new to you friday–my name is jen and…..

A few weeks ago, Christian Standard published an article by Brian Jones on “why churches should euthanize small groups.” It caused a bit of kerfluffle (75 comments and counting–check it out here) and is interesting since Brian is speaking at the Small Groups Ministry Conference at CCU in April.

But irony is fun, and I resonated with many of Brian’s thoughts. Small groups have never done it for me, but a 12-step group might. As I noted in the original post, the radical honesty and equally-radical acceptance demonstrated in many of these groups is crucial to overcoming addictions—and it should be more a part of our journey to overcome sin.

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This weekend I finished reading Lit, Mary Karr’s memoir about her relationship with her husband, her addiction and her God.

Every page was a poem—no wonder the book appeared on dozens of “best of 2009″ lists last month. But what struck me most was her experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. As she gets sober and commits to daily meetings, Karr encounters a corps of unlikely comrades: a well-known musician who brings homemade cookies. A black man with tattoos from the Khe Sanh Combat Base in Vietnam. A classics professor. Hookers and bankers. Rich women in Chanel suits and mechanics picking at the grease under their fingernails and still-drunk lawyers and a young man with schizophrenia who once attended a meeting wearing a helmet made of tinfoil.

Karr joined the group after hitting bottom—ending a professional appearance by drinking martinis and wine and chartreuse until blacking out, then trying to drive home until a concrete road divider stops her progress and shoots her out of the moving car.


“A moment of deep self-loathing makes not drinking seem your only conceivable option,” she writes. “But I know that day how swiftly such moments pass, how cunning, baffling, and powerful my own logic can be….for the first time, the disease idea isn’t just metaphorical.”


Although every person at AA can tell a similar—or much worse—story, each one is welcomed, valued, listened to. Jack, the schizophrenic, created his tinfoil hat because he was “convinced his girlfriend was beaming messages to him through the radio,” Karr writes. “It’s a tribute to the radical equality of the room that I never overheard anybody challenge the reasoning.”

This radical equality permeates the group because everyone acknowledges their lives “have become unmanageable” and they cannot successfully and sanely live life without help from each other and a Higher Power. There is no pretense about being more together or less sick than anyone else. The meetings and the community and the prayer save their lives.

And so I was deeply moved by Karr’s experience and deeply convicted about the different experience to be found in many churches—places that, after all, should have the corner on the Higher Power.

We do not admit our lives are unmanageable; in fact we usually find our faults both manageable and excusable. We do not pray and admit our past wrongs and make amends with the desperation of an addict out of better options. We do not find it impossible to go on without submitting our will in complete humility.

Because most of us have not hit bottom in our addiction to sin.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe your church accepts anger and skepticism and even hostility toward the Higher Power. Maybe your members regularly take a moral inventory and confess “the exact nature of their wrongs” and “defects of character” to one another. Maybe they daily help each other fight the disease of our fallen natures. Maybe Jack and his aluminum helmet would fit right in.

If so, I haven’t been to your church. But I’d like to, because my name’s Jen, and I’m a sinaholic.

my name is jen and….

This weekend I finished reading Lit, Mary Karr’s memoir about her relationship with her husband, her addiction and her God.

Every page was a poem—no wonder the book appeared on dozens of “best of 2009″ lists last month. But what struck me most was her experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. As she gets sober and commits to daily meetings, Karr encounters a corps of unlikely comrades: a well-known musician who brings homemade cookies. A black man with tattoos from the Khe Sanh Combat Base in Vietnam. A classics professor. Hookers and bankers. Rich women in Chanel suits and mechanics picking at the grease under their fingernails and still-drunk lawyers and a young man with schizophrenia who once attended a meeting wearing a helmet made of tinfoil.

Karr joined the group after hitting bottom—ending a professional appearance by drinking martinis and wine and chartreuse until blacking out, then trying to drive home until a concrete road divider stops her progress and shoots her out of the moving car.


