# 7 Ongoing Spot in Church Bulletin

Keeping Celebrate Recovery in front of your church family is essential for growth! But you may be thinking, “We’ve been up and running for several years. Surely everyone here knows about what we're doing."

A quote I read from an unknown author stated, “If you tell the average man there are 278,805,732,168 stars in the universe, he will believe you. But if a sign says Wet Paint he has to make a personnel investigation.”

Today may be the day someone is visiting your church for the first time. Or it may be the day someone says “Hey, I wonder if that paint is wet!” Either way, you never know who’s looking, so be ready.

Here’s a copy of one of our weekly bulletin spots:

Is Celebrate Recovery for me?
Are there things in my life
that I do that hurt others?

Is there something I wish
I could live without?

We would love to see you at CR
where you will find fellowship
with other believers who are
working through their hurts, habits and hang ups.

Every Fri. night 7:00pm

Praise & Worship,
Teaching or Testimony

For more information:
www.wfrchurch.org/celebraterecovery
http://www.celebraterecovery.com/

Notice we ask a couple of questions. Be creative and try not to ask recovery questions in the regular way like,"Do you have a problem with drugs or alcohol?" Instead, come up with questions that will apply to a greater spectrum of folks. Also make sure you give some kind of contact information. Web sites are particularly helpful as people can check things out before actually talking to someone.

You know, I think next week we may actually start our bulletin spot off with the heading, "Wet Paint". You never know someone may reach out to investigate!

I would love to hear from you about your creative bulletin spots. You can e-mail me at mowen@wfrchurch.org or comment on this blog. I look forward to hearing from you.

Now in the words of Paul I will leave you with this, "In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:4-6

Mac

Helping the Newcomer Feel Welcome - Part 2

We just got back from the 100th One Day seminar with 24 of our CR family. We had a great time to say the least. Every time we attend a One Day, we come back more excited than ever, not to mention, just having fun celebrating recovery together.

We asked everyone that went with us, “What was the most important thing you learned?” It was a resounding, “It’s all about the newcomer!” In my last post, I shared the story of the visitor sitting in their car. We are seriously thinking about having Parking Lot Greeters as our first line of welcome.

I also shared, “It is VITAL that we are conscience of those who are around us. It’s so easy to fellowship with those we know and let the Newcomer fend for themself.”

You may say, “We would never do that!” Well, I was at a CR recently. They were wondering why they weren’t growing. They said they were doing everything right but just couldn’t get visitors to come. Now this next part is going to seem so extreme you’ll wonder, “Is he making this up to make a point?” NO, this actually happened.

The first thing I noticed was in large group no one read the 8 Principles or 12Steps, which was a little odd, but I thought they might be nervous because the state rep was there giving his testimony. Or maybe they just wanted to give me more time in case I had more to share with them.

At small group everything was discussed from fishing to the weather. Finally one guy said, “It’s hot in here and Martha made a good looking pie. Let’s go get some.” About that time a man raised his hand and said, “Can I say something? This is my first time here. Thanks for letting me come. I’ve been looking for a Christian recovery group.”

The visitor was in there midst and they didn’t even recognize him!!

I’m glad to say this group decided to take a break to refocus and start over.

As the Assimilation coach, your greatest responsibility is making sure your group remembers what’s most important “It’s all about the Newcomer!”

This is the time of year when we, as a country, take time to reflect on how much we have been blessed. I believe that we, in Celebrate Recovery, have more to be thankful for than anyone. We “get to” share the hope we’ve found in Jesus saving lives one at a time!

Ah, Technology, this week's Celebrate Recovery Podcast is finally on the air

Sometimes I love it, and sometimes, not so much. This week technology was a pain in the neck.

It took a lot to bring you this weeks podcast, so I hope you love it. This week we're bringing you Tina's testimony from one of our General Meeting Nights.

I love hearing testimonies because they remind me of how powerful God is and that Jesus is still changing lives.

Enjoy.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking here. Or, subscribe in iTunes to get each episode as it's released.