Why offer Celebrate Recovery?  Why not leave this stuff up to other people and other organizations?  Good questions.

As a pastor I’ve come to realize that when new people walk through our doors it is almost always for one of two reasons: they’re either really happy or really hurting.  Something major has gone on in their life – for good or bad – that has driven them to get connected to their Creator. Truth is, almost no one just happens to roll out of bed on a Sunday morning after years of ignoring God’s existence, and say, “You know, I usually sleep ‘till Noon on Sundays but today I’m thinking church!”

Quite the opposite. A young couple comes bouncing through our doors newly engaged and looking for the perfect church to get married in and raise their children in.  Life has changed and they’re happy.  A middle-aged man hides in the back of the worship center wondering why his marriage has fallen apart and if God can help him get his wife back.  Life has changed and he’s hurting. A woman pulls in the parking lot having taken on a new job, in a new town, and it’s time to find a new church. A father has brought his family to church for the first time in 15 years because his wife has an addiction that’s ruining the family and they need to know if Jesus can work a miracle. People come through our doors with lives in flux and hearts either full of joy or filled with hurts.

And the sad truth is that most Christian communities – ours included – tend to be really good at welcoming in and showing love to the “happy” people and not so good at welcoming, connecting with, and providing true healing to those hurting people.  We tend to do step one and give them the gospel, reminding them that they are forgiven of their sins and no longer owned by their struggles through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and never, for those who need it, get to step two. We give them the good news that they’re right with God but then do little to help them deal with the ripple effects of their sinful choices and heal the deep wounds in their past.

And yet Jesus tells us that he came to give us more than an eternity, more than membership in His family and more than forgiveness of sins – as if those aren’t incredible on their own. Jesus tells us that he came so that we might “have life and have it to the full” right here and right now. (John 10:10) Which, for those who are hurting, means allowing the power of God and the message of Jesus to not just save their souls tomorrow but heal their wounds today; to take the stuff in them that is broken and change it into an incredible testimony of God’s power and love for even the lowliest of people and the worst of sins.

That’s why any church that wants to truly change lives and leave a lasting impact on the world will not only engage in mission trips to third world countries or open up food banks for the needy.  They will first and foremost position themselves to bind up the wounds and apply the gospel to the deep hurts and hidden pains of the men and women walking through their doors every Sunday morning. That’s when real, lasting, life change takes place.  And that’s exactly why we’re starting Celebrate Recovery at CrossPoint. It’s about facing the reality that scores of broken people are in our church and in our community and doing what we can offering to them the full life found in Jesus Christ.

And no one else can offer the lasting healing and the full hope that God’s people do.  No one.  Everything else is just a Band-Aid. Only Jesus can give them the full life, not just a fixed life.

Pastor Matt

From Bill Woolsey, Sr Pastor @ CrossPoint……..

I  appreciate how, like many things in this world, alcohol can be used for bad and misused greatly.  In our teaching and counseling, we constantly address that reality and, depending on the individual, will speak the convicting/unpopular truth as necessary.

I suggest, however, that from a theological standpoint, the Bible does not condemn alcohol—it condemns its misuse.  Very, very similar to its charge regarding money.  It does not condemn money—it condemns its misuse (“the love of” money).  The historical Church has taught this for over four millenniums.  Passover has always been celebrated with wine.  The first (and subsequent) Lord’s Suppers have been celebrated with wine.  Jesus affirmed the celebration of the wedding of Canaan with wine.  Wine is one of those natural by-products of no refrigeration that would have been the end-result of the grape harvest.  The fermentation process is one of those natural processes our Creator God made and thus made for our enjoyment.  Not, however, for our abuse.

One of the tensions we (the church) have in a post-church society (where we are in the US, and it will only become more so) is that the Christians of this country must be a mission force, building bridges into the lives of those who don’t know Christ.  We work hard at CrossPoint to live in both worlds—a world of loving and communicating to the un-Christian in his language—while also living in a world of loving and communicating with our God in His language.  It is a life in tension, living under God’s grace in Christ while also allowing His Spirit to conform us more and more to His will.  It is a life of enjoying the taste and the camaraderie of having a beer with good friends while not abusing that taste or friendship.

We hold Theological Pub along the same lines of Jesus ministering to those who felt unwelcome in the synagogue or disenfranchised from the religious teachings of the day.  We speak the truth there—often the unpopular one—and always demonstrate that Christ’s love is meant to be taken to the community, into settings where the community is open to hearing and reflecting on it.

The Next Step…

But there were success stories too.  In fact, a recovering alcoholic who hadn’t touched a bottle in years once told me, “Karl, everyone has an addiction, but many of us don’t even know it.”  ….There’s wisdom in that statement………and I think he’s right.

So if you’re feeling a little too close to a fool repeating his folly, or you have some junk in your life that smells and you just can’t seem to get pass, CrossPoint Community Church is in the process of forming a support group for addiction and recovery to help people get real and work through their hurts, hang-ups, and bad habits.  It’s about discovering hope and change that maybe you thought were beyond your reach.  If you need help or want to get involved, I encourage you to take the first step:  email Brian Kolb who will be leading CrossPoint’s Celebrate Recovery at cmail4brian@gmail.com, or me, Pastor Karl, at kschuler@crosspt.org.  Getting help starts with taking action and getting involved.  Are you in?

Frazier was my dog when I was a kid growing up, and he was an eating machine.  We didn’t need to buy any Scooby snacks.  Frazier would eat just about anything:  ice cubes, lettuce, peanut butter, trash, road kill, and yes, even his own vomit. ‘Hey, why trot to the dog dish when there’s something steamy right there in front of you?  Mmmmm good.’

Pretty disgusting I know…and you & I would never eat our own vomit, right?  So why are we talking about it?  Well, because it’s one of the best slams against the foolish in the whole Bible….check it out:

As a dog returns to its vomit,

So a fool repeats his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)

This proverb sounds pretty funny, but there’s also something about it that should make us all feel a little uneasy too.  You see, when we think about it, aren’t there some things you’ve done that you’re not proud of, or mistakes that you have repeated over and over again?  For instance:

• Maybe you’re over your head in credit card debt and can’t seem to stop.
• Or have you stepped into some relationship vomit…going on your third marriage or hopping from bed to bed but feeling empty inside?
• Or, maybe you’re a weekend warrior, getting high or hugging the porcelain throne, telling yourself, ‘Don’t worry; I can quit at any time…it’s no biggie.’

“I can quit any time,” I’ve heard that one a lot over the years because before becoming a pastor, I was the Deputy Director of Human Resources for one of NASA’s Space Centers.  About every year, an employee would pop-up who had a drinking or drug problem. Sadly, some couldn’t break their addiction…they never faced the facts or never really tried to get help—they just kept returning to their mistakes again and again–eating their vomit–until they were finally fired.  It was a hard row for everyone involved and nobody was a winner–the supervisor, the co-workers, and especially the employee and his or her family.