We launch season five of the “Interfaith Matters” podcast with a critical conversation about faith community responses to the opioid/overdose crisis in New York City, where in 2018, there were 1,444 unintentional overdose deaths, of which 80% involved opioids. Rates of overdose have increased in the Bronx, specifically the South Bronx, and among Manhattan and Staten Island residents as well.
Read MorePeople struggling with addiction may face an agonizing decision: do they potentially sacrifice their freedom or a friend's life? Ohio law gives immunity to people with small amounts of illegal drugs if they're calling for help for someone overdosing. A bill in the Statehouse would expand that law to include drug paraphernalia but some faith leaders believe it needs to go even farther.
Read MoreIn a big meeting room that once housed a discount grocery store, people sat around paper plates of sliced barbecue and bowls of banana pudding, wearing name tags bearing the names of churches.
Oak Grove Baptist Church. New Hope Church of Christ. Mount Airy Friends. Central United Methodist Church.
Read MoreAlamance County’s faith leaders came together with healthcare providers Tuesday morning to discuss how the faith community can get involved with harm reduction programs and more to combat the opioid crisis.
The Faith Community Responds Clergy Breakfast was hosted at the First United Methodist Church of Elon. The event was sponsored by various Alamance County groups and presented by the Partners in Health and Wholeness, N.C. Council of Churches.
Read MoreJesse Harvey describes himself as “in recovery.” He has been involuntarily committed five times for substance-abuse disorders—principally addictions to methamphetamine, alcohol, and tranquilizers. He has also used opioids, though he is not addicted to them. He tried to commit suicide before his third involuntary commitment. The treatment facility in Pennsylvania summarily discharged him onto the street with no follow-up plan. Just recently, Harvey relapsed again, was arrested, and checked himself into another treatment program.
Read MoreWhen it comes to helping people afflicted with drug addiction, Michelle Mathis emphasized the importance of “meeting people where they are” and addressing their specific needs.
Mathis, who is the executive director of Olive Branch Ministry, a faith-based harm reduction outreach organization in the state, said when trying to help people, there is no uniform plan that works for all.
Read MoreFor those of us who are suffering, how do we find joy and experience pleasure? How do we create a world in which less suffering is possible? What does it look like to build community in the face of such suffering, and how can we create communities that are safe for each and every person?
Read MoreAn unspoken sermon of sorts is playing out here, just inside a side entrance to College Park Baptist Church. It isn't based on a Bible verse, and a choir is nowhere to be seen.
Some might think it's for the addicts who use the entrance to get the clean needles offered inside by the Guilford County Solution to The Opioid Problem program. It's not.
It's about what happens when the faith community partners in battling the burgeoning opioid crisis. And it's meant for the faith community.
Read MorePeople who use drugs may not come to mind immediately when United Church of Christ members think of values like Extravagant Welcome or Love of Neighbor. A growing community of UCC people is working to change that.
Read MoreDowntown Louisburg is much like a lot of North Carolina’s small downtowns. The pride can be seen in its clean streets and sidewalks, as well as its shops and restaurants.
That isn’t the only thing Louisburg has in common with the rest of the state. As it turns out, the opioid crisis isn’t just a big city problem.
Read MoreWith a multitude of locations, North Carolina's churches have the potential to be potent weapons in the fight against opioid overdoses and deaths. If only church leaders take the opportunity.
Read MoreThe Rev. Sarah Howell-Miller, a United Methodist minister, once opposed needle exchange programs for opioid addicts — a stance shared by legislators in some three dozen states. The idea of giving addicts the means to shoot up was, in Howell-Miller’s word, “garbage.”
Read MoreAn upcoming breakfast meeting that is scheduled for June 20 in Kitty Hawk will bring together the local church community in a broader discussion about what folks can do to address the opioid crisis on a close-to-home scale.
Read MoreIt’s common knowledge that seminary doesn’t teach everything needed for professional ministry in the 21st Century. Yes, we get Hebrew, Greek, Exegesis, Church History, Theology, Worship, Preaching, Ethics, Administration, Christian Education, and Field Education. We don’t generally get Community Organizing, Non-Profit Management, Finance, Property Maintenance, or Conflict Mediation.
Read MoreMaine’s faith communities this month are grappling with how they can and should respond to the opioid crisis that continues to claim about one life every day to an accidental overdose.
Religious leaders in Greater Bangor, along with policymakers and treatment provides, will gather Thursday at St. John Catholic Church on York Street for the Second Annual Healing Service. The first was held in April 2018.
Read MoreNorth Carolina's clergy are gathering in cities across the state to talk about the opioid crisis. A recent survey found more than 70 percent of clergy in North Carolina say their congregations have been affected by opioids.
Barriers to accessing substance abuse and mental-health resources make church one of the first places people turn to for help with addiction. Elizabeth Brewington, opioid response program coordinator with the North Carolina Council of Churches, is organizing the clergy breakfasts.
Morning to evening, nearly seven days a week, Karen and Michelle endure taxing commutes to bring harm reduction services to drug users in North Carolina’s hard-hit, rural areas.
Read MoreThe NC Council of Churches and others lobbied in Raleigh for Medicaid expansion as a way to get more people with substance use disorder into treatment.
Rebekah Paulson found God in jail. As a former heroin user with a criminal record, she faced a lot of barriers when she got out.
She wanted to attend church but discovered that many in the pews around her didn’t understand what she had been through. She eventually found Source Church in Dare County, where she said the pastors and members understood her story.
Read MoreIn 2017, some south Bronx neighborhoods experienced a rate of overdose-related deaths more than twice that of the citywide average. The opioid epidemic has devastated New York City, and no where more than the Bronx.
Read MoreWhen Gov. Pat McCrory signed legislation in July legalizing syringe exchange programs in North Carolina, James Sizemore rejoiced.
The pastor of a small church, Sizemore had — with the tacit approval of some, but not all, local law enforcement — been offering clean syringes to drug users to help them avoid contracting HIV and hepatitis C. Now he could do so without fear of arrest.
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