Encouragement Acrostic

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. Romans 15:4

It is great to see his work and how he is transforming lives all over Australia and New Zealand through CR. I would like to extend a huge welcome to the newcomers in the last couple of months and pray Christ’s blessings on your Celebrate Recovery ministries as you enter the 90 day start up and commence CR at the start of next year. It’s absolutely great to see fantastic growth of CR in the Oceania Region. We have such an awesome God! That I am never cease to amaze what He does!

Last December once again God talked into my life about moving onto the next paradigm with Him. Since attending the CR summit at Saddleback 2007 and 2008 He has been challenging me about taking CR to the next level, so during the year I stepped out of my comfort zone into were He has been doing another work and change in me on my recovery journey.


Romans 12:2 (NLT) says” Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what is good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” For so long I copied the behaviours and custom as of this world with my addictions, that when I learnt to put the steps into my life with Jesus Christ as my Higher Power that I had a total change from the way that I used to think and behave-( which was “Poor me Poor me, Pour me another drink!’ Give me more, give me more) no longer was alcohol, sex and drugs my Higher power.

In CR we like acrostics and one word that comes to mind from that verse is TRANSFORM so here goes-

Totally surrendered to God’s will- Early in recovery I learnt the term “Surrender to win.” It’s only when I gave my heart and life and recovery fully into Jesus hands that God started to move mountains in my life. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing, and perfect will" (Romans 12:2, NIV).

Set your sights on becoming more like Christ. Focus on him and ask him to transform your thinking. Study appropriate Scripture passages as you surrender a particular area of your life. If you desire anything less than permanent transformation, you are not considering surrender; you are considering nothing more that a New Year's resolution that is waiting to be broken.

Realize you are not God. In CR we are not here to fix anyone only Jesus Christ can do that. It’s only by sharing our own experience of what Jesus Christ has done in our own lives through working the principles and Christ centred 12 steps that people will come to want what we have. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. Ephesians 4:29
In everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God. 2 Corinthians 6:4

Action. As leaders of Celebrate Recovery groups we need to be working the principles and 12 steps as well as we can’t pass onto to others what we haven’t got. If you don’t think you
need recovery- ask yourself why you are leading a Celebrate Recovery group? The bible says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

New Healthy Small Groups-
Share each other’s troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16

• Start new issue & gender specific Open Share Small Groups

• Start Step Study Small Groups on a DIFFERENT night

1. Try to always have Step Study Group open to newcomers

2. Future Leaders will come out of Step Study Small Groups

3. Step Studies provide further healing

4. Stop having Steps Studies and your growth STOPS!

Safeguard the INTEGRITY of THE CELEBRATE RECOVERY PROGRAM

People with integrity have firm footing, but those who follow crooked paths will slip and fall. Proverbs 10:9
Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones. If you cheat even a little, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. Luke 16:10
-There are many benefits to using the Celebrate Recovery name.
(See “The Value of Using the Celebrate Recovery name”)
-Many Celebrate Recovery programs fail because they loose their focus
-Integrity provides stability. Integrity is not what we DO as much as what WE ARE.
Integrity builds trust, has high influence value, and facilitates high standards, results in a solid foundation
– not just image. Integrity means living it Myself BEFORE leading others.

(John Maxwell – Developing the Leader within You )

Fruit shown- WHEN WE GROW IN HEIGHT AND DEPTH THE RESULTS ARE CHANGED LIVES!

If you give up your life for me, you will find true life. Matthew 16:25

The growth and development of people is the HIGHEST CALLING of leadership.
John Maxwell – Developing the Leaders Around You

• A changed life brings dignity – Commitment to Christ

• A changed life brings unity and reconciliation – Amends and forgiveness displayed

• A changed life brings satisfaction and gives purpose – Serving in ministry

• A changed life brings Glory to God - Through daily Worship

Then the King will say to those on the right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.' Matthew 25:31-38

Ongoing Leadership Training- providing ongoing leadership training and encouragement is necessary for the health of your Celebrate Recovery ministry. Training provides the opportunity to put the right people in the right service opportunities for the right reasons
Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not.
Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.

