there are as many active alcoholics and addicts upstairs in churches as there are recovering alcoholics and addicts downstairs. But the ability to be honest about it and seek help unfortunately is a challenge for most people.”One of the programs that many churches are using is “Celebrate Recovery.” Launched in 1991 by John Baker, a recovering alcoholic, now a Saddleback minister, Celebrate Recovery uses biblical principles to help people overcome their hurtful habits—from codependency to anger and addiction. It’s solution is to fill the void with Jesus, not a substance or behavior.

RESPONDING TO THE CHURCH-STATE DIVIDE

Faith-based solutions come with the typical church-state tensions and plenty of secular groups looking to exploit the schism. But that hasn’t stopped some governments from looking for spiritual answers. One is Tennessee.In Tennessee, more than 50 percent of adults attend weekly religious services according to a 2014 Pew Research Center study. About two years ago, the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services launched a faith-based recovery network to spread the word about addiction, recovery and available services. It also encourages congregations to start their own support programs.Monty Burks, the director of the department’s faith-based initiatives and special projects, told the tennessean.com, “Historically, institutions of faith have been at the forefront of every single major issue that we’ve had in our country. The key component in recovery is faith. So why not try to educate them and let them harness that number and that power and that belief and helping people in recovery.

A PROBLEM THE CHURCH CANNOT IGNORE

The opioid epidemic is a huge problem in America and getting worse. Being a place of hope for those suffering and dying from it is a tall order for the church. But it is also a plight the church cannot ignore if it hopes to show God’s love for mankind. As Augustine pointed out “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”If any one group of people should have reason to hope, it is the church. Coupled with our commission to introduce people to the source of that hope, we should have no qualms lending ourselves to fight in the battle against opioid addiction.The above article was originally published at churchleaders.com.