It will meet every Friday evening.
Frederick, Md (KM). A faith-based recovery program will begin operations in Frederick this week. Reformers Unanimous will hold weekly meetings at Ambassador Baptist Church at 216 Carroll Parkway in Frederick on Friday evenings beginning on January 5th at 7:00 PM.
“You see people all around Frederick,around our community that are struggling with it. You see reports in the newspaper and in the news all the time. Just through that, we have a burden for the addicted. So we came across this program and seeing what a great success rate it had. So we thought we’d get a hold of these people and start the program out of our church,says Larry Gibb, the Director of Frederick RU.
The program has been around for just over 20 years. “The RU program was started in 1996 in a local church in Rockford, Illinois, called North Love Baptist Church. And it was to meet the emerging, growing need of helping people with addictions,” says Dr.Bruce Miller with Reformers Unanimous. “Now they have over 2,000 chapters across America all in local churches, and hundreds overseas.”
The program, according to Wendyjo Householder with RU, uses Biblical verses and shared experiences to try to keep those people who’ve gotten off drugs or alcohol to stay clean and sober. She says the meetings consist of three parts: talking to God; breaking up into small groups and sharing experiences of how some people stayed off drugs and alcohol; and the third part was letting God speak to them. “We teach our students to memorize Scripture and mediate on it. And they get strength from that. They also have support of everyone else in the group. A lot of times they’ll call each other or they’ll call leadership to ‘just talk me through this; help stay on the phone; right now, I’m having an issue,'” she says.
Dr. Miller says the faith-based method is working. “The success rate is 82%. Now that’s not 82% of the people who come through the door, or who are there for two or three weeks. If they’ll work the program for one year, there’s an 82% deliverance and success rate,” he says.
There is no cost to participate in the program; except for a nominal price for the workbook, says Dr. Miller. The Ambassador Baptist Church is paying for this program through its budget.
He also says this program meets on Friday nights, when a lot of substance abusers would go out and try to buy drugs or alcohol. In addition to substance abuse, Dr.Miller says this program also works for addictions to gambling and pornography, as well as individuals with anger issues.
As with many addiction treatment programs, some of those who would benefit often don’t want to attend these meetings despite the pleadings from family and friends. “You can’t really force somebody to get the help until they’re ready to get the help,” says Householder. “The family will keep coming, even though their loved whose addicted isn’t coming. And we’ll be supportive to them and we’ll pray with them and we’ll try to reach out to their family member to encourage their family member” to come, Householder says.
The program is available from other churches in the region, including ones in Hagerstown, Westminster and Baltimore, according to Dr. Miller. It’s also being supported by churches in Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs, WV, an Winchester, Va.
By Kevin McManus