Pastor, Former Addict: The Church Has the Answer to Our Nation’s Addiction Crisis

Substance abuse and addiction are on the rise in our country, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. And Pastor Caleb McCall believes there’s only one answer.

McCall is not only a pastor but founder and executive director of Be the Bush Recovery Ministries, which includes Be the Bush Recovery Center for men and Miriam House for women in middle Tennessee. He knows lives can change and recovery is possible because he has seen God’s transforming power in his own life.

A former addict whose dependence led him into a life of spiraling substance abuse, selling drugs and crime, McCall walked into a church one day and found a pastor who got to know him and “poured into me,” McCall says. Eventually, the church paid for him to attend the Teen Challenge Program in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Here, he says, “I had an encounter with King Jesus. The Bible says in John 1:1, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’

“When you spend time in the Word, you are spending time with Jesus. … Jesus is the only thing that can change the addict,” McCall says. “Jesus is the only force in the universe that can take something and let it be born again and let it become a brand-new creation, one not associated with its past mistakes, its past way of thinking, its past way of living, its past way of doing things. Jesus is the only one who can save the addict.

“And we as the church, what do we have? … Nothing but Jesus,” McCall says. “If you’ve got anything extra besides Jesus, you might want to realign your church, because He’s the only thing that matters.”

To hear more of McCall’s inspiring testimony of addiction, recovery and freedom, listen to the entire podcast here. {eoa}