The following insights come from an “Addiction & The Church” presentation by Adrienne Miller, a certified reciprocal alcohol and drug counselor with 18+ years of experience at Heartland Women’s Recovery Program.

When we think about recovery, we often picture a neat, linear progression—a straight path from struggle to victory. But the reality of discipleship and addiction looks nothing like our idealized expectations. Instead of a smooth upward trajectory, recovery resembles something more like Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings: treacherous, unpredictable, and requiring immense courage to navigate.

The truth is, addiction recovery is a battle—not just for those struggling with substance use, but for everyone walking alongside them in their journey. As church leaders and discipleship partners, we must prepare ourselves for this reality while holding onto the hope that God is the ultimate victor in this fight.

Your Process, Their Process

One of the most important truths to grasp about discipleship and addiction is this: it’s as much about your process as it is about your disciple’s process. Just like in parenting or marriage, much of effective discipleship comes down to how we respond to challenging situations.

I learned this firsthand early in my marriage to Scott, who had struggled with addiction for about 10 years before coming to Heartland. One day, he casually mentioned having an urge to use drugs and went for a walk—something unusual for him at the time. My mind immediately spiraled into anxiety, and I texted someone expressing my worry about Scott.

When he returned and discovered I had reached out to others, Scott said something that stopped me in my tracks: “If I can’t trust you to tell you when I’m struggling, I’m going to need to figure out who else I can trust.”

That evening, God convicted me with this truth: I was the one who had relapsed. I had returned to my old patterns of extreme anxiety and fear, while Scott had done exactly what he was supposed to do—communicate honestly about his struggles.

This experience taught me that even those of us without substance use backgrounds have plenty of issues that mirror the addiction mindset. Finding these parallels in your own life will help you relate more effectively to people struggling with addiction.

Setting Realistic Expectations

Scripture reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 that redemption is possible for everyone: “And some of you used to be like this, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” This hope must anchor our work, even as we maintain realistic expectations.

The Reality of Recovery:

• Addiction is complex, typically requiring 5-7 attempts before achieving long-term sobriety
• Many people entering recovery programs are on their 12th or 14th attempt
• Setbacks are part of the process, not indicators of failure

Essential Elements for Sustainable Support:

1. Celebrate Progress. Find meaningful ways to acknowledge milestones. Just as AA gives tokens for sobriety milestones, we should celebrate when someone follows through on job hunting, maintains housing, or reaches any recovery goal. Celebration might be as simple as a pat on the back or taking someone out for dinner—discover what feels meaningful to your disciple.

2. Prepare for Setbacks. Unless your disciple truly owns their recovery decisions, lasting change won’t occur. Sometimes you must step back and allow people to face the natural consequences of their choices. This develops the crucial connection between decisions and outcomes.

3. Encourage Independence. Your goal isn’t to become the permanent answer person for your disciple. While it might feel rewarding initially, lasting help comes from equipping people with tools and resources to make healthy decisions independently. Remember: your objective is to raise up disciples who can eventually disciple others.

Establishing Healthy Boundaries

Clear boundaries protect both you and your disciple while creating a framework for sustainable support.

Key Boundary Considerations:

• Availability: Will you give out your cell phone number? Establish clear communication preferences upfront
• Location: Decide where you’ll meet—homes, public spaces, or church facilities
• Scope: Recognize your limits. If someone displays mental health symptoms beyond your training, connect them with professional counselors
• Accountability: If you’re working with someone of the opposite sex, establish appropriate safeguards

Financial Boundaries. It’s generally inadvisable to give cash directly to someone struggling with addiction. Instead, get creative with financial assistance:

• Offer to watch children during job interviews or work
• Take your disciple grocery shopping and teach meal planning
• Make direct payments to bills or utilities
• Utilize your church’s benevolence fund with pre-established guidelines

The Power of Active Listening

If I could emphasize one skill above all others for effective discipleship with people in recovery, it would be active listening. This skill can make or break your ability to build trust and create lasting impact.

Understanding Shame’s Role. Shame inevitably accompanies addiction. I’ve never met someone who struggled with substance use who felt proud of their behavior while using. When your disciple shares their story, especially early in your relationship, be extremely mindful of your facial reactions and body language.

People are constantly evaluating whether they can trust you with their truth. If they share something relatively minor and you flinch, show shock, or display any form of rejection, they’ll likely conclude you’re not the right person to walk with them through recovery.

Creating Safe Communication. Sometimes people literally struggle to vocalize their experiences. I’ve had residents sit in my office with their heads down, eyes closed, shaking their heads while trying to find words for their shame. In these moments:

• Be patient and give them time
• Consider saying, “If you’re not ready to talk about this, we don’t have to do this right now”
• Maintain appropriate eye contact while being sensitive to their comfort level
• Consider alternative communication methods like journaling or artistic expression

As Mr. Rogers wisely said: “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”

Practical Listening Techniques:

• Put phones down and eliminate distractions
• Use nonverbal encouragement appropriately
• Practice deferred judgment—wait your turn to speak
• Ask clarifying questions about your role: “Are you looking for advice, another perspective, or just a sounding board?”
• Take their experiences at face value, especially during initial sharing
• Respond with respect and empathy
• Ask open-ended questions like “Tell me about your day” instead of “How was your day?”

