VISION STATEMENT
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” LUKE 4:18 & 19.
MINISTRY GOALS
To teach the unconditional love of Jesus; to deal with hidden sins of the heart as well as our conscious sins; to recognize these sins, process the pain and therefore change our reactions to these dysfunctional patterns in our lives. By doing this we will find the pathway to emotional wholeness, to freedom from addictive behavior and our human sin condition.
TWELVE STEPS
- We admitted we were powerless over our lives-that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God and His Son Jesus Christ.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God and His Son Jesus Christ, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other hurting people, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
ORIGIN OF TWELVE STEPS
Sam Shoemaker lived the Twelve Steps long before they were formulated as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. His conversion was in 1917 and a direct result of applying these concepts to his life.
The Twelve Steps can help people overcome any compulsive obsessive behavior. These steps can also be a profound part of the journey which leads people in recovery to a vital personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Recovery Outreach Ministry LLC, is a Christian recovery ministry for people who have been affected, either directly or indirectly, by abuse of food, sex, alcohol, mood-or mind-altering chemicals, incest or who came from a dysfunctional home or background. We believe that as we look to our loving God for help and put into practice His principles for living which He gives in His Word, we will find strength and freedom for living both happy and productive lives.
We do not teach, preach or express opinions about politics, science, race, economics, philosophies or any other subject not pertaining to our recovery. Although we do believe that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Son of the living God, we do not voice a preference on denomination but do encourage regular attendance to your church of choice.
Our purpose is as follows:
- to be and to live reconciled to God and His family.
- to reveal the hidden sins of our hearts.
- to be built up and strengthened in our faith in Christ.
- to give dedicated service to others who are hurting and suffering as we once hurt and suffered.
THE PROBLEM
Early in childhood we took on behavior patterns of addiction and/or dysfunctional family life and carried them well into adulthood. We have acquired unhealthy ways of relating with others that have given us difficulty, especially in intimate relationships.
Due to the traumatic childhood we experienced, we learned to stifle our feelings therefore, we have trouble feeling or expressing our emotions because it hurts too much. We even have difficulty expressing such feelings as joy or happiness. Being out of touch with our feelings is the larger part of our denial. For those who grew up in dysfunctional families, we learned the three unwritten rules: “Don’t talk; don’t trust; don’t feel,” and we are still unknowingly living by those rules today.
All too often we have feelings of isolation and we are afraid of people and authority figures. Angry people and personal criticism frighten us. Some of us take on compulsive behaviors ourselves or marry a compulsive person and try to fix them, or both.
Some of us live our lives as victims and are attracted by weakness in our love, friendships, and career relationships.
We fear nothing greater than abandonment and will do almost anything to hold on to a relationship rather than experience the painful feelings of being abandoned. These feelings of not being able to cope with abandonment stem from living in an addictive/dysfunctional environment where no one was emotionally “THERE” for us.
This is a description, and not an accusation. Our survival was learned by becoming reactors rather than actors but we can also unlearn what we have learned in the Solution.
THE SOLUTION
Even though our parents gave us our physical existence, we can now look to God, our Heavenly Father, for our solution as the initiator of our new life. We can look to God to lead us to a new level of experience and to give us direction toward a life filled with wholeness and healing of our past. We discover that we do not have to remain prisoners of the past.
Recovery starts when we begin to learn about our addictions and problems and the concepts God gave us to overcome them which are in His Word. We learn that: (1) we did not necessarily cause them; (2) we can’t control it without help; (3) we can’t cure it without God. By letting God deal with the hidden sins of our hearts, we begin a process that eventually leads us to forgive those that have hurt us in the past, and to release them to God. We can learn to focus on ourselves in the here and now and to detach from our obsession with the addictive/dysfunctional person. We will learn to love ourselves and others, even though this may sometimes take the form of “TOUGH LOVE.”
As we begin to trust we will experience new found freedom. We learn to allow ourselves to feel our feelings, and then to express them; that in Christ, we are accepted just as we are. With the help of God, we can begin to recover from our dysfunctional past, turn our lives in a new direction, and be freed from the shame that has bound us.
“Portions of the above text taken from The Minirth-Meier textbooks.”
DISCLAIMER
I am not a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychologist, social worker or other degreed specialist, but am called and anointed by God to share my life changing experiences with others as the Holy Spirit leads. I am willing to comfort, pray and exhort you as we grow together in the Lord.
If you are interested in gaining knowledge of the life changing principals found in the Word of God that will set you free; if you are tired of remaining in habitual dysfunctional patterns; I am are available to hold teaching seminars in your area. Or, I can help you set up a recovery group. If you are interested please contact us at one of the numbers below.