May 14, 2005
ROGER ALFORD
Associated Press
MANCHESTER, Ky. - If he wasn't at rock bottom, Steve Collett wasn't far from it, shivering inside a portable toilet that served as his shelter on a cold winter's night.
Fresh out of jail with nowhere else to go, Collett started praying to Jesus, seeking help from the shambles he had made of his life because of drugs and crime. When daylight arrived, Collett stepped out of that plastic privy into a new day, having made peace and vowing never to return to his old ways.
Such stories of repentance are being repeated across the heart of Appalachia, where church leaders say communities rife with drugs are uniting behind a spiritual solution and sheer despair is forcing addicts to seek help from a higher power.
"We're right in the middle of a regional transformation," said Doug Abner, pastor of Community Church in Manchester, which ministers to people who have been caught up in the drug trade. "Obviously, if you're a Christian, you believe God can transform a person. We really believe God can transform a community, a city, a county, a region."
The mountain scourge of drug abuse - most notably homemade methamphetamine and prescription painkillers such as OxyContin - has caused an assortment of societal problems, from broken marriages to escalating crime. Drug abusers are robbing pharmacies, burglarizing homes and starting prostitution rings to finance their habits.
In the midst of all this, some churches are seeing exponential growth.
Attendance at Northside Baptist Church in rural Rockcastle County has grown from 40 to more than 400 over the past three years. And the Kentucky Baptist Convention reported 2,000 people in the Harlan County cities of Cumberland, Benham and Lynch have experienced religious conversions in the past three years.
Five new churches have opened in eastern Harlan County, and a ministry providing food and clothing to the poor is now operating out of building that had formerly housed a bar.
"I've been in ministry more than 40 years, and I've never seen a movement of God in one community such as it is there," said Larry Martin, a retired mission leader for the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
Kenneth Collins, a professor of church history at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, said that, as ironic as it sounds, the same force that drove people away from God is now having a hand in driving them back - drugs.
"I think that makes perfect sense that when you have that kind of serious problem that the appeal of faith in Jesus Christ becomes more poignant," Collins said. "Revivalist preachers have claimed that faith in Jesus Christ delivers, breaks the powers of bondage, of oppression. So if you have people who are caught in the throes of drug addiction, Christian faith for them can be enormously liberating."
Manchester's Abner said he believes the current spiritual revival was triggered by churches that had become so concerned for the communities they serve that they began joining forces to try to bring change.
"The churches hadn't really worked together before," he said. "We all had our own little agendas. We had built nice buildings with stained-glass windows and we have hidden behind them while the world around us has gotten worse and worse."
Then, with addicts everywhere, and crimes like robbery and burglary on the rise in formerly quiet neighborhoods, church leaders issued a call to action, bringing denominations together on a single issue. Never mind that they disagreed on some theological issues. They agreed that drugs were bad.
"We've started praying for each other," Abner said. "We've started helping each other. And people without Christ are looking at the church and seeing a bunch of folks who are working together instead of talking about each other and fighting each other, and they're being drawn to the light. It's exciting. We're making a difference where we haven't made a difference much in the past."
Abner said the drug epidemic was the catalyst that spurred the churches to reach out.
"I don't know that we would have ever come together if we didn't have a common problem to deal with," he said. "And it is severe. There's probably not a handful of families not touched by the drug problem."
In Crossville, Tenn., brothers Paul and Kirk Kirkeminde were both strung out on drugs - cocaine and methamphetamines, when Rev. Ralph Reagan, who runs Bread of Life Rescue Mission, began reaching out to them. They're among about 300 people, mostly alcoholics and drug addicts, who have been converted through the East Tennessee mission in the past three years.
Now students at Clear Creek Baptist Bible College in Pineville, the brothers are reaching out to others entangled in the drug web.
"I remember thinking, 'Man, you've got to tell all your buddies about this,"' Paul Kirkeminde said. "I knew right then I had a job to do."
Churches throughout the region now have started programs to help addicts kick their drug habits, creating treatment centers, opening their Sunday school rooms for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and extending a hand to people in need. And they're opening their pulpits to men like the Kirkemindes to share their stories.
"It's a new day," Abner said.
Reformed addicts are a part of the effort in nearly every community. Often, they're more effective at reaching their friends and families than professional clergy.
A little more than a year ago, Collett was the only Christian in his family. Now his wife, brothers and sister are Christians.
And Collett doesn't even look like the same man. He's clean cut, well dressed, and wears a beaming white smile, thanks to an oral surgeon who replaced a mouthful of rotted teeth, the result of methamphetamine abuse.
"I was one of the worst who ever hit this world," Collett said. "I hated anything to do with the church or with God. But now if you talk to me two minutes, you'll hear about Jesus. That's why I'm here. He's the reason I have a home. He's the reason I have food to eat. He's the reason I'm alive."
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/11648516.htm