“A moment of deep self-loathing makes not drinking seem your only conceivable option,” she writes. “But I know that day how swiftly such moments pass, how cunning, baffling, and powerful my own logic can be….for the first time, the disease idea isn’t just metaphorical.”


Although every person at AA can tell a similar—or much worse—story, each one is welcomed, valued, listened to. Jack, the schizophrenic, created his tinfoil hat because he was “convinced his girlfriend was beaming messages to him through the radio,” Karr writes. “It’s a tribute to the radical equality of the room that I never overheard anybody challenge the reasoning.”

This radical equality permeates the group because everyone acknowledges their lives “have become unmanageable” and they cannot successfully and sanely live life without help from each other and a Higher Power. There is no pretense about being more together or less sick than anyone else. The meetings and the community and the prayer save their lives.

And so I was deeply moved by Karr’s experience and deeply convicted about the different experience to be found in many churches—places that, after all, should have the corner on the Higher Power.

We do not admit our lives are unmanageable; in fact we usually find our faults both manageable and excusable. We do not pray and admit our past wrongs and make amends with the desperation of an addict out of better options. We do not find it impossible to go on without submitting our will in complete humility.

Because most of us have not hit bottom in our addiction to sin.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe your church accepts anger and skepticism and even hostility toward the Higher Power. Maybe your members regularly take a moral inventory and confess “the exact nature of their wrongs” and “defects of character” to one another. Maybe they daily help each other fight the disease of our fallen natures. Maybe Jack and his aluminum helmet would fit right in.

If so, I haven’t been to your church. But I’d like to, because my name’s Jen, and I’m a sinaholic.

This week’s Christian Standard features an article on “The 12-Stepping Church” by Dan Gilliam, who until recently served as minister of meditation and prayer at LifeBridge Christian Church in CO. He discusses the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the value of AA and other programs in serving and possibly sharing Jesus with people in recovery.

I’m all for churches adopting the 12 steps, Celebrate Recovery, etc. As Gilliam writes, “Many Christians, having seen remarkable transformations firsthand, believe 12-step fellowships are nothing less than an anonymous arm of Christ’s church, exposing agnostics, atheists, and pre-Christians to the life-changing gospel without some of the more religious aspects that could close their minds to God.”

As I read, I found myself thinking that while it’s now okay to say “I’m an alcoholic” at many churches, it’s not okay to say “I’m a moderate drinker.” For many Christians, any and all alcohol consumption falls into the “black” side of a black and white world.

There’s no question that the best way to avoid substance abuse is to avoid the substance completely. For many people it’s less an issue of legalism and more a recognition of weakness. I have friends who struggle with moderation in eating or spending money and have decided not to add drinking as another temptation in life. I respect that.

For others it’s generational. Many of my Christian friends drink, but most of their parents do not.

Opinions on the issue also vary geographically. Recently I interviewed for a staff position with a church back in the midwest. To remain above reproach, the church requires all paid staff to completely abstain from alcohol. Again, I respect this—the congregation adopted this policy to protect its staff and to make a statement to the community. Although I enjoy a glass of wine most evenings, I would have happily agreed to this rule if called to this role.

But several of my Christian friends out here expressed surprise at the restriction. “You can’t drink at all?” they asked. “What’s the big deal?” Californians tend to (often wrongly) consider themselves more progressive than everyone else, but in this area they do seem less conservative. Whether it’s the proximity to Napa or to Hollywood, the no-booze-for-good-Christians mindset is much rarer here than in the Bible Belt.

And this can be both good and bad. The line between “social drinker” and “heavy drinker” can be a fine one for some folks, and the mindset that all drinking is bad avoids that line altogether. However, it also creates rules that can alienate sincere seekers like my friend who—when presented with the gospel and asked if he wanted to accept Jesus—said, “I want to be a Christian, but……..can I still have a beer with my pizza?”

At the end of the day, (around cocktail hour), it becomes a matter of conscience for every Christian. This isn’t as nice and neat as our Evangelical Prohibition, but I think it is more biblical.