by Abigail Conley
If we want to schedule something out of the ordinary, it means working around the AA groups. I’m guessing many of your churches have people in some version of a twelve-step program in your buildings throughout the week. A small building means ours is a little fuller with these groups.
There’s the early morning group well on their way by 8 a.m. They meet six days a week. There’s the giant men’s meeting, and a mixed-gender meeting, and now a speaker’s meeting. That version is open to anyone, it seems, including people who just want to know more about AA. We’re home to an Atheists and Agnostics meeting as well. They asked tentatively if we were ok with that. I laughed and said, “Yes. We’re Christian, so we have crosses and things like that around, though.” Oh, and then there’s the itty bitty Sunday night one. I think that’s all, but no guarantees.
I know more about Alcoholics Anonymous than I ever thought I would. And I know practically nothing. I am grateful for the leaders who are so kind and helpful to my congregation. Many of the members of the groups have plumbing and handyman skills and so will make small repairs. I offer to reimburse for supplies and they always say no. I return phone calls to people who call the church asking about AA, and give them times and what details I do know; it makes sense to them, at least. Mostly, I know they gather often and without fail, holidays and all.
As a culture, we don’t know as much about addiction as we should. We don’t know how to effectively treat it. There’s little evidence to reinforce the abstinence-only model of AA. The organization started in the 1930s, with no scientific backing. But it works for many people and works shockingly well.
I grew up in one of the many places where drugs have become part of the economy. Dealing or cooking or running drugs is viable employment when nothing else is; using drugs will make many problems go away for at least a little while. We know even less what to do with these addictions than alcohol.
A topic for another day is how addiction is related to economy and to lack of healthcare, especially mental healthcare. But as I watch AA folks in my building, I am also deeply aware that one of the successful treatments for addiction is community. There are twelve steps, sure, but many of the people I see day in and day out have been sober for years, often decades. Somehow, that sobriety and community are linked. While it’s unlikely I’ll ever have medical expertise to talk about addiction, I remain amazed that an effective treatment for addiction is community; that has been true for nearly a century.
This year, my church set some intentional growth goals. As someone who has been a part of a church my entire life, I sometimes forget that church can be the good kind of weird. Sure, you encounter little kids and old people in an increasingly age-segregated society. But church will also put you in rooms with much more wealth than you have and much less than you have. You will learn friendship with people with a wide variety of skills and abilities. In fact, every church I’ve been a part of had at least one adult who had an intellectual disability who was a valued member.
When talking with people who don’t go to church, they are often shocked to find that we expect to visit people in the hospital. There are plenty of other terrible life things where churches are long-time companions for people. Yet, on more than one occasion I’ve heard shock and awe about hospital visits from people who have never been part of a faith community. I find it much more shocking that my own congregation has cultivated a place to talk about infertility, one of those cultural taboos. On a few occasions, news of a pregnancy was shared well before the expected thirteen weeks; one of the people sharing said, “If I have a miscarriage, I need my church through that.” It is decidedly not AA, and yet, there are striking similarities in how trusting those relationships become.
I wholeheartedly believe a church cannot exist just for its members. The Gospel absolutely turns even the church outward from ourselves. Yet, I cannot escape the reality that deep, abiding community is apparently difficult to come by. That reality is attested by the people gathering in the first and last hours of daylight, and even as I write. Maybe even some of our biggest cultural struggles are wrapped up in a need for connection that is not being met.
So when you gather this Sunday, the motley crew that most churches are, that alone is reason to rejoice. That gathering is surely one of the ways Jesus saves us. We need to remember that more often.