Monday, September 16, 2013

What is the goal of Celebrate Recovery, really?

Gearing up for Celebrate Recovery, starts fresh Thursday, Sept. 19. This post continues some thoughts about CR, began with the previous post.

The goal of CR is help people become free and whole. But, the goal is not that we be free from depression, free from addiction, free from an immoral lifestyle, free from bad relationships, free from fear of rejection, free from low self esteem .  All of that is just one part of the process, not the goal.  Our goal is to help each other be truly free to become who we were created and redeemed to be.  The point is not just to be free FROM the junk. The point is to be free TO be everything that God intends us to be.  Jesus has great plans for each one of us.  We were created to be wonderful expressions of God, showing forth His glory, His power, His grace.

What the words Celebrate Recovery mean

As the CR leaders have met over the last few weeks, we discussed several possible changes we may make. One was to change the name. It seems that celebrate recovery gets  a response from people that is low. Just to recover seems to indicate not free, like a recovering alcoholic, recovering shoplifter, better, but still struggling. But, I looked up the words

Celebrate means to show happiness that something good or special has happened
I like that. I’m a celebrating kind of person. I like the idea of showing happiness, of having a party.

Recovery means to get back something previously lost or its equivalent; the return of something to a normal or improved state after a setback or loss


So, at Celebrate Recovery, we are showing happiness that something good and special has happened, that we are returning to the normal state that was previously lost.  We are getting back to the condition that God created us to be in at the very beginning.  We are becoming what God created  and intended us to be. 

God’s original plan

We see God’s original intention in  Gen 1:26-28  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

THAT is the way we started. Created to be like God, in His image, looking like Him, expressing the character of God, spreading the rule of God over the earth, living in perfect relationship with God, and with each other.

So, that is the normal state that was lost, and that is the state that we want to recover. That is the goal of Celebrate Recovery. 

No comments: