GREENFIELD — Jim Moreland remembers the day 18 years ago when he watched the smoke curl upward on his last cigarette.
It was another step on the journey away from the person he had been a few months before: The guy rocking out to the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” album in a drunken stupor after his wife left with their son. The guy saying, “Jesus, I need you” before he fell asleep in his recliner.
When he woke up later, “I felt different,” Moreland said. “There was something that changed in me.”
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That journey was not only away from his past, but also toward his present, pastoring a country church and helping others break free from addiction. The most recent step has been taking the faith-based smoking cessation class he has taught several times in Greenfield, Rising from Ashes, and assembling it into a book of the same name.
Moreland quit smoking in July 2000. In nearly five months since the night in the recliner, he had begun to grow in a new-found faith but continued to smoke. Just going to the barn left him winded, and he felt his continued addiction didn’t fit with the change he was telling friends he’d found.
“How could I tell others that Christ could set them free,” he wrote in his book, “when the truth was, I was struggling with an awful addiction that was killing me?”
He smoked half a pack on that day 18 years ago, put out the last cigarette and prayed. He credits God for the smoke-free years that have followed that moment.
He got involved in a biblical counseling course and later the Celebrate Recovery ministry at Brandywine Community Church in Greenfield, wanting to help others struggling with addiction. In the 12 steps he studied, he recognized points in his journey to stop smoking, such as admitting his own limits in quitting and trusting God to help him stop.
He began to feel called toward a smoking-specific ministry and developed Rising from Ashes.
Autumn Stoner took the class and said it was a turning point for her.
“That class not only helped me to stop smoking,” Stoner said. “It got the ball rolling to just give everything to God. It really changed my life a lot.”
Stoner shares her story, of quitting after more than 20 years of smoking, in Moreland’s book. She hopes the book will “plant a seed to not only trust Christ to help them be free from the addiction of smoking, but that … he can free you from everything.”
Moreland continues to offer the class from time to time but hopes having the material in book form will help other churches offer smoking cessation programs and bring together people who want to quit smoking. There are assigned Bible readings, steps to recovery and questions for individual reflection or group discussion.
He will sign copies of the book July 21 during a 200th anniversary homecoming celebration at White River Friends in Winchester, where he is pastor. In the years since quitting smoking, Moreland went back to school, taking classes through Barclay College in Haviland, Kansas.
In 2017 he was recorded as a pastor by the Indiana Yearly Meeting. For more than five years, he’s made the 75-minute drive to minister to the small Winchester congregation.
“Jim completely turned his life around from what he was to what he is now,” said church member Brian Edwards. “He’s completely turned his life over to Jesus, and that’s what he preaches about.”
Moreland is hoping people who read of his journey to freedom from smoking will find hope for their own lives.
“I hope it will be measured, not by how it’s written,” he said, “but by how many people it helps.”
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Jim Moreland will sign copies of his book from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday (July 18) at Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road, Greenfield. Go to the library’s Daily Reporter Study Room.
The book, “Rising from Ashes: A Christ-Centered Smoking Cessation Program,” is also available for purchase from online retailers for $11.95 — less than the cost of two pack of cigarettes, Moreland notes.
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