A differentiated approach:
Lion Ministry groups encompass three approaches in one in their process (6):
Support: provides group resources to support the needs and pains of its participants in a systemic and biblical way.
12 Steps: establishes routines divided into ‘steps’: stages of awareness and self-responsibility in the personal, social, physical, emotional, and spiritual life of each participant, with extreme effectiveness, especially for addictions (7).
Addictions, according to Lion Ministry counselling, are merely conscious or unconscious escapes from painful/uncomfortable internal and/or external realities. In this sense, every human being seeks relief through consumption or activities that provoke and produce momentary feelings of ‘well-being.’ (8)
This encompasses all forms of addictions, from illicit to licit, such as:
drugs, alcohol, etc.;
socially unlabelled addictions, which do not involve external substances but rather emotions that generate chemicals internally, such as emotional codependency, sex, anger, fear, among others;
as well as those that are culturally ‘glorified,’ among them: addiction to work, sports, body care, beauty, money, power, intellectuality, etc.
All of them have spiritual roots, are the result of an altered ego, and are sophistically influenced by losses/traumas (9), and their consequence: pride (10).
The 12 Steps in the Lion Ministry Support Groups are based on the biblical assumption and absolute truth that:
Every human being has countless areas of weakness and needs God's grace to be transformed/recovered (11).
The processes of self-help and mutual help: this lies in the revelation of sharing, where the act of sharing and observing others sharing, added to feedback (voluntary comments from participants, with the permission of those sharing) (12), provides a ‘mirror effect’. By the grace of the Holy Spirit (13), this mirroring allows the person to understand themselves, repent, correct their ways, and change their attitude. This approach is effective in various groups that deal with human behaviour, including addictions, trauma, phobias, and abuse.
This is the main biblical foundation, and it is based on the instruction to ‘bear one another's burdens,’ a way of fulfilling the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). Especially for those who are ‘weary and burdened’ by their difficulties, based on the promise that Jesus Christ will give ‘rest’ (Matthew 11:28). In sharing, there is also an encouragement — without being an obligation — to ‘confess sins (faults, weaknesses) to one another and pray for one another’ (James 5:16). In these acts of ‘sanctification’ of the soul of those who participate, relief from the burdens of life and the promotion of inner healing are sought (14).
Therefore, it is the driving force of the group, through the speech of each participant, in their own time, sharing situations common to human life, usually problems, challenges, circumstances that are difficult to manage, often suffering, trauma, which require overcoming, in order to find an echo/reference to their needs and pains, among those who participate in the group and who share (15).
In practice, even if it is not an immediate condition, in a group with greater interaction, strengthening bonds/connections (see below), as the group matures, all participants would be open to sharing (at some point/meeting), always with respect for the commitment to confidentiality (16), and to listen to each other's life challenges without judgement or partiality, regardless of any condition, weakness, slip-up — ‘sin’ (17).
All group processes aim to generate in participants their main awareness-raising effect: THE CONNECTION with God, among participants, and consequently, the connection with oneself, generating a cycle of self-perception — or revelation.
This is the key to opening — the heart — in the group walking process, and the goal for each participant, in order to:
Connect with the needs, pains, and feelings of others — through the effect of compassion (18) — in order to become aware of and reconnect (identify and identify with) their real needs, pains, and feelings in themselves, in a process of revelation/discovery [self-responsibility], repentance, and healing!
The connection/reconnection with God, intimately:
The dynamics of connection follow the same script described by Christ (see figure ‘5’ above). It is with God that each participant first connects or reconnects, truly and deeply, in order for healing to take place:
‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’ (Chronicles 7:14)
