Webwatch is a column published in the Covenant Companion Magazine every month. This month's topic is "Resources for Recovery: Finding help online for dealing with addiction, emotional trauma, and abuse"Finding help online for dealing with addiction, emotional trauma, and abuse After
reading the July Webwatch on dealing with suicide, Gary Means of
Cedarcreek Covenant Church in Maple Valley, Washington, sent me some of
his recommendations for Christian recovery websites. These sites assist
people dealing with emotional trauma (grief and divorce), abuse
(physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual), and addictions. In addition
to Gary’s recommendations, I have included a few of my own. If you have
a recovery ministry at your church or you know someone who is in
recovery, this Webwatch may be for them.
www.celebraterecovery.com
Gary’s
Comments: Saddleback Church’s “Celebrate Recovery” ministry is for
people struggling with addictive, compulsive, and dysfunctional
behaviors. Their mission is to fellowship and celebrate God’s healing
power through the “8 Recovery Principles.”
We started a recovery
ministry at Interbay Covenant Church in Seattle for people dealing with
trauma, abuse, and addictions. After I left that ministry leadership
team, they became affiliated with Celebrate Recovery. Rating:
With the exception of the dark background, which can make the text hard
to read, this site is a substantial resource. ★★★★ www.nacronline.com
Gary’s
Comments: NACR, the National Association for Christian Recovery, is a
great organization. Executive director Dale Ryan and his wife, Juanita,
provide daily meditations that are meaningful, sensitive, and
practical. Those meditations have also been published in a book called
Rooted in God’s Love. The online forums are for people dealing
with issues like abuse and addiction. They are a great place for
hurting, desperate people to go when they want to find understanding,
acceptance, and comfort. The forums are a place where people can share
their pains and their fears and learn that they are not alone, no
matter how much it feels that way in the church. The forum for
people dealing with victims of spiritual abuse is more active, and a
bit more volatile too. But it’s still a valuable resource. The NACR
also has a good online library, with lots of articles. I once
heard Dale Ryan speak on spiritual anorexia and it was very powerful.
In an online article
(www.nacronline.com/dox/library/daler/anorexia.shtml), he wrote: “Just
as some people reject physical nurture, others of us reject spiritual
nurture. In spite of living in a world that is full of the love and
grace of God, we can find ourselves starving for God’s love.” Rating:
This site offers a library, audiotapes, forums, referral center, and
much more. It’s designed well and easy to navigate. ★★★★★ www.xxxchurch.org
XXXchurch
is a Christian website created by Mike Foster and Craig Gross, two
young pastors, to help people struggling with issues of pornography.
It’s created to bring awareness, openness, accountability, and recovery
to the church, society, and individuals regarding issues of pornography
and to begin to provide solutions through non-judgmental and creative
means. Their target audiences are teenagers, dabblers, churches, and
church leaders. Main areas of the site you can explore include: get
help, get involved, porn patrol, and prayer wall. Under “get help” is a
program called x3watch, which is free accountability software for
people who want to be kept accountable regarding the websites they
visit. It logs all your website visits and then emails the list to your
chosen accountability partners each week so they can keep you
accountable. Rating: This is the best Christian recovery site out
there. I wish the websites for people seeking recovery from other
issues were this good. The design is very attractive and the resources
are very useful. ★★★★★ www.confidentkids.com
This
is a website for the “Confident Kids,” “Kids Like Me,” and “Celebrating
Families!” programs. All three are designed to help families dealing
with addictions or other crises. Confident Kids encourages
children to talk about their experiences in a loving, safe environment.
Celebrating Families is an newer program, designed for parents who are
in recovery from alcohol/drug abuse or domestic violence. Kids Like Me
provides a Christian support group for children of alcoholics. Rating:
There are very few Christian websites with help for kids who are
struggling or have a parent in recovery, so this site offers a much
needed service. ★★★★ www.alcoholism.about.com/od/christ
About.com
is a kind of interactive encyclopedia—offering a collection of articles
and a guide for each topic. The guide is a combination editor and
expert. This area has lists of articles and outside resources focused
on Christian recovery. It’s a little heavy on alcoholism resources but
there are some overall Christian recovery websites. Rating: A good place to find resources; but About.com gets low grades for its obtrusive advertising. ★★★ www.clergyrecovery.com
The
Clergy Recovery Network is a website with resources for pastors and
religious professionals of all denominations who are in recovery. Their
FAQ says that this site’s forums include Christian clergy peers from
all over the world. Their mission is to mentor ministry professionals
through personal crisis and early recovery. Areas of the site
include forums, a clergy referral center, a library, and a question and
answer section with topics like: “Is there hope for your loved one?”
and “What is the intervention process?” Forum topics include clergy men
in recovery, sexually addicted clergy, and spouses of sexually addicted
clergy. Rating: The library is small, the forums look like they
could have potential, but you need to apply for a password to enter
them, so I don’t know how effective they are. ★ ★★★ All Webwatch reviews are for informational and resource purposes
only. The Evangelical Covenant Church does not endorse any
website, organization, or content. From time to time some of these
links will go dead or they will be sold. When we learn about this we
will take the link off. If you see a dead link please let us know. All images and content Copyright The Covenant Companion.
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