2 Timothy 4:2 And Christ gave gifts to people – He made some to be apostles, some to be
Prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to have the work of caring for and teaching God’s people. Christ gave those gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger. Ephesians 4:11-12

Recovery Resources- support CR nationally from purchasing your CR resources through our website. This allows us to support and provide training for you.

Mission-How can the ALL the ministries within CR reach out to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth? The Encourager Coach can brainstorm, dream and help cast the vision with the other T.E.A.M. Coaches. They can decide how to share the opportunity of outreach with EVERYONE that attends CR.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

Jerusalem – Regular Church Crowd
_ Have a Resource Table at weekend service
_ Church Bulletin
_ Displays
_ Encourage CR Leaders to be involved in other ministries of the church
_ Have CR presence at all Major Church events if possible.

Judea – Our Community
_ Help other churches start CR
_ Reach out to the places that care for people (Salvation Army, Pregnancy
Homes, Women's Refuges, Doctors, Lawyers, Health Facilities, Counselors, etc.)
_ Have the BBQ and/or Worship Team offer their services at community
events.
_ Encourage attendance at Secular (non Christian) Recovery Groups.
_ Exchange Speakers
_ Testimonies to go

Samaria – Messy, High maintenance places that we would like to avoid
_ support National CR
_ Help start CR in local jails & prisons
_ Take a speaker panel to Treatment Centers
_ Facilitate Meetings in rehabs
_ Put CR on the list of approved recovery options for the Court System

Ends of the Earth – the Mission Field!
_ Take short-mission trips
_ Help others to go on a CR Mission Trip.
_ Help the Assimilation Coach with an Outreach Workshop

Finally………….”Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” Colossians 3:16.

If anyone has any personal stories of encouragement, we would love to hear how your groups are going and your stories will be included to help encourage other CR groups.

Penny
National Encourager CR Oceania

Testimony

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ. Colossians 2:2

Hi everyone….

We have been encouraged over here in the West to the great turn out at the CR One day Seminar in Perth. It was such a great day and I am sure the people that came will go back to their churches and start groups. They may have came thinking that this is for’those ‘ people but by the end of the seminar knew they needed it as well. Keith and Viv are off to Melbourne next week for the Victorian One day seminar so make sure you catch up with them there. Keep praying for the ministry of CR in Australia and New Zealand , it s thriving – but there are still a lot of hurting, broken and addicted people out there who need the life changing power of Jesus Christ in their lives. I know CR has made a huge difference in my life, so I will share with you my testimony………………..

Praying God’s blessings over you and your CR ministry’s . Please don’t forget to give me a call or email me

Christ’s Love
Penny

Celebrate Recovery Testimony

Hi, Everyone, I’m a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who struggles with alcoholism, addiction and in recovery from physical/sexual abuse.I say that I’m a believer first because my identity today is in my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ not in my sin addiction/ behaviour. Let me share with you how my life was before coming into recovery

I grew up in a very dysfunctional family with two parents who should never have married each other. My dad was an alcoholic who had been physically and emotionally abused as a child and my mother was an adult child of an alcoholic who had lived most of her childhood with her grandparents because of her mother not wanting her as a baby.

As a result of this neither them coped too well with us children. I was the eldest of 4 children and was quite often bashed with anything either of them got there hands on as well as being told I was not wanted and being emotionally and mentally abused. From a very early age I felt that I wasn’t loved and was just in the way.

As a young child coming from an alcoholic family, where alcohol was too readily available, I was drunk for the first time at eight years of age .
Around the time I first picked up my first drink I was being sexually abused by my babysitter’s son. At the time I didn’t think anything was wrong with it as I liked the feeling it gave me; and I felt like I was loved. But deep down I knew it was wrong, yet I thought this was love.

