Celebrate Recovery Ministry in the Local Church - Church Membership Required???

I was recently going through some of the cards that were handed back at the T.E.A.M. Network Connection on Wednesday night at the Celebrate Recovery Summit a couple of weeks ago.

There were many questions concerning different areas of concern to a Celebrate Recovery Ministry Leader, and I thought responding to some in this blog would be of assistance as you start or grow the recovery ministry of your church. The category that drew most of the questions had to do with training, equipping, motivating, and leading the ministry TEAM and volunteers.

How about starting with this one?

Question: Do the leaders have to be members of the church that is hosting Celebrate Recovery?

Answer: We believe that Celebrate Recovery functions best as a regular ministry of the local church. The best way to insure the character and growth of any leaders in the church is to interact with them through regular participation in the local church. Many churches require membership for leaders to be active or serve in Sunday School, choir, children, youth, or adult ministries of the church.

If your CR leaders only function at church is recovery, you miss out on seeing if they are consistent in other areas of their lives. In my experience at church - there are many leaders I've had the opportunity to interact with in Sunday School, men's ministry, married couples events, and even cycling. I'm not left to evaluate their ability as a leader on one facet of our relationship, but I get to know they are persistent in their spiritual walk and recovery through other parts of our spiritual journey together.

While church membership and commitment to spiritual growth is required to serve in leadership of Celebrate Recovery at Saddleback Church, we realize implementing membership as a requirement for leadership in any ministry is up to the local church.

As a ministry leader, we hope you are leading this ministry under the authority and with the support of your senior pastor and church leadership. Serving as a regular ministry of the church bears the responsibility to function as any other ministry of the church - including membership, if that is a requirement enforced equally among those serving the church.

The national ministry of Celebrate Recovery has established a ministry, templates, and leaders to help you start this Christ centered ministry in your church and community. It is your duty, ministry leader, to mold this to the structure and polity of your local denomination - and maintain an accurate representation of the model at Saddleback.

One area we see where "church membership" is not the standard or best practice tends to be in rural communities. This occurs when limited resource or personnel requires two or more churches to band together to operate the ministry of Celebrate Recovery. This often requires one church to host, while leaders are recruited from other churches to man and operate the ministry.

If you have questions about church membership as a requirement for leading at Celebrate Recovery, please check first with your senior pastor to determine the guidelines in place at your church. I also encourage you to check in with your CR State Rep or Regional Director. Members of this national team can answer questions you may have about starting or growing your Celebrate Recovery ministry.

Celebrating Recovery - each day in Christ! - Jim