Topic
Faith as a recovery pathway — congregations, programs, and people for whom belief is part of the structure that holds.
9 stories
Marcus sat in a church basement for the first time, uncertain. Around him, people he'd never met nodded in recognition. Five free programs exist for people in recovery, each built on different beliefs…
Maria sits by the river near her home, watching light dance across the water. She's learned to see this moment as sacred, part of something larger than herself. This excerpt explores how people discov…
A pastor stands before her congregation on Sunday morning and names addiction aloud, speaking of it not as moral failure but as illness worthy of compassion. Her church becomes one of hundreds nationw…
Someone turns to their faith for comfort during crisis, only to experience harm instead. When religion or spirituality becomes a source of pain rather than healing, the damage cuts deeper because your…
Jim Mello's Sunday sermons reach three Methodist churches, his poetry fills handwritten notebooks by the thousands, and his voice once hosted a college radio show. But it's his work as a substance use…
She kicked the drywall in anger during rehab and her feet broke through in the shape of a heart. Years of using drugs to silence shame had nearly killed her. Now, in a converted bar that became a chur…
Bruce Noddin sat in a prison ministry meeting when he noticed the same faces returning to the system again and again. That observation sparked a statewide network connecting corrections staff, nonprof…
Tricia Grant is program director at Sophia's House. She is following a calling to help others "become survivors and then thrivers," and she says it took time to let go and let God.
Rev. Allen Ewing Merrill stands before his congregation and speaks plainly: every person has sacred worth, no exceptions. At HopeGateWay in Portland, faith communities are moving beyond hosting meetin…
