Recently several of the ministers in the Graffiti Network have been thinking critically about how to minister effectively to individuals with addictions, specifically heroin addiction. I’m still learning, but here’s the strategy I’ve come to embrace:
Meet the need first
Build Relationships
Trust God to transform lives
This strategy has been shaped by firsthand experiences on the streets of the Bronx. This is the second of four blog entries sharing those stories.
In the last blog, the question was posed, “How do we move from Relief Work to Release Work?”
I’ve learned that transition only happens as we build relationships.
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
Over the past decade while living and ministering in the Bronx, I’ve encountered many people who are struggling with alcoholism or addiction. One such person has been on a long road of healing. For the past two years, our ministry center team has seen him make steps forward and backward.
Here is a simple commitment we make:
We will stick with people on their journeys.
Several weeks ago, a colleague and I were driving this man to the hospital. He was drunk, a state in which we have seen him countless times. He is an entirely different man when he is sober—quiet, enjoyable and sweet. When drunk, he is wild, obnoxious, and vulgar.
As we approached the hospital, he changed his mind. He didn’t want to go. At first, I made a futile attempt to keep the doors locked so he couldn’t exit. His drunkenness didn’t diminish his persistence. So instead, I stopped the car and allowed him to leave safely. He stumbled around and eventually fell in the street.
As I saw the man drunk in the street, I thought to myself, Just leave him. There’s nothing you can do.
Then a simple question came to mind:
What would I do for a friend?
A friend wouldn’t leave him there, no matter how many times he has been in that state.
With that in mind, we called 911, waited for the ambulance to arrive, gave the paramedics information about our friend, and made sure he was in safe hands.
Since that day, he has been to church, we’ve met for lunch, and we made plans for him to get into rehab. Some days he has been sober, and other days he has been drunk.
*Actually, at the time of writing this, he is in a 28-day rehab program*
The question, “What would I do for a friend?” has continued to ring in my mind. It has guided many of my words, actions and choices.
A recent book by Dr. John Perkins entitled, He Calls Me Friend (The Healing Power of Friendship in a Lonely World) has greatly influenced my thinking. On the back cover, Dr. Perkins sums up the book saying,
Sometimes I’m asked, what should we do? How can we make a difference? This book is my answer. Be friends. First with God. Then with others—every kind of other you can think of. Because the simple powerful, messy, explosive truth is: the world is changed one friendship at a time.
In the book, Dr. Perkins uses Jesus’s interaction with the leper in Matthew 8 to call the reader to be a friend to “outsiders.” These are people “at the bottom rung of society and they are alone, desperately in need of someone who will be like Jesus for them and will heal them with the offer of friendship and love.” Dr. Perkins tells us, “We can learn a lot about true friendship from Jesus. He wasn’t put off by sin. No amount of sin kept him from being friends with someone.”
At our ministry center in the Bronx, we are exploring ways we can build relationships with “outsiders.” A coworker of mine has a passion for this. Loving coffee and loving people, he decided to host a free coffee shop every Thursday at our ministry center. He arrives early to clean and prepare the space so it is comfortable and hospitable. He also brews a great cup of coffee. All of those details are important, but not essential; essential to his ministry is what takes the most effort and the least money, listening.
We all want to be heard. Outsiders have no one to listen.
A friend will listen.
Listening isn’t easy. It can be painful at times. Ask my coworker after an entire morning of hearing people complain, gripe, rant, and moan about topics ranging from politics to landlords, from aliens to rats. My coworker might be the most patient, compassionate person I know. True listening requires compassion. Compassion isn’t just feeling sorry for a person, but as Dr. Perkins defines it, “compassion is entering into the pain of others.”
That’s what Jesus did. He entered our pain. He became our friend and then we became a friend of God. We are called to do the same for others.
Friendship is “discipleship in action” (Perkins), changing the world one friendship at a time.