I couldn’t tell anyone about what was happenning as this guy had told me something bad would happen to my family and me if I spoke up so I became even more withdrawn.

Both mum and dad worked fulltime as dad drank away all the money so mum supported and fed us on the money she earned. I r4egularly got into my Pop’s brandavino and plonk and swapped my mum’s Crème de Menthe and swap it for green cordial.These drinks made me feel better about myself and I wasn’t poor little, abused Penny anymore. It became my way out !! It became my salvation.!! I couldn’t pick up a drink without getting drunk. And it led me to a life of dishonesty and deceitfulness. I couldn’t tell anyone and others always got the blame for alcohol going missing. . I was a kid who so desperately wanted to belong and who wanted be like the others and that need to belong ended up leading in to a life which was in my worst nightmares

My sister and I were left at home most times to fend for our selves once we had reached eleven and twelve years of age , by this stage I was wagging school and we would go searching the house for pornographic videos that our parents and their friends watched while us kids were locked out of the house.
Dad had been raised mostly in a church kids home so when he wanted to have his mates over to watch the porno videos he sent us kids to Sunday School.

At the age of 13 I made friends with a girl who asked me to join the singing company at the Salvation Army where I gave my heart to Jesus. I enjoyed the feeling of being part of something but still had no real connection with anyone but myself and remained a very confused and rebellious teenager who still had my binges when things got too much to cope with.

When I was seventeen, I became a member of interschool Christian Fellowship and became spirit filled. After a drinking episode with my father where he was going on about how much hell his life had been. andI started yelling back “You don’t know what hell is until you have been through what I have been through” What had happened all came out and he started to call me all the names under the sun that referred to who I thought I was. After that I was accused of trying to break up my family. I felt so degraded and blamed myself. After some counselling I soon left the small town that I had grown up in and moved up to the city Perth.

I had been told all my life that I was nothing and all I would be was nothing, so I set out to prove my parents wrong and got into nursing in Perth and topped the state in my exams.

Not long after moving to Perth I met a man who was to become my first husband, we seemed to have the same sort of goals and he gave me lots of gifts and made me feel special about myself.

I was a candidate to go into the Salvation Army Training college and had been doing the required studies to do so and so was he. Not long after this I entered into a sexual relationship outside of marriage with him and decided to get married. Before we married he started to get abusive with me, but because I’d already had sex before marriage with him I had this distorted idea that I had to get married. When I married him things were fine for awhile until after I gave birth to my first child. Things started to get more abusive and not only did the physical abuse continue but he started abusing me sexually as well. I couldn’t tell anyone. I thought it was my entire fault and once again turned back to the only way I knew how to cope and that was though alcohol.

This marriage ended after I fell pregnant for the 2nd time after being sexually assaulted. I felt like I had an alien growing inside of me and various people were brought in and the decision was made that it would be better for my mental health if the pregnancy was terminated. With the termination, came the termination of all my hopes and dreams. Three weeks after the termination I went out on the town with friends, wiped myself off and that saw me spiral into a life of debauchery and alcoholic blackouts and moving from one state to another.

After getting married for the second time in an alcoholic blackout to a guy who had a $20,000 wine collection-, I continued the high life of best wine, spirits, parties and balls. Designer outfits, acrylic nails and expensive makeup was all masks to cover who I was. My world as I knew it came crashing down on me following a serious car accident in October 1995 and not only was I to become more immersed in my alcoholism, I also became depressed, I got addicted to all different narcotics and benzodiazapines that I was put on following my car accident. I started the roller coaster ride of my life that would take me to hell and back over the next four years.

During those 4 years I was labelled with every psych term under the sun. Never once did I tell them about my drinking. My pill taking I thought was taking care of hiding that one. It was 4 years in and out of psychiatric institutions all over the country, suicide attempts, charcoals milkshakes, epilepsy, etc... Over this time I was under DOCS and they were talking about taking my children off of me as I could not look after myself let alone them very well.

