Thankful for you...

Our CR TEAM would just like to take a minute and tell all our CR participants how thankful we are for each of you! 

Friday nights wouldn't happen if you all weren't there - doing what you do!    We have volunteers each week that cook, clean, lead, serve, put up signs, take down signs, wash dishes, put up the massive moon bounce, and so so much more!  We are thankful for all that you do for this ministry.  We hope that each of you are blessed this Thanksgiving. 

We will be there Friday night at 6 PM and we hope to see you then!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grateful Beleivers,
MRCC CR TEAM

Psalm 107:1
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

CR Summit = AMAZING!

Our CR ministry is blessed to be able to take a group to CR Summit each year.  This year was my first year to get to go and if I had to sum it up in one word it would be AMAZING!  The 16 of us that attended from MRCC had the pleasure to  worship together with 3600 other CR family members.  There was no discussions of denominations; it was just a body of believers who were praising our Higher Power, Jesus Christ!

Summit is a yearly event held at Saddleback Church in California.  Rick Warren (author of Purpose Driven Life, and a number of other books) is the head Pastor at Saddleback, so they obviously have a large congregation. Very large.  We had the pleasure of getting to hear Rick Warren speak and God provided him some amazing words to share with us.  I will be sharing more of Rick Warren’s quotes on our Facebook page in the coming weeks, but one that stood out was “Whatever gets your attention - gets you!”  Where is my attention focused?  To be honest sometimes MY attention is helping serve on the TEAM, or doing tasks on a Friday night that “need to get done” but maybe sometimes my attention needs to be focused on my own recovery instead!   That was a great point and really made me do some thinking about me and my recovery journey!

If you haven’t been to Summit, the entire group worships together and then we break up and attend training sessions on different areas of the CR program. 

This year one of the highlights was to getting to see the world premier of the movie Home Run.    Now, I’ll be honest and say most “church movies” I’ve seen are cheesy! Like worse that a Lifetime Original movie!!  But this movie, Home Run, was amazing!  It’s going to be a powerful tool to explain how God uses CR to change lives, provide healing, and restore relationships.  There will be more to come about how our CR program at MRCC is going to promote this movie and how can you be a part of that!  (You might get sick of hearing me talk about it.)

I hope you’ll be at CR this Friday night.  It will be a great night of praise & worship, and several of us will be sharing what we learned at CR Summit.  See you then!

Grateful Believer,

Karyn

Change.

Who moved my cheese?!  Okay, I know we don’t do book referrals at CR…so I’m not referring it, just referencing it!  Who Moved My Cheese is a book about learning to accept change.  It’s been awhile since I have read it, but with all of the changes at our Celebrate Recovery program lately I think I need to pick it up again!

Our first change will be happening this week, we'll be moving over to the Summit for the summer months.  It's a change we make to make it easier for the church to host the over abundance of summer weddings. So, watch for that change this week! 

The second change is obviously the upcoming move of The Hobbs Family.  Micah and Tara moving is creating a huge gap!  Travis is the Ministry Director now and will be filling the gap there, but both Micah and Tara were sponsors, small group leaders, step study leaders, and a ton of other things.  It will be a challenge to replace them in all of these areas.  Not to mention maybe the most important….their friendship!

Change is often difficult to deal with.  Satan will use this opportunity to create division, and attack our personal recoveries.  I have already experienced this myself.  However, as I said, Travis is our Ministry Director and is fully capable of tackling the job.  In addition, Angi is our female Ministry leader, working together Travis and Angi compliment each other well.  One is educated and articulate and other is Angi.  I’m kidding! If you’ve ever met Angi you know that’s a joke.  But seriously, they each bring valuable talents to the TEAM.

Speaking of the TEAM, Travis and Angi aren’t alone.  They have Sheldon and Christi as Training coaches, who have an immense amount of knowledge and experience to train.  Nate and Karyn are our talented, creative Assimilation coaches, who are always thinking about ways to promote CR.

And then there is Jen and I, the Encouragement coaches.  Our main job is to sit around and smile while everyone else does the work.  You know, go with what you’re good at!

