Each week, someone asks me about Vineyard ReCovery Church..
"Who are you and what do you believe?"
Not a bad question. Just not sure how to answer it. I confess that I still haven't gotten the answer down to fifteen words or less, but I am in the process of trying to give language to answer their question.
Are we a church who mission is to help those in addiction?
You better believe it. But the difference in what we do is that we take the word "recovery" beyond the using of drugs and alcohol. In fact recovery is the taking back of the entire person....spirit, body and soul, from a life that has been separated from its Creator. We fully realize that we cannot recover except by God's help. Recover from a fall into sin-life.
Like any good 12 step program, honesty if the key. Honesty about ourselves and the fact that there is nothing within each of us that can pull us from the mess we call life. Help begins with an honest confession that we are powerless to manage and control our life. That by our admission of powerlessness, we seek someone who can help us. That someone being God.
We do not chase our confession of helplessness around and around a bush, instead we move forward with God help and direction. With each step, we are simply reaffirming the fact that we can do nothing, but He can do everything. Coming to the realization that we have to walk a solitary path of relationship, we soon come to understand that there are others walking similar paths. Called to chase God as individuals, we soon find ourselves bonding to like minded people. From this place we draw strength from each other's stories and tales of what God has done, and is continuing to do.
We walk a two-step path as we follow God. The first step we take, we take for ourselves. In this first step we find forgiveness for our sins, and are awakened to the fact that our attitudes and behaviors were being drawn from this place, our sinful nature. Standing still with no movement will bring no progress in our journey. It isn't until we make the decision to pull our leg up, swing it out and then let the momentum propel us forward that we begin to understand the true meaning of faith. Faith requires us to act...not simply think. Even though it doesn't seem like much is accomplished with a single step, what we sometimes fail to recognize is that the first step sets up the second. Faith that is acted upon pushes us away from our present (and past) circumstances and situations. It enables us to embrace what God has out there waiting for us to possess and own.
Propelled by faith, we take the second step for others. For those around us who may be in a place that is more difficult that the one in which we found ourselves. Faith that we find in our first step is always an abundance that will carry over as we move forward in our salvation/recovery. Faith is to be directed from the first step (leg) to the second step (the other leg). As we go through the movement of spiritually walking, we see it as first step (faith)...second step (giving)....next step (faith)....next step (giving) and so on and so on.
With our second step, we listen carefully for God to direct us in ways that we can be helpful and useful to others. See how it works? One step for our own health, followed by one step that requires us to give of ourselves to others for God's Kingdom.
For too long, I was trying to walk my path on one leg. The leg of my own needs and desires. Even with God trying to help me, I would never use both of my legs, afraid that I might not be able to stand on the one that requires me to give to others. But through patience (both on God's part and my own) I am learning to walk on two legs. Alternately receiving and giving to others.
what about you? Are you walking on two legs, or are you trying to take this journey on one leg? Has fear got you so bound up that you are afraid to try the other leg? This is why we need other like minded people in our life, and why we need to be in their life. So we can encourage and push each other to not quit or give up.
Vineyard ReCovery Church has not been called, as a body, to walk on only one leg. We have two strong legs that can take us, as a fellowship, to wherever God directs us to.
Proud to be a part....
Looking forward to what's over the hill....
God on you....
michael b.
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