Props to an encouraging ministry...

This is Vince writing. I had a very interesting experience on Tuesday night. As I think we've mentioned before, God is begining to open doors for us in the Greek system here at SFA. This is very exciting for us. We are now developing relationships with guys and girls in 4 different major houses.
Our campus director, Scott, and I have really connected with one particular guy, named John, from one of the houses. John is a really cool guys who has some difficult things he is struggling with while wrestling with what God may have for his life. He has been sharing with us about his experience with God while attending something called Celebrate Recovery. He was telling us how the program had helped him overcome some issues in his life, and how he has started to attend again. He invited us to go with him to Celebrate Recovery, so this past Tuesday we drove with him to his home town to check things out.
Celebrate Recovery is a Christ based recovery program that helps people over come, and recover from a wide range of addictions such as: sexual, drugs, alcohol, co-dependancy, anxiety, basically you name it. I have heard from a couple of good friends about how great this is, and after attending one meeting I can emphatically agree.
This main things that stood out to me about Celebrate Recovery was how open, accepting, inclusive, and welcoming they are to everyone. I think one failing of the church is that people don't feel they can reveal some of thier deep hurts, and sins because if they did then they would feel akward, or to some extent look at like they don't belong. At CR this is something that they do right every week. In my experience there, it just didn't matter what you are dealing with. It could be almost unimaginable struggle, and the people at CR will welcome you in, lock arms, and say we are in this together. It's an amazing picture of how I believe Jesus would want His church to operate.
I would hope that if someone walked into my church, and for that matter, every Christ believing church, or even our ministry with Cru, and opened up that they were dealing with drug addiction, homo sexuality, or some deep dark hurt, that we would react with open arms and acceptance. I believe that we are challenged to lock arms and do life with these people as Jesus pulls them through thier sins. I think we need to break out of feeling like we need to continually act like everything is OK while we are at church, and make a movement towards open sharing, and total acceptance. Not acceptance of the sin being OK, but acceptance that they are in the right place to trust in Christ, and to make their and our lives look more like His.
I just wanted to through our there some props for a really cool ministry who is doing the hard things really well. Celebrate Recovery is changing lives, and helping people follow Christ while, fighting addictions. I would recommend this program to anyone dealing with addiction. CR is legit.