Aside from the TEAM we have several step study leaders, small group leaders, the dinner team, and several other dedicated volunteers.

Celebrate Recovery at Memorial Road will continue.  Change is scary.  But change can be good too.  The most important piece of the puzzle as we go forward is that each of us is truly working our recovery.  And don’t forget prayer!  Pray for the program, the leaders, and participants.

Use this opportunity to work your own recovery and maybe even step up in volunteer positions or leadership.  Look to see what needs to be done and pitch in!  This is an exciting time and there is a lot of work to do.

There is plenty of opportunity to complain and be negative about change, first when something happens you don’t like or agree with, I encourage you to pray and then bring it to leadership.  None of us is perfect, but if we all work together we can make this a positive experience for everyone!

To show you that change can be okay, Travis has agreed to stop shaving his head so be on the lookout for that!

Grateful believer,

Andrew

A Message from the TEAM

Well if you weren’t at CR Friday you missed a great night of praise and worship, and you also missed a bitter-sweet announcement.  Micah announced a wonderful opportunity for him and his family – as he’s accepted the pulpit minster position at the Altamesa Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas.   He and his family will make this move June 1^st, 2012.

As Micah addressed everyone after large group, he said, “Some of you may wonder what will happen to CR at MRCC if I’m not here leading it?” Then he followed with, “I WAS NEVER LEADING THIS SHIP!  GOD IS THE CAPTAIN AND WILL CONTINUE TO LEAD AND GUIDE THIS PROGRAM!”  We all understand God’s been working in this program from day one, but Micah has worked very hard with the eldership and his TEAM’s over the years to make sure this program follows the Celebrate Recovery guidelines that Saddleback has put in place.

Micah then introduced the current TEAM to everyone, and shared some less-than flattering pictures of some of us.  (I’m sure we will pay him back at some point!  Just you wait, Mr. Hobbs.)  He talked about the roles that each TEAM member plays and he wanted to reiterate and reassure everyone that CR will continue to “roll on” just as it has.

As a TEAM we’d like you to know that even though we’re sad to see him go, we support Micah in this decision and we are very proud of him!   We meet together as a TEAM to pray for this program often, and we work together to make Celebrate Recovery at MRCC a place where God gets the glory, and you are blessed each week as you work your recovery!

Grateful Believers,

Sheldon & Christi {T’s}

Andrew & Jen {E’s}

Nate & Karyn {A’s}

Travis & Angi {M’s}

¡Celebremos La Recuperación en Honduras!

Group members in front of the “La Muralla” (The Wall) a low ROPES course challenge.
Back Row: Dan Lovejoy, Nate Ison, Davis Brown, Micah Hobbs
Middle Row: Christi Adkins, Sheldon Adkins, Michelle Brown, Andrew Claxton
Front Row: Cole Adkins, Daniel Adkins

On Saturday, July 9, seven adults and three kids from Memorial Road’s Celebrate Recovery program set off on a mission trip to Catacamas, Honduras where we worked with a marvelous mission organization, PREDISAN, and the local church that meets at the Good Samaritan Clinic in Catacamas.

PREDISAN takes its name from the Spanish words “To proclaim” and “to heal” because its mission comes from Jesus’s charge to the 12 in Luke 9:2: “to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick.”

For PREDISAN, healing isn’t just providing medication and procedures. PREDISAN runs community healthcare clinics in the remote Honduran mountains, the CEREPA drug and alcohol treatment center, and the large and modern Good Samaritan Clinic in Catacamas. Their work has dramatically reduced infant mortality, maternal mortality, and other early deaths. Their healthy schools program helps the poorest of the poor in Honduras to attend school and eat well while they’re learning. Their focus is on healing communities with the love of Jesus -- whether that healing is spiritual or physical.

