08/05/2025
Welcome the August Booklet for Celebrate Recovery Mental Health. To be honest I am still working through my own struggles with burnout. In fact I just returned from a great week where we spoke directly about Burnout and I scored a perfect 100% on the quiz….oh wait that is actually a bad thing…Anyways the point being is that this month I wanted to share with you a lesson from Kay Warren. Kay Warren is the wife of Rick Warren who is the founder of Saddleback Church, Saddleback Church is where our Celebrate Recovery was founded. Kay is intimately connected to mental health issues and how it affects the church body and she has written several books and speaks frequently about mental health issues and how the church can embrace people with mental health issues. One of the books she wrote she says:
I want you to know Journey Towards Hope didn’t emerge from a theoretical, impersonal perspective about mental illness and the suffering it brings. It springs out of real life – my own experiences with depression and anxiety, as well as the experiences of my son Matthew, who lived with serious mental illness for most of his 27 years. It comes from life experiences of numerous other men and women who live with mental health challenges and who were willing to tell you how it has shaped them. What you are reading comes from a collective community of hurting-but hopeful-hearts to yours.
This month we are going to use an Acrostic about CHURCH to talk about mental health. In short CHURCH stands for Care, Help, Utilize, Remove, Collaborate, and Hope. I would encourage you to grab a booklet at CR Friday night and read through this, it is a powerful lesson.
In order to get through it here is the first letter: Church – The C in Church says, “Care for people with mental illness and their families.” Just like our addictions, our health issues, our illness do not just affect us, it affects everyone around us. Unlike a health issue that we can physically see, run a blood test for, or physically test for - our mental health can be a hidden timebomb which can lead us to devastating results. Every church whether 2 people or 2,000 people can, or should I say -should, make an intentional effort, a deliberate active intention to be welcoming, caring, and compassionate to not just the individual but to all they interact with. Many people who come to CR with mental illness are often excluded from family and friends, from jobs, from social groups for a variety of reasons. One of the worst hurts they may, and often do, feel is that of church hurt – when the church body either rejects them or tries to ignore the mental health struggle. Often a person may hear “we are not a large church and we don’t have those resources,” or “we are not a counseling center and we don’t want to get involved,” or worse yet “we are an addiction recovery group, not a counseling center so we can’t talk about that here – you should seek professional counseling.” Can I ask a question here? Who is the great counselor? Isaiah 9:6 “ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called WONDERFUL COUNSELOR, Mighty God, Everlasting father, Prince of Peace.” In ancient Israel, a counselor was portrayed as a wise king such as Solomon giving guidance to his people (1 kings 4:34 and Micah 4:9). Jesus is a wise counselor He knows all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge including the knowledge of all human nature and He knows what we are going through, and best yet He knows the right and correct course of action. Christ’s position as our WONDERFUL COUNSELOR means we can trust Him to listen to our problems and guide us in the right direction. As disciples of Christ are we not to point people to Him through our own actions and wisdom.