Building Spiritual Foundation

While many spiritual disciplines are important, focus particularly on prayer and Bible reading as foundational elements.

Prayer Partnership:

• Ask your disciple to pray for you—this creates mutual vulnerability and shows their value
• Lead prayers using simple, honest language rather than “Christianese”
• Model that approaching God doesn’t require fancy words or perfect circumstances

Bible Study Focus:

• Emphasize stories of people who made mistakes and found redemption
• Study dramatic conversion stories like Rahab’s transformation from prostitute to honored ancestor of Jesus
• Share Bible reading plans or do studies together to maintain connection
• Help them see that biblical characters faced real struggles they can relate to

Creating Resource Centers

Equip your church with readily accessible resources so disciples can find information independently:

• Lists of local AA/NA meetings
• Contact information for counselors and doctors
• Information about insurance applications and social services
• Recovery-focused books and pamphlets
• Educational materials about addiction and recovery

The Battle Worth Fighting

Discipleship in the context of addiction is warfare, but we know who wins in the end. This work will challenge you, change you, and likely follow you home some days. But when we allow people to share their shameful experiences in an atmosphere of safety and acceptance, shame loses its power. That’s when we can begin tugging on the rope that draws them closer to Jesus.

Remember that recovery rarely looks like our expectations, but redemption is always possible. Your role isn’t to have all the answers—it’s to walk faithfully alongside someone as they discover their own path to freedom in Christ.

As you consider implementing addiction-focused ministries in your church, start with these foundational elements. The battle is real, but so is the victory available through Jesus Christ. With proper boundaries, realistic expectations, and genuine love, you can be part of someone’s transformation story.

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For more information about training opportunities and resources for churches interested in addiction ministry, contact Heartland Recovery. We’re committed to equipping local churches with the tools and knowledge needed to effectively support people struggling with addiction.

Find the link to other “Addiction & The Church” 2024 sessions here on our website or on our YouTube page.

In a world where addiction touches virtually every family, workplace, and community, the church finds itself at a crossroads. In this post based on a seminar presentation by Heartland Community Church Pastor Kris R. Palmer, we’ll explore questions such as “How do we respond to those struggling with addiction and brokenness?” and “How do we move beyond judgment to become truly redemptive communities?” These answers lie at the heart of what it means to be a welcoming church in today’s world.

The Good Samaritan: A Model for Redemptive Community

The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37 provides a powerful framework for understanding how we should respond to those in need. Jesus tells of a man beaten and left half-dead by robbers, ignored by religious leaders, but helped by an unlikely Samaritan who showed compassion without regard for his own safety or convenience.

This parable reveals a crucial truth: we’ve all found ourselves in the ditch at some point. The difference is that none of us were created by God to live there. We weren’t designed to remain in places of brokenness, addiction, or despair. Yet too often, the church passes by on the other side of the road, much like the priest and Levite in Jesus’ story.

The Samaritan’s response teaches us that authentic mercy is costly. It required financial sacrifice, great humility, and a willingness to be utterly selfless. Most remarkably, he helped someone who, under different circumstances, would likely have despised him. This is the attitude that must be at work in us as we seek to help the hurting and broken.

Created in God’s Image: The Foundation of Human Dignity

To understand addiction through a theological lens, we must first grasp one of the most fundamental truths of Scripture: human beings are created in the image of God. This isn’t merely a nice theological concept—it’s the foundation of human dignity and the basis for how we view one another.

Being created in God’s image is what makes humans sacred and gives life its inherent worth. It’s what empowers us to reason, choose, think, imagine, feel emotions, make moral decisions, and maintain spiritual relationships. This image enables us to be relational, which is precisely why we should be welcoming churches that reach out to others.

This understanding transforms how we view those struggling with addiction. They’re not “lesser than” or “damaged goods”—they’re image-bearers who have found themselves in a ditch, just as we all have at various times in our lives.

Understanding Brokenness and Sin

When people engage in addictive, destructive, or abusive behaviors, these actions often stem from deeper issues. Addiction is frequently a behavior resulting from something going on internally. These root issues emerge from the brokenness in our hearts.

It’s crucial to understand that brokenness, pain, and hurt are not sin. The devil often wants us to feel shame and condemnation for our brokenness, but that’s not what requires repentance. However, how we react to our brokenness—through anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, or destructive behaviors—that can become sin requiring God’s redemption and forgiveness.

We live in a fallen world where sin impacts all of us. Romans 3:23-24 reminds us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This levels the playing field entirely. We’re all fallen human beings who need redemption.