Our work was divided in two. In the mornings, our jefe (boss), Sheldon Adkins, directed us in the construction of five elements of a low ROPES course on the grounds of the CEREPA drug and alchohol treatment center. Thanks to the extensive assistance of the CEREPA patients and staff, we were able to complete all five elements. On Friday, we went through the ROPES course with the CEREPA staff. Sheldon Adkins and his wife Christi, both certified therapists with extensive ROPES experience, showed the staff how to use the course therapeutically with CEREPA patients and community members.




 Marcio David Matamoros, PREDISAN’s Director of Groups, completes the “Swinging Log” challenge on the newly completed CEREPA ROPES course. It’s harder than it looks!

In the afternoons, we trained local church members, PREDISAN staff, and interested community members in the 7 Keys of Celebrate Recovery. We were humbled and gratified by great attendance at these trainings and the keen interest the attendees demonstrated. They took notes, asked questions, and really showed us they were interested in the program.

On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, we Celebrated Recovery! Three members of our group gave their powerful testimonies on these nights, and every night, we lost power during the testimony.

The Hondurans didn’t miss a beat, running to podium with flashlights. These were powerful nights of worship, testimony and sharing for the Hondurans and for us. On Thursday night, the Hondurans ran the program. We were impressed at how well their program ran. On Friday night, Micah gave a powerful charge to the attendees to share the love and healing of Christ with their community.

We are grateful to the PREDISAN staff, the church in Catacamas, and our generous contributors for the opportunity to serve. Most of all, we are grateful to Jesus for the grace and healing he has provided for us - so much that it can overflow into the lives of others.

Grateful Believer,
Dan

Thanks for the Facebook shout out Mac Owen!

Click here to read our blog post on Internet Filtering & Accountability Software!  It's a good one!


Grateful Believers,
MRCC CR TEAM

Upcoming Missions Trip

Mi nombre es Sheldon Adkins, soy un agradecido creyente de Jesús Cristo y lucho con el alcoholismo.

My name is Sheldon Adkins, I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ and I struggle with alcoholism.

On Saturday July 9, 2011 ten members of Memorial Road Church of Christ Celebrate Recovery will go to Honduras to provide Celebrate Recovery training to the people of Catacamas, Honduras at Mission Predisan. Every afternoon and evening we will provide training on the seven “keys” to an effective CR program and we will provide additional trainings on leading small groups, leading a step study, how to take someone through the fourth step, and many more trainings. We will also have CR large group and open share meetings on three different evenings while we are there. Two of these evenings will be led predominantly by our CR group and the third night will be led by Hondurans who have already been active in a CR step study.

While in Honduras we will also be building a low ROPES course at CEREPA addiction treatment center. A ROPES course is a therapy tool that involves team-building, communication skills, trust, overcoming fear, problem solving and other challenges people face in everyday life. The ROPES course gives the facilitator a safe environment for participants to face very real challenges in a structured setting. We will be spending the first half of each day we are in Honduras building this course. This mode of therapy can be especially effective with those that struggle with addictions.

Please pray that this mission will happen in accordance with God’s will. Pray that we will get out of the way and let God be fully in control of the work that is done. And most importantly, please pray that the people that come to the training and that receive treatment at CEREPA will learn to know and love our savior, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for your prayers!

Grateful Believer,

Sheldon

Successful Sale!

Friday and Saturday we had a very successful garage sale for our Celebrate Recovery mission trip to Honduras.  We had a great time of fellowship and were able to talk to people about Celebrate Recovery as well as our trip.

After moving lots of furntiure, electronics, clothes, and even some junk...we were able to raise around $1,400.00 to go towards our trip.

We want to thank everyone who donated items, stopped by to shop, and kept us in your prayers.  Who knew that an abandoned grocery store could be so fun?!

In addition to this exciting news we are now taking some additional people on the trip in order to meet all of the needs of the work we will be doing there.  We ask that everyone continue to pray for our trip.  We leave July 9th and return July 17th.  We will be building a ropes course, conducting CR workshops, and having CR meetings.  We have been blessed in our fundraising and want to thank you for your encouragement! 

Grateful Believer,

Andrew

Meet the Team & Principle 8

Hi, my name is Andrew and I am a grateful believer who struggles with same sex attraction and anger.

