Tomorrow night we will celebrate....
We'll have tons of dessert....
Gallons of coffee....
Soft drinks....
We will tell our stories of how we got to where we are today...
We will worship with songs that you might not hear in other churches....
"I can see clearly now the rain is gone"...
"I've got a peaceful, easy feeling".....
"Come together..right now...over you"....
We will pray together..
We will give thanks for another week of life, as well as another week of sobriety.
Tomorrow night we will celebrate the fourth anniversary of Vineyard ReCovery Church.
It all began back on February 11, 2013. An entry in my journal in the form of a prayer. Didn't really consider it to be a prayer, but looking back, it was a cry of my heart. I'd had a most unusual weekend. I had been to 3 consecutive recovery meetings. Led worship on Friday night at the Gathering CR....spoke Saturday night at the Church@Rapha...and then ministered at North Glencoe CR on Sunday night. God used these three meetings to awaken me to the fact that he was leading me into something new. In my journal I wrote, "I want to come home. I want to come back to the Vineyard and start a ReCovery Church." Eighteen words....yet those words came from a place deep inside me.
Now, four years later, what has been the result of our meeting.
Well, if you measure by numbers and nickles, you'd probably feel as though we were a miserable failure. But if you go back and read other entries that I wrote as God begin to put VRC together, you'll find an unusual truth. During my prayer time, God let me know that this was to be HIS meeting. I was to stay out of the way and give Him free reign. He also told me in no uncertain terms that the meeting would be small in number. It would always be that way and not to be discouraged by the size of it. That was a hard one for me. There were Saturday's that we only had 9 or 10 people. But from this group, God formed the basis of our core leadership.
I have some who ask me "Why do you call yourself a Church rather than a recovery meeting?" While we do acknowledge the Twelve Steps and a need for the discipline they bring to a chaotic addictive lifestyle, our focus is to point to the real, true POWER That makes sobriety possible. We want people to understand that while sobriety is the goal of recovery, there is so much more found in Christ. More than simply the absence of drugs and alcohol. The infusion of life...life abundant when we turn will and life over to the care of God.
Four years really isn't a long time....
48 months...
Approximately 208 meetings....
But we've been blessed to have seen a lot of lives changed.
So tomorrow night we will celebrate the goodness of God....
And we will celebrate the small portion of His Kingdom He has given to us to steward. I pray that we have been, and always will be faithful to the His call...
If you're free tomorrow night, come on out and join us...
Meeting starts at 7 p.m.
We're located downtown Gadsden on Broad Street, between 4th and 5th streets.
God on you...
mbb
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