A Grace-Filled Weekend: On Mission to Kids with A House Church in La Piedad

We spent the weekend on mission with a house church in La Piedad, Michoacan.  This church began 2 ½ years ago.  Martin and Rosa are people of peace who invited us into their home and into their network of relationships to demonstrate and proclaim the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom.  From the beginning of our relationship, they have wanted us to help them grow to be a vibrant spiritual family of Jesus in and to their neighborhood.  Experiencing God’s work through their lives has been one of the highlights of the past couple of years.   

Martin and Rosa—and virtually everyone around them—live in a world marked by alcohol and drug addiction.  Almost everyone they know fall into at least one of these categories:  addict, recovering addict, codependent family member of addict.   

They believe that God has rescued and graced them so they can participate with God to rescue others.  They especially feel fashioned by God to help kids and youth to choose a better path for their lives.   

This past weekend, we accompanied them in their 2^nd kids/youth weekend.  The 1^st one was back in November.  This time, four leaders from 2 of the house churches in Guadalajara joined my family and me and almost 30 kids and youth from their network of friends and family.   

We spent about 28 hours in and around Martin’s house ministering to, playing with, and talking and listening to kids.  It was messy.  At times it was wild.  There were really 2 groups of kids.  There were about 20 young kids (5 to 11 years old).  There were 8 youth (13-17).   

It felt good to be useful in God’s hands—to really feel like God reached in to the lives of desperate and hurting kids.   

We told and played three stories from scripture.  Early on Saturday, we told the story of Creation—were able to really talk about God’s dream for humans and for the world God made.  We listened to each other admit that the world we live in seems a lot different than the perfect one that God called “good.”   

Later on that afternoon, we told the story of the 1^st humans and their choice to not trust God and to disobey—we were able to really talk about the lies being spoken around us—about consequences—specifically the ones we’ve seen with our own eyes and experienced.  We discovered together again that God looks for people even when we’ve messed up.   

On Sunday morning we told the story of Adam’s and Eve’s children and how as 2^nd generation humans, they had to suffer consequences of their folks’ disobedience—and how they also got a chance to choose for themselves.  We challenged one another to not live as victims. 

In the hours after each story, there were conversations and games.  There were activities and some really powerful skits and object lessons.   There was singing and praying…and some crying. 

It was a great weekend—great to feel used by God for good in the lives of kids who really need some good.   It was especially good to see God work through my friends—to see people very dear to me live more fully into God’s design for their lives–and for them to know it. 

Staying Saved (part 3)

I continue to reflect on my recent experience with M—trying to learn about the battle we are in and how we must protect ourselves and one another.    

As an addict, M has always insisted that his relationship with other addicts is a key element in his ongoing recovery.  For him, that was fleshed out in his participation in the “4^th and 5^th Step Group.”  This is where he initially found sobriety and began a more focused search for God in his life.  It seems that this group (like many 12-step groups) acknowledges the role of a Supreme Being.  This group seems to be more explicit in their acknowledgment that the Supreme Being is the God of the Bible.  Yet, the group exists for recovery from addictions.  It is still recovery-centered and not mainly God/Christ centered.  Anyway… 

A couple of years back, in the context of his recovery and experience with his group, M began a serious search for God…reading his Bible regularly…praying…seeking answers.  During this time, God brought our paths together.  My family and I began helping M to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  We helped he and his family envision simple discipleship and the formation of a Christ community based in their home and family.  We confirmed him in his desire to remain connected to his recovery group…to continue to see this as a key element of his community…perhaps a place where he can continue to minister incarnationally to others with a similar past.  This seemed to work for him. 

However, with time, M began to be drawn to a group within the larger recovery group.  This smaller group (5-7 of them) shared a desire to follow Jesus, study the Bible together, etc.  I’m not sure all that happened but this smaller group became increasingly desirous of forming a more “Christ-centered” recovery group.  They were bothered by some of the practices of the larger group.  There were some strong personalities in this group and there may have also been some underlying conflicts that contributed to all of this.  Anyway, they began meeting separately—met two or three times weekly to discuss their ongoing recovery and once each week for a more specific time of Bible study.  One of their primary goals was to rethink the monthly Experiencia (outreach event) that the 4^th and 5^th Step groups do.  They wanted to continue doing this…but do it in a more Christ-centered way.  This conversation and shift began back in January.   

I live a couple of hours away and was listening in on the conversation, traveling out to be with M’s family a time or two each month—mainly providing spiritual support and coaching for this simple faith community in formation.  I interpreted this new, Christ-centered recovery group as perhaps a next step development in the life of the growing church—I listened to M talk of this and encouraged him and prayed for he and his companions.  I had some contact with the others, but mainly focused my attention on M and his family.   

Anyway…the months passed without M and his new group actually having a monthly outreach Experiencia.  Every month they were studying and working on it…but they never felt “prepared” enough to have it.  “Maybe next month” they would say.  One of M’s friends, F had taken a leading role in this new group.  F has a Pastor friend from a local Christian church.  They just were not prepared enough yet to do the outreaches F believed.  The group followed his lead.   

I could tell M was concerned about this.  He didn’t understand why the group didn’t feel “prepared” enough to go ahead and experiment with the events.  But he kept submitting to the group decision.  I had a bad feeling about the new recovery group’s failure to not involve themselves in the “mission” that had been so key to their recovery.  I voiced that to M.  He agreed but the months continued to pass.   

In June, M began to show signs of unhealthiness.  He had further conflict with one of the key members of the group.  Soon he drank.   