I serve Celebrate Recovery at Memorial Road Church of Christ as the E on the TEAM.  E stands for encourager.  I help plan special activities and events as well as handle set up for Common Grounds.  I also am responsible for encouraging our leaders and participants.  It is a great fit for me and something I love doing.

I’m here to talk about the last principle #8  -  Yield myself to God to be used to bring this Good News to others, both by my example and by my words.  “Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires.” Matthew 5:10

This is a tough one for me right now.  (I think it’s almost always the case when I am asked to do a lesson or write something, that more often than not it is something I’m having a hard time with at the moment).  I love the first part of this principle, “Yield myself to God to be used to bring this good news to others.”  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Sounds nice and simple.  Then it gets difficult, “both by my example and by my words.”  This is a daily battle for me. 

I have a desire to do God’s will and I want to help others to have a relationship with God, but I am constantly surrounded by the world and find myself giving into temptations.  On my way to work I still get angry in traffic and sometimes don’t handle it well.  At work I am surrounded by gossip and it’s difficult not to join.  I constantly find myself not setting the example that I want to set. 

Like others have said, it’s important that you have worked the other seven principles as well.  Especially spending time with God daily and when doing so asking Him to help you yield yourself to His will.  Angi set up a great challenge last week- 90 meetings with God in 90 days!  Not a bad idea for all of us.  It is difficult to really yield ourselves to God for His use.  I would love to have more free time, I would love to have a girlfriend, but right now I am busy with opportunities that God has given me.  And you know what?  I love that too. 

Grateful Believer,

Andrew

Meet the Team & Principle 7

Hi, I’m Angi. I’m a grateful believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with depression and binge-eating disorder.

I serve Celebrate Recovery at Memorial Road as the ministry leader for women. I love this role - and have the honor of helping women get their testimonies ready for our Friday night “large group” meetings. I also handle any special issues that arise for our women C.R. leaders, and other female CR participants. I love our CR leaders, and pray that I can be an encouragement and source of help for them. There are a few more things I get to do for C.R., but the above are my main duties.

I want to talk about Celebrate Recovery Principle 7 (R) which reads, “Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His work for my life and gain the power to follow His will.”

Frankly, this principle makes me cringe. I immediately feel guilty when I read it. I have trouble with consistency, having always found it difficult to commit to doing anything daily. I am thankful that God encourages me to start over, and that a big, booming voice doesn’t come from heaven, saying, “Seriously Angi? You sound like a broken record!”

But, today I am going to get a fresh perspective on this principle. First of all, this is not only about Bible Study, and a healthy, consistent “quiet time” with God, but also my “daily inventory.” This is the self-examination piece of a daily reserved time. It is a time to reflect and consider my actions and thoughts of the day. I can take an honest look and give it all to God. It’s like sweeping the floor daily, rather than putting it off for a long time, letting it get into a big, dirty mess that will take a lot of energy to clean.

When I do my prayer, study, and journaling time with God, I have felt free and light. Worry is washed away as I give my concerns to Him. It is easier for me to resist temptation, and to make the right choices in my day. When I have ignored this principle, or talked myself into starting “tomorrow” or after some big event, I am more likely to resume sneaky, unhealthy behaviors; stay in denial about aspects of my recovery; and give in to selfishness.

I like this phrase from Principle 7: “...gain the power to follow His will.”. My reserved time with God gives me POWER! It doesn’t just keep my mind and will aligned with His, but it also energizes me spiritually, putting me in the place I need to be to follow Him. That’s motivating!

So, I am giving myself a challenge and invite you to hold me accountable. Have you heard that some people in recovery get sober by attending 90 recovery meetings in 90 days? Well, along those lines, I will have 90 meetings with God in 90 days. I am excited about the blessing and power I will experience in this plan!

You can follow my challenge by clicking RIGHT HERE!!!   (  Here's the official blog address: www.principleseven.blogspot.com.)  Let me know in the comments on either blog that you are coming along with me on this challenge. My track record proves that I can’t do this, but I know through God, I can. In fact, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phil 4:13.

