Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Worship at New Community Church
Report from Betty Grit about worship at New Community Church, a Worship Renewal Grant recipient:
It is a cold Friday evening as we are warmly greeted at New Community Church. Just weeks before Christmas, we had driven past busy malls with people rushing to finish their shopping. Here people had come to worship. As we enter the worship space, there is energy and a sense of anticipation in the room.
Community Recovery, led by Pastor Mark Vander Meer has been offering worship, small groups and fellowship on Friday evenings for more than seven years to people whose lives are broken by addictions. Many who gather this evening are in residential treatment facilities. Others come because they know this is a place of acceptance and healing.
Led by a band, we sing of our brokenness and need for a Savior. When Pastor Mark gives an invitation to come forward to pray with a member of the prayer team, a long line grows down the aisle as people greet one another and wait their turn. During worship a woman who recently graduated from college with a degree in Social Work shares a poem in which she tells us that from early childhood and to the present she has been asking “Is there a place for me?” She later tells me how she will use her new life to reach out to make a place for other women in hurting and abusive situations.
Regina reads from Nehemiah 8:9-12 and reminds us that we must tell others about the new life God has given to us. Worship concludes with an invitation to come forward to commit or recommit our lives to God. Men and women come forward to kneel and pray.
Following worship, people select from ten small groups such as Co-Dependency and Depression, Men’s Issues, and a Recovery Bible Study. I join five professional, college educated women, many of whom are close to my age, to talk about Women’s Issues. We are asked to tell about our week. One woman rejoices in a year free from morphine. Another from a week without alcohol. All talk about the pain of broken relationships that result from lives controlled by addictive behavior. Some are out of work, some face losing their homes. We are reminded that the holidays often include social gatherings and stressful situations where the temptation to return to drugs or alcohol become a threat to recovery. Phone numbers are exchanged and we join hands to pray together for God’s strength for the week.
I had come to Community Recovery to learn more about this 2006 recipient of a Worship Renewal Grant. I discovered a congregation where people openly acknowledge their sin and their need for a Savior. I left praying for these new friends and for God to show me how to better tell others about what He has done in my life.
Note: The summary for New Community’s grant is under “Community Recovery International” on the page of 2006 recipients. A poster summarizing this grant project will be posted in the summer of 2007.
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