First Assembly of God of Nicholasville

 

Lifeline "Living Free" Group Meeting

 A Christ-centered recovery program for anyone struggling with

or anyone wanting to help someone struggling with life-controlling issues.

Living Free is held weekly at our church. Babysitting is provided and refreshments served.

The following is an article on Living Free published by The Jessamine Journal.

Wednesday January 16, 2008

Out of the darkness
Lifeline providing support to battle addiction

By Megan Hurt
Contributing writer

This is it,” pastor of First Assembly of God, Terry Moore said. He was referring to a room inside his church with a large conference table and a coffee machine in the corner.

“They like to have snacks in here during the meetings,” he said, pointing out the small table the coffee machine was on.

“They” are the group of people who meet once a week at First Assembly of God to work on their recovery from addictions.

The meetings, part of a bigger program called Lifeline, is for a non-residential addiction support group called “Stepping into Freedom” that helps people combat life addictions through a relationship with God. Lifeline originally started as part of the residential recovery program Teen Challenge and is now being implemented in Jessamine County.

Moore, along with several pastors of Jessamine County, including Sean Shroll of Mount Lebanon United Methodist Church and Raymond Jones of Jessamine Community Church, felt that Jessamine County needed a substance abuse program, but the government was low on resources. The pastors decided they could find and execute a program that would help address the issues.

While a residential program is most often used for substance abuse addictions, the pastors thought a non-residential support group would be more beneficial to the people who need help in Jessamine County.

“The county does not have the resources or people to do a long term drug facility,” Jones said. “It could fail miserably. There is no reason to set people up to fail.”

The pastors heard about Lifeline and Teen Challenge, which started in New York and has since been used as far as Poland and Russia. The program is popular in eastern Kentucky.

Since 2004 the Lifeline program, in partnership with local police, has succeeded in increasing the drug arrests 300 percent and helping drug dealers and users become clean in that area, according to a report done by the 700 Club news program. The pastors of Jessamine County knew this program was the one that could work here.

Although Lifeline’s curriculum uses a 12-step program comparable to the 12 steps of recovery used in Alcohol Anonymous, Moore is quick to point out where Lifeline is different.

“It’s more personal,” he said. “It has some of the same steps as AA, but it’s a longer commitment and it helps take life another step.”

While AA focuses on helping people suppress their addiction, Lifeline focuses on helping people rid themselves of the addiction through a relationship with God.

“Church is like the AA mentor,” Shroll said. “Christ can provide complete freedom.”

Lifeline’s program does not only address substance abuse, but can also be applied towards what is referred to as “life-controlling problems” by the Lifeline Connection proposal.

“It’s for any addiction: anger, weight, work.” Jones said. “Anything that controls you life.”

Stepping into Freedom’s curriculum is universal to any addiction because it doesn’t focus on the addiction as the problem, but instead the symptom of some greater underlying problem, which can only be revealed and healed through a relationship with God.

“They think they can control their addiction and that belief means they can’t control it,” Jones said. “Their life is like plates spinning, balancing on a pole. They think they can keep all the plates spinning at once but they get to a point where the plates are falling, but they don’t see that.”

“The wound is in a blind spot,” he said. “You can’t see it yourself. There are some things that God knows about us that we don’t know.”

Because the program is designed with a focus on healing underlying problems, there is no distinction between the facilitator and the people seeking help. The relationship isn’t one of a teacher and student, but a group discussion between peers.

“What’s the difference between the drug dealer and the person sitting in a pew?” Jones asked. “There isn’t one. None of us have it all together. At a pure level, the facilitator is a wounded healer. They grow through the process too.”

The Lifeline program is currently going through its first 12-week “Stepping into Recovery” group, with most participates training to be facilitators. The program includes two other support groups called The Insight Group, which establishes the process of recovery and Concerned Persons Group, which is designed to provide help to families of addicts. The pastors hope to have all three groups meeting simultaneously by February.

The goal is to have Lifeline of Jessamine County become comparable to eastern Kentucky’s program. The pastors want to see involvement with the county’s detention center, have the county judges offer Lifeline as a choice for a mandated substance abuse program, and have as many churches as possible host meetings.

“Our goal is to have a network of groups, connected with each other,” Jones said. “This can get the churches connected.”

After completing the program, Lifeline can also connect people who need more help with a residential program connected with Teen Challenge or a church that can provide additional support.

As Jones points out, “Lifeline won’t stop everyone’s problems, but it’s a doorway.”

For more information about the program, contact Terry Moore at  (859) 885-7601

Copyright:The Jessamine-Journal 2008

 

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