Grateful Believer,
Angi

Meet the Team & Principle 6

Hello, my name is Christi. I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. I am a survivor of childhood abuse and I struggle with codependency. I serve as one of the training coaches for Celebrate Recovery at Memorial Road Church of Christ. My role is to provide training for new leaders as well as ongoing training for current leaders.

Hello, my name is Sheldon. I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. I struggle with alcoholism. I serve in assisting the training coaches in providing ongoing leadership training.

We have been asked to discuss Principle 6 which states:

E-valuate all my relationships. Offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me and make amends for harm I’ve done to others, except when to do so would harm them or others.

The first thing we want to say as you read this blog post, is that it is important to remember that for us completing principle 6 is only possible if we have thoroughly worked the previous 5 principles. Notice we didn’t say completely because our whole life is a process and there will be numerous times that we need to forgive others and make amends.

The first part of principle 6 says to evaluate all of our relationships. By examining our lives, writing and confessing our inventories, and after asking God to remove our defects of character, we had a fairly good list of people we both needed to forgive and make amends to. In further evaluating all of our relationships we also realized there were people that might not have made our inventory list but still people we either needed to forgive or make amends to. With our sponsors help, we were able to make a thorough evaluation.

The second part of principle 6 says to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me. Forgiveness is not always an easy thing to do. In fact it can be quite challenging. But in order to move forward in our recovery this is a necessary step. Offering forgiveness does not mean that we ignore the harm that was done to us and it does not mean that the person who harmed us is no longer responsible. Furthermore, offering forgiveness is not an “opportunity” to take the other person’s inventory. When we offer forgiveness our expectation should be to simply forgive them and expect nothing else in return. Practicing principle 6 begins a change in our hearts and it is a conscious choice that we make to forgive those persons who harmed us just as God has forgiven us.

The third part of principle 6 says to make amends for harm I have done to others.  Again, with the help of our sponsors we, either in person or on our own, forgave the people who had hurt us and asked for forgiveness from the people we had hurt.  Now notice we didn’t say that we would always offer forgiveness directly to the person, nor were we always able to make amends directly to the person. There are certain situations where it might have been harmful to us or to the other person to speak directly to them. Our intent should be never to be to place someone in a circumstance where they may be harmed emotionally in an attempt to grow in our own recovery. That's clearing our conscience at the expense of someone else who may be harmed. This would be selfish on our part. In this type of situation, a living amends was necessary for us to move forward in our recoveries. A living amends is an indirect amends where we bring our heart, our energy, and our focus back to God and do our best to follow His will in all areas of our lives. This simply means that we live differently. Amends are about a genuine change in our behavior and not just an apology.

Offering forgiveness or asking for forgiveness is not always an easy step to make, but it is the most rewarding and freeing. You no longer have to carry those burdens around. Give them all to God and you will be amazed at how much better you will feel and how much closer to God you will become. We must forgive others as he continually forgives us.

Thankful and Grateful Believers,

Sheldon & Christi

Meet the Team & Principle 5

I'm Nate, and I'm a greatful beliver in Jesus Christ.  I serve as a Trainer for the Celebrate Recovery Leadership T.E.A.M. at Memorial Road Church of Christ, and I celebrate recovery from pornography for more than 4 years.    

The great thing about recovery in Jesus Christ is that it is remarkably simple.  Not easy, but simple. I love Principle 5 for this very reason.

Principle 5: Voluntarily Submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask him to remove my character defects.

 

Most of us come into recovery with a pretty good idea of the junk in our lives that we’d like to get rid of, but after we go through the difficult task of writing and sharing our inventory (Principle 4)…there is usually little doubt. We’ve identified entire lists of things that we’d like to change in our lives; the hurts and resentments that we carry because of what’s been done to us, the guilt and shame for things we’ve done to others and all the different ways of acting out we tried in order to protect ourselves.

When we come to Principle 5 God says: “well, lets make the changes.”

