wfn.org | Church workers tackle strategies for fighting drug abuse, violence

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Feb. 23, 1999    Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{098}

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Ryan Boles, a 15-year-old from Oklahoma City, has
been a victim of violence for much of her life. 

Growing up, she saw the physical and sometimes violent arguments of her
parents, and watched her mother succumb to drugs. Eventually, her parents
divorced, and drug abuse led to a five-year prison sentence for her mother.
Ryan went to live with her grandmother.

Enter Redemption Church of Oklahoma. The church, operated by the United
Methodist Church's Oklahoma Annual Conference and the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections, works with prison ministries and seeks to improve prisoners'
lives. Prisoners attend worship services and self-help meetings at
Redemption. 

"My mom is the only federal prisoner to go to the church," Boles said. After
her mother began attending services, congregation members began transporting
Boles to the church from her grandmother's home in a nearby city. Boles and
her mother began a new relationship and were sent to Exodus House to find a
place to live.

Exodus House is a Redemption Church ministry. When someone is released from
prison, the ministry provides a rent-free place to live for six months, puts
them into a rehabilitation program and provides drug testing. "Exodus House
puts families back together, strengthens the community and works to get
drugs off the street," Boles said.

Today, Boles is a speaker and representative for the church, addressing
substance abuse and advocating for prison and justice ministries. She shared
her story with a United Methodist task force that is tackling violence and
substance abuse.

Representatives from churchwide agencies and mission initiatives relating to
the denomination's Special Program on Substance Abuse and Related Violence
(SPSARV) met for the first time Feb. 16-17 in Nashville to discuss the
church's role in addressing drugs and violence. They also worked on
coordinating their individual ministries.

"I'm interested in SPSARV and becoming a part of its mission because I'm
interested in young teens and want to help them know about drugs and
violence before they reach junior high school," Boles said. They must learn
about substance abuse early because many young people have already
experimented with some type of drug by the time they reach junior high
school, she said. "I want to stop this cycle."

In 1996, the program was mandated by the United Methodist Church's top
lawmaking body to coordinate the denomination's drug and alcohol abuse
ministries nationally and internationally in cooperation with the Council of
Bishops. The initiative also collaborates with the boards of Global
Ministries, Church and Society, Discipleship, and Higher Education and
Ministry, as well as the United Methodist Publishing House, United Methodist
Committee on Relief, and Commission on Religion and Race, to support
education, prevention, treatment, community organization and other efforts
aimed at substance abuse and related violence. The national coordinator is
Melissa Davis, and the initiative is based in Washington. 

Since its inception in 1992, the program has worked across program and
agency lines, and the recent consultation was an opportunity to enhance that
kind of coordination and collaboration, Davis said. The consultation also
marked the first time that young people have been at the table when staff
and church leaders have discussed approaches to the drug issue.

Task force members included the directors of the churchwide mission
initiatives: Asian-American/Pacific Island Ministries, the Hispanic Plan,
the Native American Comprehensive Plan, Strengthening the Black Church for
the 21st Century, Communities of Shalom, Restorative Justice/Prison
Ministries and Shared Mission Focus on Young People. 

Throughout the meeting, phrases such as "scourge of society," "debilitating
worldwide crisis," and "endemic and epidemic" were bantered around to
describe the effects that drugs, alcohol and violence are having on society.

The program should "declare defeat in the war on drugs" and admit that
government has lost the battle, said the Rev. Harmon Wray, director of the
Tennessee Annual Conference
Restorative Justice Ministries in Nashville. His suggestion was part of a
seven-point strategy for conquering the increase of substance abuse and
violence worldwide.

Wray said the current "war" has amounted to two things: war on
African-Americans and people of color, reflected in the discrepancy of
sentencing around crack and cocaine, and the desensitizing of a culture
addicted to substances and violence.

To overcome the drug problems, Wray suggested that the church and nation
reject militaristic, police and penal measures because the "solutions are
the addictions" of various state and local government entities. He cited
prisons, many of which are for-profit, as examples of such an addiction.

Harmon also encouraged the church to attack poverty, the root of both
substance abuse and violence. "Poverty is the primary cause," he said. "It
crosses all lines and is both a theological and spiritual issue." 

Society is addicted to materialism and consumerism, he explained. There
needs to be an "examination of what it is about society that make people so
miserable that they feel compelled to alter their realities."  

Within this exploration, racism as a cause must be addressed, he said.
"Racism is all over the place and is intrinsically bound with class."

Wray encouraged the consultation participants to seek help in their mission
by looking at the restorative ministries in existence all over the country,
including victim offender projects and conflict resolution approaches. 

The Rev. Bjorn Elfving of Finland, a representative of the Northern Europe
Committee to SPSARV, gave updates on what the United Methodist Church is
doing in his area to combat drugs and drug violence and how the denomination
can move forward.

Responding to Wray's strategies, he said, "Our cultures are different. We
don't punish people who use drugs anymore. We put them to work." 

People involved in ministries against drug use go into schools, evaluate
students and determine which children have a propensity for drug addiction,
he said. "It is important for us to listen to children to determine who will
have a problem," he said. 

In other action, the 17-member task force developed an interagency and
mission
initiative plan for the remaining and next quadrennium. It included specific
ways the members will work together to tackle the global drug crisis. 

One course of action being planned relates to alcohol abuse and binge
drinking on college campuses. Four Arkansas schools will be part of a pilot
project of shalom on college campuses. They are the University of Arkansas
at Little Rock, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and two United
Methodist-related schools, Hendrix College in Conway and Philander Smith
College in Little Rock. The model that is developed with the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock will be replicated at United Methodist-related
institutions. 

The task force will meet again on July 13 in New York.

______________
United Methodist News Service
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