The purpose of Vineyard Church’s Celebrate Recovery is to fellowship and celebrate God’s healing power in our lives through eight principles and the Christ-centered 12 steps. This experience allows us to be changed. We open the door by sharing our experiences, strengths, and hopes with one another. In addition, we become willing to accept God’s grace in solving our life problems.

By working the steps and applying their biblical principles, we begin to grow spiritually. We become free from our addictive, compulsive, and dysfunctional behaviors. This freedom creates peace, serenity, joy, and most importantly, a stronger personal relationship with God and others.

As we progress through the principles we discover our personal, loving, and forgiving Higher Power—Jesus Christ.

Welcome to an AMAZING SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE!

Small Group Guidelines
Keep your sharing focused on your own thoughts and feelings. Please limit your sharing to 3-5 minutes.
There will be no cross talk please. Cross talk is when two people engage in dialogue, excluding all others. Each person is free to express feelings without interruption.
We are here to support one another. We will not attempt to “fix” another.
Anonymity and confidentiality are basic requirements. What is shared in the group - stays in the group.
Offensive language has no place in a Christ-centered group.

Celebrate Recovery Small Groups CAN:
Provide you a safe place to share your experiences, strengths and hopes with others who are going through the “Principles” in a Christ-centered recovery.
Provide you a leader who has gone through a similar hurt, habit or hang-up that will facilitate the group as it focuses on a particular step each week. The leader will also keep Celebrate Recovery’s “FIVE RULES.”
Provide you with the opportunity to find an accountability partner or sponsor.

Celebrate Recovery Small Groups will NOT:
Attempt to offer any professional clinical advice. Our leaders are not counselors. We will provide you with a list of approved counseling referrals.
Allow its members to attempt to fix one another.

The Road to Recovery
8 Principles Based on the Beatitudes

R = realize that I am not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable.
“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.”

E = earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.
“Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

C = consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ's care and control.
“Happy are the meek”

O = openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust.
“Happy are the pure in heart.”

V = voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.
“Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires.”

E = 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.
“Happy are the merciful.” “Happy are the peacemakers.”

R = reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.

Y = yield myself to God to be used to bring this Good News to others, both by my example and by my words.
“Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires.”


Prayer for Serenity
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is; not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen

12 Steps in their Biblical Comparisons

We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:18)

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. “For it is God who is at work in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)

Made a decision to turn our life and our will over to the care of God. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:40)

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. “Therefore confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16a)
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10)

Humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9)

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there in front of the alter. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and practice these principles in all our affairs. “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you may be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1)