And yet, we tend to overcomplicate things. We come to Principle 5 and we ask ourselves: “How do I submit to every change God wants to make in my life?” and “what do I submit?” The fear of change kicks in and we begin to rationalize. We overcomplicate the step or we turn it into something that is so hyper-spiritual that it becomes too monumental a task for us to even know where to begin. And so we get stuck over-thinking and end up doing nothing to actually work Principle 5 except answering the questions in our step-study books.

All the while God is simply saying: “You know that thing that got you into recovery? It’s time to give it up…and let me start working on your heart”

There’s a give and take associated with this step that we often times misunderstand.

God will not simply take away the habit. He asks us to give the habit up, voluntarily. It’s through the surrender of our habits that God promises us that he will work to remove the character defects that push us toward the habits in the first place.

A simple way that I’ve found to work Principle 5 is called a 90-day contract. This is in no-way associated with the CR curriculum and it is not a requirement of any Celebrate Recovery Program, but rather I was introduced to it through some Christian Counselors who are experts in the field of sexual addiction.

The idea is this: take the sin, the habit, the coping mechanism or the problem that you came to recovery for and promise to give it up for 90-days. Write up a simple contract that states how you will not engage in your particular behavior, how you will commit yourself to prayer, specifically that God will remove your character defects as you voluntarily submit your habit over to him for the next 90-days. Find accountability partners who will work this contract with you. Commit yourself to rigorous honesty with your accountability group. Sign it, date it, exchange phone numbers, and watch God work over the next 90-days!

You’ll be amazed the simplicity of Principle 5 and the Power of Your Almighty God to give you freedom from your Hurts, Hang-ups and Habits.

A grateful believer,

Nate 

Meet the Team & Principle 4

Hi, our names are Micah and Tara Hobbs, and we are grateful believers in Jesus Christ.

Since we were asked to write an article together, Micah’s comments will be in blue and Tara’s in red.

I am one of the “M’s” on our leadership TEAM (acrostic).  One of my co-M’s, Travis, wrote the article on principle two.  Together with the help of Angi – our great female “M” – we oversee the entire CR program.  It is a tremendous privilege for me to serve in this way and I give all the glory to my Savior Jesus Christ, who rescued me out of the dominion of darkness and into his marvelous light…to him be praises and glory forever!

Principle four is where the “cleaning out” process begins.  This principle (letter O) states: “Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself and to someone I trust.” Early on in my recovery journey, the personal challenge for me in this step was confession.  Actually, to narrow it down, I was completely freaked out about the idea of confessing all my past and present faults to someone I trusted.  I asked things like, “What if they judge me and nail me to the wall? What if after they hear my inventory, they look at me differently?” Satan was using all of these fears to cripple me in my recovery journey. 

After procrastinating as long as I could, I finally told my sponsor the truth.  When he asked me, “How’s your fourth step coming?” I told him, “I have not started yet.” The previous times he had asked me that question, I had lied to him and told him I was doing okay with it.  Well, after I made amends for that, we set a firm deadline for my written version to be complete.  Then, we set an appointment for me to share it.

Listen to these powerful words from James: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed…” (James 5:16).  When I submitted myself to God and obeyed this commandment found in his Word by confessing my faults to my sponsor, this is when Jesus’ healing began in my life.  For me, the experience of being completely and vigorously honest with another human being was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done; however, it was easily the most POWERFUL and HEALING thing I’ve ever done as well.  CR recovery principle four was a great turning point in my recovery and it can be for you too.  

My name is Tara and I serve along side Karyn as part of the “A TEAM” at Celebrate Recovery.  J  Karyn and I are the assimilation coaches and we work together in this role to promote Celebrate Recovery to the church and community around us. 

Step 4 was probably the hardest step for me.  The thought of openly examining myself was scary.  It made me think of doing an autopsy…something that was tedious and could take a very long time.  Just like doing an autopsy, I was afraid of what I was going to find when I started digging through the hurts, habits, and hang-ups of my life.  Luckily I have an amazing sponsor who has become a dear friend to me!  I was extremely anxious to sit down with her and literally spill my guts to her.  I gave her every excuse in the book to put off writing out my 4th step and each time she lovingly smiled and encouraged me to continue working hard on my recovery.  I remember leaving our meeting feeling like a whole new person.  I remember feeling free from so many things that I had kept inside for so many years. 

