God's love in action: finding the approaches that work

Previously in the "God's love in action" series, I'd looked at how Habitat for Humanity works. Specifically, we focused on why their approach seems to be more successful than other approaches to the same problem. This post continues in the vein of looking at largescale solutions not only for good intentions, but for measurable success in tackling the problem. 

I have heard it said that, as Christians, we are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful. But if "success" is measured in actually helping the people we intend to help, then part of being faithful includes being successful in actually helping people. If we get bad results, then good intentions will require us to try other approaches. 

We don't often think of 12-step groups as a Christian outreach program. But 100 years ago they were exactly that. The leaders in outreach to alcoholics were Christian ministries. And one particular program called "The Oxford Group" was the direct forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

There's still a lot of spiritual work to be done in addiction recovery. But it has resisted mass solutions, and so far people recover one person at a time. For those who recover successfully, there are several things vital to recovery: a wide support system constructed to provide regular face-to-face contact with people who will listen and care, a dedicated contact person who is more experienced and on call to offer guidance; a roadmap of how to lose the dysfunctional coping skills and gain experience with healthier ones; and the concept of individual responsibility as each person takes ownership for their own life. There is also an expectation that people will "pass it on" and be there for the next person who needs help. All that is woven into a framework where spirituality is welcome and religion is, for many, necessary. 

It surprised me at first to see some things in common between Habitat for Humanity and AA (and other 12-step programs). They both focus on re-attaching people to a community, re-attaching people to a support system. They both focus on learning individual responsibility, but not learning it alone or without help. They both take seriously the need for practice and experience with new skills, for guidance with expectations of growing responsibility. 

We live in a world where there is no shortage of good intentions, but few programs have good results. The approach of building a community with structured responsibility seems to have promise, and it might be worth applying it to other large-scale problems. We have plenty of them.