Help us spread the word about our new ministry of healing
Please help us grow our new ministry to those suffering from addiction!
Many are unaware that the Lord has been blessing St. Anne’s through our new Life Recovery Life Group. We’ve been quietly meeting since February and dreaming about what might be possible for our new ministry, and now it seems right to share a word with you about it and ask for your help.
I described in a sermon not long ago Jesus’ ministry of healing that we find immediately after his baptism by John. Healing is such a priority to Jesus that he begins his ministry with a series of healing acts; clearly, healing is connected in an important way to God’s purposes. Health consists of the ability to do what God created us to do, which is to enjoy friendship with Him. A healthy person praises God. An unhealthy person - because of disease, tragedy, pride, or despair, is unable to do that. And so healing consists of the Spirit restoring us to a state in which we can worship God.
Our Life Recovery Group is our first Life Group dedicated to healing. Our goal is to walk alongside those whose wounds from the demons of addiction have caused them to reach out to God like the leper (Mark 1:40-45) and say, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” As mentors in Christ, our purpose is to be the living hands of Christ who embody with our loving presence Jesus’ response, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Will you help us grow this ministry at St. Anne’s?
There are two ways you can help right now. The most important thing is to get the word out. Anyone in our community you know who might be helped by the pastoral care we provide through our program, “The Twelve Steps for Christians,” needs to know about us. They need to hear that word of hope from you. Please spread the word.
But I am asking for much more than that from some of you.
If you have been a Christian a long time, you know that discipleship only begins with the good news of grace. For Jesus asked for imitation. He wanted followers, not admirers. Lifestyle is converted through lifestyle, and there is no weaseling out of the truth that discipleship is utterly dependent on our being able to identify examples, saints, people worthy of imitation. If we at St. Anne’s can’t point to real life examples of the gospel in our common life, even to ourselves, we have very little to say.
Our faithfulness as disciples hangs by a slender thread of grace provided by people willing to be the fleshly examples that make our claims about God credible and coherent.
We need people willing to say to those just joining us on the blessed road to health, “Go ahead, my new sister in Christ. Imitate me. Demand that my miserable, little life be a worthy example. Do me a favor. Don’t let me off the discipleship hook. Insist on the congruence between what I practice and what I profess. Imitate me.”
Might you be called to be one of those helping hands of Christ who utter these words? Will you join our new healing ministry as a mentor in Christ? Give me a call for more information at 574-267-6266, ask for Craig Uffman.
Our Life Recovery Groups meet 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. on Fridays in the parlor.
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