Step 4 is just the beginning of the healing process.  At the time, it seems very overwhelming and maybe even depressing at times.  It is never fun to bring up all the hurts and pain from your past.  However, I want to encourage everyone to keep working your recovery.  Do not stop in the middle of Step 4 because you think it is too hard; keep it up!!  Through this process you will feel God breaking down walls of guilt and resentment in your heart.  And that only gets better as you continue to work the rest of the principles in your recovery.

Well, as daunting of a task as principle four may seem to you, it is doable and it is rewarding.  We want to leave you with a great quote from a 10^th Avenue North Song that we love: “This is where the healing begins. This is where the healing starts.  You come to where you’re broken within and the light meets the dark.”  That is exactly what happens in principle four.  We invite Jesus – who is the Light – to come into our dark places and clean out our filth and make us whole again.  Believe us, it is worth it!

Grateful Believers,

Micah and Tara

Meet the Team & Principle 3

Hello, my name is Stephen. I am a very grateful believer in Christ.

It has been a long, hard road on the way to Celebrate Recovery, and after being a part of CR for 5 years, I am privileged to give back to CR as part of the MRCC CR TEAM member because of what God --  through CR --  has done for me.

Today, I would like to talk about Principle 3: Letter C Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.

Based upon my life experience, this is one of the hardest things to do.  How do I do that when my relationship with God is strained and trust is almost non-existent? How does one develop a relationship with someone that they have never seen or heard? Why should I commit every aspect of my life to Christ and submit to His will when everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong in my life? (I was a walking example of Murphy’s Laws in action) Where was God when I needed him at various points in my life?

Looking back over my life, I see that God was there all along. He worked in ways that I could not see at the time; but, now when I look back beyond the emotions, the anger and the fears of the time, I can clearly see God working quietly behind the scenes.  He was gently guiding and nudging me along toward the future with an abundance of patience and love.

Every time I tried to fix something, I made an even bigger mess of my life. Every time I gave up and resigned myself to the inevitable, God made a way for me.  God’s plan and my plans for my life didn’t match up, but God’s plan for my life became so much better than mine.  God has an advantage that I do not when it comes to my life…He sees the big picture while I only see a small, tiny portion of it.  He knows what He is doing.

After I became a part of CR and joined a step study group, I came to see that I was NOT the only one whose life was messed up and out of sorts, and whose life plan didn’t turn out the way it should have turned out. I began to see how selfish and self-centered I was and how destructive that attitude could be for my life and my relationship with others.  I saw that my relationship with God was almost non-existent and that had to change.

Since I began to change and submit to God’s will and control through Christ, my life has been healthier in all aspects:  spiritually, emotionally, and physically.  When things don’t go my way, I take a deep breath and say “God will find a way for me, and He will take care of me.”  Sometimes immediately, I see how God has prevented unpleasant things from happening just by making sure that things don’t go the way I want it to go.  Often times, I see this much later in life.  I am at peace now compared to when I was in a constant state of turmoil, fear, anger and frustration.

It is not normal for humans to give up control over their lives to someone else.  Even followers of Father God and Jesus Christ that we read about in the Bible struggled from time to time with principle three.  However, Jesus gave up control to the Father. We read about Paul doing this – among many others.  It is interesting to note that in the Bible when someone tried to take back control of their life, they usually ended up in a pretty big mess that God had to clean up?

Turning over my life and my will over to Christ’s care and control was and is the best decision I have and will ever make in my life.

God has indeed been good to me!

Grateful Believer,
Stephen

Meet the TEAM & Principle 2

Hello, my name is Travis.  I am a grateful believer is Jesus Christ. 