The Mess We’re All In

A significant part of being a redemptive community involves understanding that we’re all in great need. We’re not bigger, better, faster, or stronger than those we’re trying to help. We’re fallen people who have been redeemed by Jesus, reaching out to other fallen people who have the same opportunity for redemption.

The church is messy because we’re a mess. The problem is that we often deny this reality or at least deny our part in it. It’s difficult to minister to others from a right heart and perspective without understanding that “that’s me too,” regardless of our background or circumstances.

This understanding prevents us from developing a superiority complex and keeps us grounded in grace and humility. It also helps us recognize that Jesus is the answer—not us, not our programs, not our wisdom, but Jesus and his redemptive work.

Redemption: At the Center of God’s Purposes

Redemption isn’t just a nice add-on to the gospel—it’s at the very center of God’s purposes and the core of his story. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, to serve as a ransom for our sins, because he loves the broken and wants to make us whole.

God is always the God of second chances, third chances, fourth chances, and beyond. As long as there’s breath, there’s opportunity for redemption. In Christ, we have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7).

This redemption doesn’t just forgive—it transforms. There’s so much more to life than just being sober or not using substances. We need to be transformed, and we serve a transforming God. We’re freed from our sin to live a life of liberty, freed from bondage and shame to live in active, intimate relationship with God and each other.

Being a Welcoming Church

To truly help those struggling with addiction, everything the church does must be centered on the redemption we have in Christ Jesus. This is non-negotiable. While churches can and should do many things to help people in need, the only thing that ultimately works is when all our efforts are centered on Jesus and his redemptive work.

What Welcome Looks Like

A welcoming church extends what we might call a “holy welcome” to the hurting and broken. This isn’t about having a welcoming building or even welcoming meetings—it’s about having welcoming lives. We are the church, and if we’re going to be welcoming, it must flow from who we are as people.

God’s own welcome was an essential part of his redemptive message. He’s generous, utterly giving, and completely open in his invitation. Remarkably, he extends this invitation not only to friends but to enemies—which describes all of us before salvation.

Jesus perfectly demonstrated this welcoming spirit during his earthly ministry. He reached out to the broken, hurting, downcast, children, women, and people others significantly shied away from. He took servanthood and hospitality to the extreme by laying down his life for his guests.

Practical Steps to Being Welcoming

Be Friendly and Available: Make yourself intentionally available. Don’t be aloof or standoffish. Let down your walls, pay attention, and be aware of people around you. Active listening and mindfulness of others are crucial skills to develop and teach.

Be Intentionally Helpful: Put others before yourself. Think of others first. Recognize that everyone is different from you—not everyone will look, act, or respond the way you do. Understanding these differences is vital for being truly welcoming.

Create a Safe Environment: The church should be a place where people can be open and honest without fear of shame or judgment. If struggles remain hidden, nothing can be done to help. We must cultivate an atmosphere where transparency is possible.

Provide Wise Counsel and Professional Help: While Jesus is always the answer, that answer finds expression in many ways, including professional help. We need to let medical and psychological experts do what they do best while we as disciples do what we do best—point others to Jesus.

The Cost of Authentic Welcome

Real mercy and authentic welcome are costly in many ways. Like the Good Samaritan, it may cost us financially, but it will certainly require great humility and a willingness to be utterly selfless. It means being willing to reach down and help those who, in different circumstances, might have walked past us.

Being a redemptive community isn’t about being free from trouble or conflict—it’s about being willing to stick together for the long haul, trusting God and the gospel as our roadmap forward.

Moving Forward

As we consider how to be more welcoming and redemptive, we must ask ourselves: Who’s in the ditch in our neighborhood? Who’s in the ditch in our area of influence? How can we, where we live, worship, and participate in family life, show mercy and help to those in need?

The answer is found in Jesus’ words at the end of the Good Samaritan story: “Go and do likewise.” This means being willing to get down and dirty in the ditch, being willing to give of our resources, time, and energy, and being willing to invest in people for the long haul.

Every person we meet was created in God’s image, made to be part of the family of God. They have choices to make and decisions to face, but regardless of their background, situation, or circumstances, they have the potential to know Jesus and become part of God’s family.

The church’s calling is clear: we must be redemptive communities that welcome the broken, love the hurting, and point all people to the transforming power of Jesus Christ. In doing so, we live out the very heart of the gospel and fulfill our purpose as the body of Christ in a broken world.

The journey toward becoming a truly redemptive community isn’t easy, but it’s essential. As we embrace this calling, we discover that in helping others find their way out of the ditch, we often find our own healing and transformation as well. This is the beautiful, messy, costly, and ultimately rewarding work of the church.

Kris R. Palmer, PhD, is pastor of Heartland Community Church in northeast Missouri. Find the link to other “Addiction & The Church” 2024 sessions here on our website.