As I reflect on this, I am struck by the relationship between our involvement in “mission” and our ongoing spiritual well-being.  Helping others is key for our “recovery.”  If we stop telling our story and helping others enter into the story then the story tends to get fuzzy and we forget…and we stop living it.   

I’m also struck by a common lie of the Enemy:  You aren’t quite ready to help others.  You aren’t prepared enough.  Take another class.  Read another book.  Get another degree.  Then you’ll know enough to help others.   

One of the main ways we prepare to help others is by helping others…learning as we go.  Noticing what we are learning…trying to do it better next time.   

I guess this is what I’m trying to do here!  

Staying Saved (part 2)

A few days back I was sitting with my friend M.  As we were praying together and sharing recent struggles and victories, the conversation moved to the last few months and M’s recaida into drugs and alcohol—to his recent (5 weeks ago) escape again into the world of the living.   

When asked to reflect on all of this, M is quick to insist that the responsibility was his…that no one else is to blame.  He speaks easily and in a balanced way about his understanding of the spiritual battle going on between the Kingdom of God and the dominion of Satan, his full acceptance of his own responsibility and the consequences of his choices, and the reality that he has a disease called alcoholism.  He is transparent about terrible experiences that he had earlier in his life—yet he doesn’t have a “victim” mentality.  His gratitude to God and his resolve to live soberly are obvious.   

Yet, M and his wife are working on it.  They want to learn from this experience—we all do.  M’s reflection on his experience with his recovery group seems important in all of this.   

As an addict, M has been in and out of dozens of groups over the past couple of decades.  Though the personalities and specifics vary, all of these groups work through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  M didn’t get really serious about this until 2 or 3 years ago.  Though he believes God was the real power, M found the road to sobriety through a group that emphasizes the 4^th and 5^th Steps—they work all the steps but they call themselves, “Groups of 4^th and 5^th Steps.”  One of their distinctive characteristics is a commitment to have regular (usually monthly) retreat experiences.  At these weekend experiencias newcomers (alcoholics, addicts, and some codependents) are guided through a rigorous treatment of the 4^th and 5^th steps by the experienced members of the group.  In the 4^th step they go through an extensive inventory of their past discovering the roots of their addictions.  In the 5^th step they share their discovery with one of the experienced members who then serves as their sponsor.  This monthly event serves as the door for newcomers looking for sobriety.  It serves as the tangible “mission outreach” of the group.  It also allows each addict to stay connected to their own recovery by sharing testimony and helping to facilitate the recovery of others.   Everyone participates.  M and his wife have been very involved in the experiencias over the past few years—very important for their ongoing recovery.   

However, while this group and their “mission experience” was so key to M’s initial and ongoing recovery, it seems to have also played into his fall back into drugs and alcohol.   What do I mean? 

In their discovery of really good principles and methods for helping one another, the “4^th and 5^th Step” groups developed a serious case of elitism and exclusivity.  I sensed this from early on in my experience with them—M has talked about it a lot lately.  They take great pride in their way of doing the program.  There is a lot of mystery here—you can’t really know what happens until you go as a newcomer.  Then you have to promise not to tell details to outsiders.  This breeds a sense of secrecy and exclusivism into the DNA of the group.  The elitism is also evident in the groups’ stance towards other “12 Steps” groups.  Any other group is 2^nd rate and both subtly and publicly are criticized.  Again, this bothered me early on as I began to have contact with this group—but I’m not an alcoholic and the group seemed to be so important to my brother M.   

Ultimately, the elitist attitude of the group contributed to M’s fall (and come to find out many, many others over the years).  Because M had bought into the belief that only “4^th and 5^th Step” groups were acceptable for good recovery, any other recovery group (AA, 12-Step, etc.) was not an option.  Satan worked to cause problems relationally and philosophically between M and some of the other members of the group.  M became increasingly uncomfortable there.  But, because of the subtle belief that no other recovery group could help him (because they were flawed philosophically and/or methodologically), he dropped out of all recovery groups.  Satan had him.  He soon took a drink.   

In the last few weeks, M has visited many other recovery groups.  He has found many who tell the same story as his…that the elitist group ultimately contributed to unhealthy beliefs and a fall from sobriety.   

Somehow this sounds familiar to me.  Exclusive, legalistic beliefs and methods have negative long-term effects on sincere and usually well-intentioned people.  We get caught without even knowing it.   

Could this be a truth even outside the world of recovery groups?!!!

Staying Saved

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my friend M.  He’s had an incredibly hard life—alcohol, drugs, violence, etc.  He says he started drinking at 12…considers that he was an alcoholic a few years later.  Of course his relationships with his wife and their 5 kids have been marked by the addictions.  He came to know Christ some time ago and began to seriously follow Jesus a little over two years ago.  He is very open about all of this.  A simple church has been forming in the last couple of years around M. and his family.  They have connections to hundreds (at least) of people in and around their city.  He and his wife have especially mixed with recovery groups in these years—they have ministered among other addicts and the codependents around them.  God has used them in powerful ways! 

M began drinking again almost 4 months ago.  He was immediately enslaved again.  He went from alcohol to serious drugs within days—going to depths he had not previously experienced.  It has been horrible for all of them—their own hell.   

And yet, AGAIN God graced M and his family with salvation.  Against all odds, he has AGAIN been delivered from the claws of the evil one.   The relief and thankfulness they all feel—we all feel—is enormous.  I am amazed at God’s power in this.  We praise God.  Mostly—or at least firstly—we rest in the grace.   

Yet…I want to know and understand better what happened.  What can M’s experience reveal to us and teach us about the battle in which we live?  What were the Enemy’s strategies to draw us back into the slavery?  How are we vulnerable still?  What can we do to better look out for ourselves and for one another?   

This has my attention.