I am serving on the MRCC CR TEAM as an “M” . The “M” stands for Ministry Leader.   My main role is Friday night - making sure everything is set up and goes smoothly. I assist in finding testimonies, song leaders, order of large group and newcomers.    I also am in charge of our Monthly TEAM meetings and the overall safety of the CR program at

Memorial Road

. I would have never imagined myself a ministry leader much less a church leader.  I always thought that title or position was for the holy of holies.  Not a sinner like me.    I am so happy to be giving back to CR in this way because of what God has done in my life. 

The recovery principle that I am going to talk about is principle 2, which says: Principle 2 E - Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that he has the power to help me recover.  What that means in my life is this:  I did not grow up in a home where church was a main priority.    I have always believed that God existed and I prayed to God and asked him to keep me safe, give me a good car, and let me do well in sports.  However, I did not have a true relationship with God. 

My prayer life was the ultimate give me, give me, give me, want, want, want.  I thought that if I asked God for something, He would surely give that to me.  However, that was not the case at all times in my life.  I really never thought God could use me in any way.  I thought that I was just going to go to church, (punch my time card) and go home.  I especially didn’t think God could help me with my addictions.  I thought I had to do that all by myself.  I thought I had to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and quit gambling and dipping on my own. 

However, when I first came to Celebrate Recovery I found out very quickly that God needs to be number one in my life.  My prayers went from give me this and give me that to - Thank you God for allowing me to talk to you anytime and anywhere.  I relied on God so much during my first two years of recovery.  I started to understand that His power can help me recover.  The main way I found this out was through His servants at CR.  Through the all testimonies that were given at CR I could actually see God working in other people’s lives. 

I am so happy to have a relationship with God and to know down in my heart that I matter to Him. 

Grateful Believer,

Travis

Meet the TEAM & Principle 1

Hi, I'm Karyn. I'm a grateful believer in Jesus.

I serve as an A on the CR TEAM at MRCC (wow, that's a lot of acronyms). A stands for Assimilation, which means I help with promotion of Celebrate Recovery to the members of our CR program, to the church, to the community and to the world. (The world? Yikes, that's a little overwhelming.)

Over the next few weeks you'll meet each TEAM member from MRCC. The word TEAM is an acrostic and each letter stands for a different role. I know, I know you're shocked - it's another acrostic. As you meet the team you'll also be introduced to each of the 8 CR principle's. You'll learn a little more about us, and how the principles impacted our recoveries.

The 8 principals are broken down through yet another acrostic spelling out the word RECOVERY.

The R of Recovery stands for Realize.

Principle 1  Realize I'm not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable.

When I came to CR I was broken, scared, weak, angry, confused and there was no way God was going to use this Friday night program "CR" to change my life. I didn't WANT to be there.  I had been very critical of the program in the past based on friends & family that had attended and when I heard people talk about CR I cringed and thought, "Here we go again, another story about Celebrate Recovery, blah, blah, blah!"

I went ahead and continued to come each week and my counselor told me I needed to join a step study.  Oh great, more CR...I was less than thrilled.  I joined the step study and felt like I would never connect with these strangers.  I didn't like it at all.  BUT, once again God's plan was so much greater, bigger and better than mine! God was using this step study to change me. 

It was like my life was a box of puzzle pieces that had been dumped out on the floor and I was picking up pieces and seeing how they needed to fit together.  Once I started to see pieces fitting together, it clicked.  For the first time I was seeing all the patterns of my childhood, adolescence, teen years, dating years, and my life as a grown women come together, why I had acted out like I had, and what I had to do to change so I could be the woman Christ intended me to be, not who I thought I was! 

Principal 1 guided me through most of my first step study and I would say it over and over: Realize I'm not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.   My life was unmanageable!  I was exhausted from trying to cover up all my lies and tired of trying to be someone I wasn't.   God had used my step study to show me that!  I loved the healing and understanding I received through my step study, and never missed one meeting!

I'm now co-leading my second step study.  Not only did God use this program to change my life He also lead me down a path of service to give back to the program in a way I never knew I would.  Funny how God's plans work, huh? Me, the sarcastic one - once annoyed with CR - now serving on the TEAM.  His plan is so much better.

God is good.

Grateful Believer,

Karyn