The Alcoholics In My Church Motivated Women to Fill the Gap

A Story in the West Side Church Series

The Alcoholics In My Church Motivated Women to Fill the Gap

The Prayer

An alcoholic named Carl prayed the most beautiful prayer for my ordination to Baptist Christian ministry in 1973. He had written the prayer. I saved it for many years, but now I cannot find it. I wish I could.

He was one of the best Bible teachers in the church. He prayed some of the most inspiring prayers I have ever heard. They helped all who heard them feel they were in God’s presence. Carl had taken us there.

It is not that he was asked to pray my ordination prayer and then later I discovered he was an alcoholic. I knew he was an alcoholic. I requested he pray my ordination prayer. I hoped he would be sober that day. He was.

But he was not sober the next day.

Carl was a binge drinker. He could be sober for weeks or months. Then something would ignite the need to drink, and he would drink almost constantly for several days or weeks.

When I could, I would find him and help get him home. He did not go far. He did not have to. In the neighborhood around the church there were streets where there was a bar on every corner and one in the middle of the block.

Men who drank until they were drunk was a common thing in the neighborhood. In the church. They would get off first shift work and stop by a store, purchase a six pack – or two – go home and lay on a couch, turn on the television, and start drinking.

They might eat supper before they drank enough to fall asleep.

In the matriarchal culture of that neighborhood, women ran the households as most of them stayed sober. We held activities such as Vacation Bible School at night because the women who worked in VBS also held jobs during the day to keep their family out of poverty and away from government assistance.

Multiple women would say about their VBS responsibilities – “If my husband drinks enough to fall asleep, I will be there. If not, don’t worry about me, and I am sorry I cannot make it those nights.”

It was generally not a problem. Their husbands fell asleep as expected.

Carl

Carl was not a daily drinker. As indicated earlier, he was a binge drinker. He needed a spark to ignite his desire to drink.

Was it the trauma he experienced during World War II? That was the general thought by his wife and others in the community. He was in his late 60s. If it was PTSD, in the early 1970s when I was ordained, this was not yet an official diagnosis.

It was around 1980 before PTSD was officially diagnosed and publicized as a description for people like Carl. Treatments that helped PTSD sufferers did not instantly emerge. Global society is still trying to figure out how to make effective treatment work for everyone.

People such as Carl suffered the rest of their life.

Matriarchal Leadership

Alcoholism and other issues of personhood and self-image in the lives of men, shoved women to the front of the leadership line in the community and the church – seven days per week.

The result was the lack of male leadership in the home, in the community, and in the church. The men who did lead were generally ones who had escaped the controlling cultural of the community. They literally moved out of the community to a healthier cultural context.

The men who provided leadership in the church were for the most part those who escaped the culture of the community. There were just too few of them.

Into this vacuum came women from the community. They knew how to lead. They did it 24/7. The result was that they held a large percentage of the leadership roles in the church.

Women are often the best workers in the typical church. Here I am talking about something that went beyond typical.

The only leadership barrier they faced is that they could not serve as deacons. At the same time the active deacons knew we were running out of men to serve in this role. That ultimately led to a time of prayerful discernment.

Upon the recommendation of the deacons, the church was asked to decide if women could be deacons in the church. The role in our church was not just that a servant in ministry to people.

They also had some authority on the strategic directions and actions of the church. Not fully a board, but due to the lack of other leaders they by default had to address substantive issues for and in the church.

The church approved having women to serve as deacons.

The next churchwide deacon election not only crossed the gender barrier, but also crossed the barrier of divorced persons serving as deacons. Two women were elected, and two divorced persons were elected. One deacon fit both criteria – gender and divorce.

As far as we know, only one family left the church because of these actions.

Positive, fruitful ministry went forward.

Unfortunately, alcoholism in the church and community continued.