Training on How to Use 12-Step Groups in Outreach is Offered by Adventist Ministry
By AT News Team, Dec. 11, 2014: The 12-Step approach to dealing with addiction was invented by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and is now the most widely known and used around the world. Less well known is that there is a growing network of Adventists who use the 12-Step method in small groups both for church members and as outreach beyond the church.
At least five training sessions to help start more groups and introduce Adventist resource materials are planned in 2015 across the United States from New York City to southern California. These are being organized by Adventist Recovery Ministries:
February 9-11 in Atlanta, Georgia
February 27 to March 1 in Brooklyn, NYC
April 10-12 in Glendale, California
June 19-21 in Brooklyn, NYC again
October 9-11 in Dallas, Texas
Each of these training events includes presentations on the basic principles of the 12 Steps with correlations to Bible foundations and the Adventist heritage. There are simulated 12-Step small group meetings so that participants can catch the flavor of people sharing their experiences, needs, strengths and hopes. Adventist resource materials will be introduced.
The same training was conducted in Portland, Oregon, in October this year. Training teams are available for invitations to other locations.
The 12-Step approach is controversial for some Christians because in secular settings it often includes a kind of generic spirituality related to “a higher power” instead of specific Bible doctrine. A number of conservative Protestant and Adventist writers have also shown that it is rooted in biblical principles.
Adventist Recovery Ministries has been accepted by the denomination’s North American Division (NAD) as a recognized ministry of the Adventist Church. Its history goes back to Pastor Hal Gates in the 1980s, the Regeneration materials he developed in collaboration with the Institute of Alcoholism and Drug Dependencies at Andrews University and an Association of Adventist Parents of young adults with substance abuse issues that came together around the same time.
Gates was an alcoholic and drug addict who found Christ and changed his addictive behavior with the help of an Adventist friend in 1981. He was later hired as the pastor of a small church in Willapa Harbor, Washington, and began a 12-step outreach. In 1987, Dr. Pat Mutch invited him to help teach a class for graduate students at Andrews University and this resulted in him preparing resource materials published under the title of Regeneration. These quickly became widely used among Adventists in North America, Europe and Australia.
Pastor Ray Nelson became passionate about the effectiveness of recovery ministry and began to promote the concept. In 2002 through 2005 the health ministries department of the NAD sponsored many awareness seminars across the continent. In 2007 more than 200 people participated in an Addictions Ministry Conference at Andrews University and the following year the Association of Adventist Parents merged with the Regeneration network to form Adventist Recovery Ministries.
In 2011 the Adventist Recovery Ministries dissolved its independent board and the NAD voted to make it a ministry of the denomination and officially appointed a governing committee linked to the denominational organization. The committee includes 12 denominational leaders, three faculty members from Adventist universities, two Adventist health professionals and two lay organizers for the network. It is chaired by Debra Brill, a vice president of the NAD.
More information is available at the Web site: www.adventistrecovery.org
There is no entity at Andrews University by the name of Institute of Alcoholism and Drug Dependencies. The correct name is The Institute for the Prevention of Addiction (IPA).
I would suggest you be Very Very Careful about how “organized” you make your 12 step program or how much you “modify” the program to introduce other “theological” materials. I have attended 12 step regularly for 9 years and have NEVER found anything that would interfere with my seventh-day Adventist Christianity. I have found numerous things however that broadened my understanding of myself and my relation to the “God of my Understanding” who happens to be Jesus Christ. Assimilate but take care not to “fix” the program to the whims of some administrator or some theologian who has never attended a “real” 12 step meeting for any length of time.
I heartily concur with Bietz. Why try to fix something that is only not broken but extremely successful? It is much better to encourage, even offer the 12-step program a space in churches which is a common practice with other non-SdA churches. Why does Adventism always think they can reinvent successful programs?
I would like to see the whole program used, not just the 12 steps. Without the 12 traditions any effort can often become just an excuse to practice one’s defects on others.
I just haven’t seen a healthy 12 step group so far in the SDA church due to the above. One person as “leader” no matter how well intentioned that person is dooms the whole group to dysfunction.
I meant one person as perpetual “leader” without rotation of facilitators leads to permanent dysfunction.
Having said that, I would also like to see bible promises incorporated into the SDA groups, not from the outside in as often happens, but from the inside out. I have some materials by those who developed such a program, but it couldn’t help me because the texts chosen hadn’t “called” me. The texts that did call and help me were from my own study, and that is the only way they will work.
We can share what works for us for others to choose or reject, but we cannot dictate to others what they should do. They are not our clones, nor our robots. Everyone has to find their own way.
I just love the 12 step program in its entirety as a way to live all of life. It complements my bible study so much, and vice versa.
Teresa,
My sentiments are similar to yours. For many years I carried a 12-step card from AA in my wallet. Though never an alcoholic, I like every other sinner certainly do have addictive tendencies.
I have seen the leadership problems you mention with trying to run a 12-step program in a church. I think one of the challenges is to reach a “critical mass” where you do have multiple capable group facilitators to rotate. Unless and until we reach that point, we will either have to import “philistine” facilitators or live with the consequences.
A problem I have seen with trying to introduce Bible verses as opposed to a basic notion of God, is that as I have written elsewhere, addiction and abuse go hand-in-hand. Many of the participants you will find in a church setting are victims of abuse, especially spiritual abuse. To these people Bible verses that may be precious to you and me, can be very toxic. AA was founded by Christians who understood this problem. That is the reason why they keep the spiritual angle very generic and non-threatening.
Another strength of 12-step is the concept of anonymity. For very good reasons people can be reluctant to open-up on Tuesday night (or whenever) to the same people they or their families will have to face at work or at school or at church. For this reason I would suggest an Adventist seeking 12-step help, to consider a group at a different church. There are very few degrees of separation in the Adventist community.
I have been involved in the 12 Step program since the mid ’80s and have found it to be a lifesaver. My father was alcoholic and his father was alcoholic so I qualify on several fronts. I go to meetings on a first name-only basis. That’s the “secret” of the Program. It is is anonymous. With all due respect to the leaders of Adventist Recovery, changing anything about the already-established 12 Step Program makes it another–and I think less effective–program. We as Adventists should promote the 12 Step approach and host autonomous 12 Step groups in our facilities but do nothing more. That is our part to play in this God-given movement. People will come and be blessed. I have.
Phil,
I totally agree with you.
Unfortunately the “Adventist” way is not to trust something we cannot control. And not to host any program in our facilities that we cannot control. Simply open-up the doors to strangers? No way – at a minimum we should register their names or give them some truth-filled literature.
Control is also an addictive behavior and we need an anonymous 12-step program for control freaks.
Thanks for the thumbs up, Jim. I always come away from
a meeting affirmed and rejuvenated. My 3 or 4 meeting a week routine some years ago while pastoring s large church in one major city kept me breathing through a particularly tumultuius time personally and professionally–but except for my wife, nobody knew I was going!