Greg interviews Pastor Greg Delaney, the faith collaborator for Attorney General Mike DeWine’s Heroin/Outreach Unit. As the faith collaborator, Pastor Delaney travels with Attorney General DeWine and speaks to church communities and other faith leaders on how they can better address the heroin epidemic.
Greg asks Pastor Delaney about recovery churches, their set up, and how they get people involved. Pastor Delaney shares that they try not to force churches into participating or providing services they aren’t comfortable with, but instead work to educate church communities on where they can fit into recovery. “What we really tried to do… is not to press a church into an area where they’re not comfortable, but to look at their own folks and their own gifting and their own talents as a church, and giving them alternatives that they can be part of the solution.” He explains that after this they work to pair up churches and local recovery agencies. “Then we take the next step and we say ‘What do we have locally that’s already helping the problem?’ that you as the church can quickly partner with. So what we’ll do is we’ll bring in local mental health and recovery agencies – other people who are already serving this particular population. We bring those folks in to talk to those church leaders and those church members to say ‘Okay, you don’t have to go reinvent any of this. These folks are in this space doing wonderful work. They’re going to tell you how you can – as a church – engage them. Then, for those that want to become a recovery spot… we come in at the last part of a workshop day and say ‘Here are our proven on-ramps that other churches are currently doing.’
Listen to the podcast to discover how recovery churches and other programs like Prevention First are working to train churches nationwide in substance abuse prevention.
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