A Few Days in Chattanooga Changed How I Think About What We're Building

I drove down to Chattanooga on Sunday for Living Free facilitator training and came back Wednesday morning. Quick trip but it packed a lot in.

Fresh Start at City Church

City Church Chattanooga runs a Living Free ministry called Fresh Start. I got to go on a night they had about 30 or 40 people. Everyone ate dinner together first, then they did a large group 12-step meeting with worship and the steps before breaking off into their Living Free small groups.

I'm an introvert at heart so I always enjoy just sitting back and watching a room work. Seeing the leaders engage with folks. I ended up talking to a guy who'd been in a sober living home for about three weeks. He was telling me about some employment opportunities he had lined up. You could tell he was actually hopeful about it.

I got to share my testimony that night. I've only preached a few times this year so it was fun to get back up and tell the story again. During my testimony I mentioned the drawing I made when I was six that I found while going through family stuff after Dad's memorial. A picture of what I wanted to be when I grow up. It said "pastor" with the number 22 on it. Wild how I went through my addiction and ended up getting free and seeing that happen by 22. I encouraged the room that no matter what they were walking through, God sees the picture of your life even when you can't.

I wrapped up and Greg came up to close. He did a phenomenal job with the altar call and inviting people to follow Christ. I think four people gave their lives to Christ that evening. What a great moment.

The Training

I got to meet a great couple named Joel and Mary from Fredericksburg. The lead Lifeline2Freedom They've got multiple Living Free groups running in their church and they're only a few hours up the road from us.

Living Free put together a formal outcomes study. Real interviews. Real surveys. The kind of report a judge or a grant committee would actually read.

The numbers hit me. Hope for the future went from 63% to 89%. 97% reported spiritual growth. Not "I feel a little better." People who walked in calling themselves failures walked out understanding their identity in Christ. People who had no devotional life at all started opening their Bible every morning because they wanted to. Nobody made them.

A lot of these participants had already done AA. NA. Detox. Multiple programs. Those programs gave them coping skills. Living Free gave them Christ. That's why it lasted.

"We ran 63 groups this year" sounds nice on a report. "People's lives are actually different now" hits different. One is activity. The other is transformation. Now they can prove it. That's not a small shift. That's everything.

It's Not What People Think It Is

Most people hear "Living Free" and think recovery program. Addiction. 12 steps. It's so much bigger than that.

The material covers grief. Anger. Fear. Codependency. Pornography. Identity. Family dysfunction. The stuff people carry into church every Sunday and never say out loud.

I watched it click for a room full of ministry leaders during the training. The awareness workshop walks through how any dependency forms. Not just substances. The guy putting in 70-hour weeks because he can't face what's happening at home. The woman grinding through anxiety and calling it "trusting God." This speaks to all of it.

The same Jesus who pulled me out of meth addiction is the same Jesus who sets someone free from bitterness they've nursed for three decades. The Word of God, the Spirit of God, the people of God. That's the mechanism. It doesn't change based on the problem.

What Families See

One finding from the research stopped the room. Families noticed the change before participants even told them about the program. Nobody handed the spouse a workbook. The person just came home different. And that cracked open doors that had been sealed for years.

Living Free is building a VBS curriculum called Next Gen that runs alongside the adult groups. Kids learning the same truths at their level while their parents go through Living Free. The church should be the safest place to struggle. That has to mean the whole family.

What's Next for Us

Ashley and I are looking at connecting with some community-based ministries in our area. Hosting trainings at 6043 Broad. Bringing the material to para-church locations. One of the leaders at the training had been trying to get into drug courts in Missouri for years. She said she finally has something to walk in with. We've got the same doors to knock on here.

Transformation Project in Chattanooga says 50% of their Living Free graduates go on to become facilitators. Half. Heart changes. Takers become givers. You don't program that into somebody.

None of it matters without people who show up. Facilitators willing to sit in the mess with somebody on a Tuesday night. Churches that will open a room for a group that might get uncomfortable. People who will look someone in the eye during the worst season of their life and say, I'm not going anywhere.

If you need that kind of community, or you want to help bring it to where you are, reach out.

Hear more: From Addiction to Ministry: How God Gave Him a New Identity