Celebrate Recovery and Life's Healing Choices

Grow your Celebrate Recovery Ministry through Life’s Healing Choices.

LIFE'S HEALING CHOICES

A RECOVERY EXPERIENCE

Freedom from your hurts, hang-ups and habits

The new campaign event from Saddleback Church &

Pastor Rick Warren.

A note from Pastor Rick Warren:

“Offering real hope and a real future one healing choice at a time. At Saddleback Church we’ve learned that every person deals with pain in their lives. Our goal has always been to move people past their hurts and struggles toward making the decisions that lead them to be more Christ-like in character.

Join us this fall, starting September 26th, as we embark on our newest campaign, Life’s Healing Choices, a study of eight healing principles from the Beatitudes taught by Jesus. Your congregation will be changed in dramatic ways as they find true happiness by learning to overcome their hurts, hang-ups and habits - allowing God to enter their lives with healing and growth.”

The Life’s Healing Choices small group material includes:

· Eight studies from Pastor Rick Warren in a special Fall edition of the Purpose Driven Connection curriculum.
· Sermon transcripts, outlines and audio files for each of the eight weeks of the campaign.
· Life’s Healing Choices, the book from Pastor John baker.

There will be no better outreach opportunity for your CR than to participate. This national event will reach more people for Christ as well as inform them about your Celebrate Recovery. Get ready to grow, “for no eye have seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Sign up now on https://www.lifeshealingchoices.com/

Celebrate Recovery General Meeting

Celebrate Recovery Testimonies

Many young CR Groups across the country do not have live CR testimonies to incorporate every other week during their general meeting (Large Group). Testimonies to go are an ideal resource. Currently, on www.saddlebackresources.com, CR offers 18 personal testimonies on DVD. In addition, a new volume of personal testimonies will be available at this year’s CR Summit. But, what does a CR group do when they have already run these testimonies? The tendency is to seek out special guest speakers.

Keep in the mind that the ministry leader is responsible for everything said from the pulpit at your general meeting. This includes testimonies, lessons, and guest speakers. Be selective, if you invite a guest speaker who wants to push their agenda to sale their books or materials this would violate the CR Trademark agreement. Also make sure that all guest speakers have been through recovery themselves and are not there to speak to “those people.” In addition, CR does not single out any one particular area of recovery. Focusing on one area of recovery excludes others. OK, I can hear some of you saying right now, well “what about testimonies?” Whereas individuals do have a specific area of recovery that brought them to CR, every testimony offers experiences, perspectives and feelings that everyone identifies with. Everyone can relate to childhood, social issues, Christ, the 8 principles & the Christ centered 12 steps!

When inviting a local Christian counselor to speak at your general meeting; he/she must be a Christian counselor who supports the 8 Principles and 12-steps - 100%. When Saddleback CR invites a guest speaker, our guest speaks on the principle we are currently teaching on. We discuss the lesson ahead of time and give them the topic we want him/her to talk about. The number one priority as a ministry leader is to ensure that CR remains committed to providing a Christ centered recovery program.

Here are a few additional suggestions when you feel you have exhausted all your resources:

· Contact other CR groups within an hour radius and inquire about live “CR testimonies to Go” The Ministry leader should request an electronic copy of the testimony ahead of time. It is the Ministry leader’s responsibility to read the testimony ahead of time to ensure CR testimony writing guidelines are in place. (See Module 5, Writing Your Testimony, in the Advanced Leadership Training Guide)

· If you don’t have a testimony, teach the next lesson! If you complete teaching all 25 lessons before the year ends go back to lesson one. It does not hurt your participants’ progress to hear the Denial lesson twice in one year. On the contrary; many of us in recovery are facing denial in other areas of our lives and don’t even realize it. Remember new comers have joined your CR since the first time you taught on Denial, Powerlessness, etc…

· Teach lessons from Module 10, in the Advanced Leadership Training Guide during your general meeting night. These lessons were written by Pastor John Baker.

1. Recovery Check – teach before the holidays
2. How’s Your Serenity – a teaching on the serenity prayer
3. H.A.N.D.S – a teaching that helps motivate healthy CR volunteer service

· Encourage your existing leaders to write out their testimonies. Schedule a testimony writing workshop for your leaders.

· Raise up new leaders! With every new leader is a new live testimony!

And I received another great idea from Liz of Alberta, Canada:

· Stretch "7 Reasons We Get Stuck" lesson 25 in the CR Leaders Guide over a period of a few weeks. Since this lesson is not created in the form of an acrostic, you may split this lesson into 2 parts, or 3 parts, or even 4 parts.

Thank you Liz, for this great idea! (Added June 5, 2009)

New Groups and CR Curriculum

I am always excited to hear when a CR is ready to start a new recovery specific open share group. It means, get ready to grow!

To start a new group all you need is a trained leader and co-leader. On the evening you start your new group plan on having the leader share their CR testimony. It is an exciting way to introduce your group and encourage participants to check it out.