At the end of July 1999, God intervened in my life and after a minor car accident, I ended up in hospital. From there my life was taken out of my hands and I was sent to a rehab in NSW. I believe today that it was God’s intervention as I was physically, mentally and spiritually bankrupt. I was rock bottom. I let myself be helped. I surrendered. I was sick and tired of fighting this alone. I cried out to God to get me out of this black hole that I was in and gradually He did.

I was introduced to a twelve step programme. It gave me simple directions to stay sober and clean. I placed my life in God’s hand. I couldn’t do it by myself. The time I got sober I had been attending a church called Hills Christian Life Centre now known as Hillsong. The people there were inspirational and I attended a Christian Recovery Group there. It was great. I discovered how much of a lie I had been living and gave my life completely to Jesus and slowly by putting the steps in I started to heal. I left Sydney when my 2nd marriage finished. Our relationship had been based on a life of alcoholism and addiction. My husband at the time did not like me being clean and sober so at 5 months sobriety I made the decision to come home to WA and put my sobriety first.

I continued to work a secular recovery program in Western Australia as at that time there was no Christ Centred program that I could find.After doing step 11 in a secular recovery programme I discovered I wanted a more intimate relationship with my Higher Power which I was not get in the spiritually neutral AA.

I was led back to the Salvation Army where I could make amends for my past. Principle 6 says. “Evaluate 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.” God had brought me right back to my roots to begin His task of rebuilding relationships with Him and others. This was to build a deep spiritual foundation in me. Step 11 “sought through prayer and mediation to improve my conscious contact with God… Praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out” Through putting the Twelve steps into my life with Christ as my foundation, I have learned to cope with situations that before I would have drank over.

Through Jesus I have been set free and what a wonderful freedom to know that I am loved, I belong, I’m forgiven, and I’m healed and that I have been made whole in Him” The verse Romans 8:1 has become a central part of my recovery which says “Therefore there is now condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.” I no longer was ashamed or embarrassed by my past.

At the start of 2004 as a church we were working through “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and through it I found out about this Christ –centred 12 step programme called “Celebrate Recovery” ® I knew this was what God wanted me to do and Set about to find out more. I purchased the kit, Life recovery Bible and got two other people in our church enthused. We attended training by John Baker and the Celebrate Recovery team who had come over to Perth from Saddleback Church. I had discovered my purpose and why God had brought me through it all and my passion was even more ignited.

Today I have good relationships with my family and friends I can call my own, which are very dear to me. I have remarried to a lovely supportive man who works his own recovery programme and supports me in everything I do. I have 4 beautiful girls, the youngest being 2 years old. My life has completely changed from the very insecure troubled Penny I was when I first entered recovery 8 years ago. Jesus had done a miracle in my life and has given such a desire to pass onto others what He has done for me, he can do for you. I have been in the same relationship now for over 6 years which in my drinking and drugging, I didn’t know the meaning of being faithful and the meaning of being truly loved. Today I have these in my life and I am content in the knowledge that Jesus loves me and accepts me just as I am and this knowledge spurs me on to pursue a more intimate relationship with Him.


God has given me a real passion to see people’s lives transformed through this Christ Centered program called Celebrate Recovery and a vision to see recovery and the City of Rockingham transformed through the life saving power of Jesus Blood!

Today I am involved in Celebrate Recovery serving on a National Level as the Encourager for other CR leaders. Not only is God transforming broken lives and growing people spiritually through a recovery process but He is also leading them into service within church and bearing great fruit in their lives.

It is the constant prayer in my life that the many broken hurt people with habits, hurts and hang-ups will find a safe place in Celebrate Recovery that I have found and know the healing power of the one true Higher Power Jesus Christ in their Lives.


Hebrews 4 : 14-16 says
That is why we have a great High Priest who has gone to Heaven, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us cling to Him and never stop trusting Him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of God. There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.

Thanks for letting me share.