Addiction and Anxiety: Healthy Churches, Healthy Faith

Insofar as churches and their leaders are effective in applying healthy principles of faith to their lives and interrelationships as God’s people, the church will be more effective in realizing God’s mission.

Perhaps the most important principle for anxiety management is a proper understanding of the grace of God. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV). Grace, in the Christian tradition, is how we are saved. But one of the key hallmarks of grace is also the promise that God will never, ever abandon the faithful. His promise of grace is simply the promise of unconditional non-abandonment. When individuals know and trust that God will always be there, their anxiety of abandonment begins to subside.

When congregational leaders recognize that the fear of abandonment is at the root of anxiety, they recognize that the preaching of grace is the greatest single way to relieve anxiety. God’s promise is that he will be with us always to the end of the world (Matthew 28:18-19). To the extent that individuals trust this, they will find their anxiety is relieved. To the degree to which the church is able to effectively proclaim and help individuals internalize grace in all its doings and help individuals affirm that God is surely with them—always, everywhere, every day—anxiety will be reduced and church health will increase.