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I don’t know what brought you here to this page.
I don’t know what’s been making you curious about CR. What I want to do is give you a little introduction to CR and what’s in store for you the coming year, should you decide to participate. For whatever reason, through whatever means, God has brought you here to this page. I think He is preparing you for something big. He’s preparing you for change. Change is scary, we find comfort in the things we know, even if that thing is something that’s bad for us. It’s also scary because we know that God doesn't do the easy thing. He rarely, if ever, takes the easy way. This year you're going to step out of your denial and into the grace and will of God. You're going to turn your life over to him. A hands up, all out quit kind of surrender. You're going to make an inventory. List your hurts from your life. This is a scary hard thing to do. You're going to confess to someone you trust how you’ve wronged and hurt others. You’re going to make yourself ready to have God remove your character defects. You’re going to make amends to all the people you’ve hurt You’re going to learn to keep yourself in check on a daily basis You’re going to grow closer to God and you’re going to share your experience with the world This sounds like a lot to take in, and it is. It’s a lot of work. It is uncomfortable. It’s not going to be easy, and some of you will quit. One thing I will promise you is that we will be here. Every Thursday same time, same place. We are here to support you, not fix you. We are here to do life with you and struggle together. No, you won’t ever be perfect. Yes, you will still struggle with hurts, habits, and hangups. We exist to be a place where you can find healing. We are a hospital for this spiritually ill, but we serve the great physician, who can heal all hurts. Thank you for checking us out Thank you for trusting us with your hurts. Thanks for doing life with us. We want to assure you that this is a safe place. We are all the same. Our struggles may look different, but we are all broken people in need of a savior. I wan't to share this passage with you because I think it truly encapsulates what and who our ministry is. 2 Cor 5:11-21 11 Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too. 12 Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart. 13 If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. 14 Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. 16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. CR West Side  At the end of 2015 God put it on the hearts of 4 of us to start a Celebrate Recovery ministry at West Side. We had all been touched by the ministry at another local church, and felt God was calling us to bring it to West Side to bless our home church.
So that's what we did. At the beginning of 2016 we did a "soft launch" of CR here at West Side. Our goal was to create an environment where the members of West Side felt comfortable coming and sharing their lives with eachother. Our other primary goal was to develop leaders within our church to be able to lead CR when we would eventually launch in the community. It's a lengthy process, but that is what 2016 has been about for us. God has truly blessed us. We've had quite a number of people finish step studies, and working the program. We have a solid group of leaders and volunteers and on January 6th of 2016 we will be officially launching CR at West Side to our community. God has already been blessing us with members of our community who don't attend our church. Without one advertisement in 2016 God has lead people to our doors to find healing. I can only imagine what he's going to do as we begin this intentional journey to reach our community. All our welcome to join us as we CELEBRATE RECOVERY on January 6th at 5:45 in the West Side Family Center. We are going to have good food, fun stuff for kids to do, and live music. We appreciate all of the support that our church has given us this year, and we are so excited to see what God will do in 2017. God Bless, Zac George Celebrate Recovery West Side Ministry Leader |
AuthorThis blog is authored by the leadership team of Celebrate Recovery at the West Side Church of Christ ArchivesCategories |
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