Before starting a new open share group, every effort should be made to have your indentified leaders complete the 1st workbook and Open Share training. Then your indentified leaders need to continue working through all 4 workbooks. We also recommend that leaders have at least 1 year of recovery. It is important for the safety of the group. You don’t want to start groups with leaders who don’t get recovery; who are seeking to help “those” people.

The above process will change once you have a step study group up and running. At which time all future leaders should complete a CR Step Study group before starting a new open share group.

I am often asked if CR offers specific curriculum for a particular area of recovery. Celebrate Recovery utilizes the CR Bible, the 4 Participant’s Guides* and the CR Leader’s Guide (25 lessons) for all areas of recovery. In addition, CR runs all open share groups and step study groups the same way. This is a part of the DNA* of an authentic Celebrate Recovery.

I think we can all agree that every area of recovery; food addiction, eating disorders, chemical addiction, co-dependency, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual addiction, gambling addiction, etc., has their own unique hurts, habits and hang-ups. Our founder John Baker, created the CR curriculum based solely on God’s word, and God’s word applies to all areas of recovery. Each lesson and each question creates movement through the Steps and Principles. In addition, CR is for the entire family. Using the same curriculum provides harmony to families participating in the program together, and prevents any further confusion in an already dysfunctional and hurting home.

God Bless your week,

*Stepping Out of Denial into God’s grace; Taking an Honest and Spiritual Inventory; Getting Right with God, Yourself, and Others; Growing in Christ While Helping Others.

For a copy of *Celebrate Recovery Trademark Agreement; feel free to contact me at tinad@saddleback.com.

Celebrate Recovery Sponsor and Accountability Partners

In my last blog I explained what our role is concerning Sponsors. Our role as a CR Ministry is to educate the newcomer about the importance of finding a Sponsor, the role of a Sponsor, and the characteristics to look for in a Sponsor. Today I am going to talk about what our role is not.

Once a participant has the tools to choose a Sponsor wisely, the ultimate decision is theirs to make. At the CR Model we do not assign or oversee these relationships. Our role is not to assign Sponsors, or Accountability Partners, for that matter. Years ago I learned of a step study group leader who thought it best to assign Accountability Partners, rather than allow the group participants to get to know each other and choose for themselves. She proceeded to assign the person on their left. Since Step study groups are not issue specific, she wound up pairing up a co-dependent with an addict. This arrangement ended up hurting the individuals, the group and the group leader.

Anyone who has met the basic requirements to Sponsor should be encouraged to take on this responsibility. (To find the prerequisites to Sponsor go to your Advanced Leadership Training Guide; Modular 9 Training Sponsors) There may be several attendees qualified to sponsor, but not yet able to meet all of your leadership requirements. They, too, may sponsor others as part of serving in the ministry. If you only allow your group leaders to sponsor the newcomer you are setting your leaders up for leader burnout! What happens when your CR Ministry grows from 10 to 50 to 100 or even 500 people? At the CR Model we have 96 leaders and over a 1,000 participants. I’ll burnout just thinking about it!

Our role is not to manage these relationships. We do not recommend trying to control these relationships. (By the way, we have a group for thatJ) However, Ministry Leaders may, and should, hold CR Leaders accountable. We are responsible for our leadership, therefore should conflicts arise between a Sponsor and a Sponsee, the Ministry Leader may provide guidance and help towards reconciliation. Let it suffice to say that in the case of a non-leader Sponsor and Sponsee conflict that is causing harm to the overall health of your CR Ministry, you must intervene.

It’s easy to feel anxious for the newcomer. After all we know what works. But, we must allow God’s power to work in the hearts and minds of our newcomers.

Be encouraged!

Celebrate Recovery Global Website

Want to post your CR Group? Here's How.

I encourage ALL CR Groups to post their CR Group. I receive 100’s of emails and phone calls a month from individuals asking where they can find a CR Group in their area. The website is my only resource! Directories are only as good as the information provided.

In order to be posted on the web, your CR Group must meet the DNA of an authentic Celebrate Recovery.

To post your Celebrate Recovery Group on the web go to www.celebraterecovery.com:

1. Select Find a Group
2. Select: Want to add your CR group to our database? Contact Us!
3. Add your CR Group to the database
4. Type in the provided image verification number and send

The approval Process:

Your entry will automatically be forwarded to your State Representative. Once your State Representative receives your information he/she will set up a time to visit/call your CR Group. After your State Representative reviews and confirms your information, he/she will then forward your information to the Regional Director for final approval. After your Regional Director approves your request, the information will be sent to the home office webmaster to be entered.

To submit updates or changes to phone number, meeting time, contact information, etc… follow the 4 steps above or contact your State Representative directly. You will find contact information for your State Representative on the back pages of your Summit Notebook and/or your 1-Day 7-Keys/ALT notebook.

Getting ready for the WAVE!