Journey to Wholeness Benefits Men Behind Bars
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At the Louisiana State Penitentiary you will find a group of men working toward bettering their lives. Jesus Christ is the ultimate fix for any of us and these men work toward that understanding. These men also work toward their goals by helping one another as they travel along the road to erase addiction and criminal addictive thinking from their mindsets. This is done in small groups using a program called Journey to Wholeness.
When most people think of persons or places of incarceration, they usually develop in their minds an immediate negative concept of those individuals housed there. It seems that many people forget that these are the same individuals that played stick-ball or four-squares in the streets of their neighborhoods. These are the same individuals that when they were younger, you would give them nickels and dimes and send them to the store. What happened to their innocence?
We are not born into a life of addiction nor are we born into a life of criminal and addictive thinking. In other words, addiction is not natural. The questions that should necessarily be asked are: “What happened?” “Why did this person choose this lifestyle?” Or even: “How did it get this far?” These are questions that we as a group strive to answer through our faith in God, prayer and the assistance of a program called Journey to Wholeness.
For those who do not know, Journey to Wholeness is a Christ-centered Twelve Step Recovery Program offered by the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Health Ministries Department. As a way of ministering to the whole person, it was imperative that we include some cognitive assistance. I have suffered from cognitive depravity and the assitance of cognitive behavioral therapy was a great asset in helping me open the door to Christ. I have completed and facilitated many group sessions: How to Change Your World, Power Groups, Hazelden (Relapse Prevention Programs), and walking the 12-Steps with Jesus Christ to name a few.
After a review of the Journey to Wholeness materials, praying and requesting God’s guidance, the materials were incorporated into our Spiritual Recovery Program.
Before preparing this short message, I spoke with some of the guys in the group. I asked the following question: “What do you like about the Journey to Wholeness materials we are using?” Answers varied. Notice a few comments.
“As we assemble, we immediately recognize that this study is a guide for daily living.”
Some of our group members have stated that –
Journey to Wholeness has empowered them to live each day as a journey, and therefore, every night before they go to bed they make travel plans.
One member has stated –
“Journey to Wholeness helped me to build self-esteem because the program is formatted in units rather than steps. At the end of each unit, I saw it as a graduation and this encouraged me to continue forward. The more I traveled, the more I realize that I was not leading, but God.”
Another factor of success is that Journey to Wholeness shows a concern for the whole man, and is not afraid to identify our higher power as Christ. The reference scriptures actually conincide with the context of the material and are not just arbitrarily footnoted.
Now every session is not peaches and cream and actually most are intense, especially with Book One and Three. Book One immediately proves that the Journey to Wholeness is addict friendly. What I mean is that most 12-Step programs usually deal with drugs(different types) and alcohol, but Journey to Wholeness helps us to identify addictive behaviors (overeating, excessive shopping, adrenaline, watching television, and others) that have shadowed us for years developing fear and frustration in our lives.
My greatest moment while traveling through this program was facing my giants. Book Three opened me to a renewed prayer life. I had to acknowledge and remember my hurts and then forgive. I also had to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the hurt and harm that I caused and ask for forgiveness and then I had to forgive myself.
We have had some come to our sessions and discontinue whether after the first meeting and even after several meetings, but we continued on. Our prayer is that they find God and receive peace, but for those of us who have continued on the journey, we understand that we are traveling on the right road and in the right direction, and once we arrive at the end of Book Four Step 12, Book One Step 1 is waiting on us again.
[To read more of this writer’s testimony, please see page 20 of the Southwestern Union Record, February 2013, Vol. 112, No. 2 http://www.swurecord.org/issue/72/40/1582]
Success would not be success, if it had not been for the insight and the forethought of the administration, who knows whether of not men would ever recive the spiritual and congnitve help that is necessary for them to excel and become productive citizens. So as the help and assistance started here, it is good to know that it does not end here. Many thanks are born because this chance has been so graciously provided.
Demetrius Bradley, Head Elder
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Annexation of the Baton Rouge Seventh-day Adventist Church