Evident Church

My name is Gregg Crisp. I am the lead pastor of Next StepS Ministries. I am also the Wyoming State Rep. for CR Inside. I am writing today to introduce you to th e Celebrate Recovery and Celebrate Recovery Inside programs. I have personally witnessed so many people transformed and set-free by using the Celebrate Recovery tools and programs. Lives are being changed, families are being restored, and people are coming to God through Christ. Celebrate Recovery, unlike other twelve step programs, does not just focus on one issue (say drugs), but Celebrate Recovery (CR) (CRI) focuses on the entire person and any “Hurt, Hang-up, or Habit”. The issue may or could be alcohol, drugs, porn, anxiety, food, anger, pride, control, lust, co-dependency… the list is endless. Celebrate Recovery gets down deep into our behavior and character defects. Often times drinking, drugging, lashing out, excessive TV or video games, etc. are Band-Aids, symptoms of a deeper problem. We must address the “W...

My name is Gregg Crisp. I am the lead pastor of Next StepS Ministries. I am also the Wyoming State Rep. for CR Inside. I am writing today to introduce you to the Celebrate Recovery and Celebrate Recovery Inside programs. I have personally witnessed so many people transformed and set-free by using the Celebrate Recovery tools and programs. Lives are being changed, families are being restored, and people are coming to God through Christ. Celebrate Recovery, unlike other twelve step programs, does not just focus on one issue (say drugs), but Celebrate Recovery (CR) (CRI) focuses on the entire person and any “Hurt, Hang-up, or Habit”. The issue may or could be alcohol, drugs, porn, anxiety, food, anger, pride, control, lust, co-dependency… the list is endless. Celebrate Recovery gets down deep into our behavior and character defects. Often times drinking, drugging, lashing out, excessive TV or video games, etc. are Band-Aids, symptoms of a deeper problem. We must address the “...

I believe great churches are built by broken people, ministering to other broken people. Brokenness is a willingness to abandon our pride, our pretensions, and our self-righteous posturing. And it is the prerequisite to God’s blessing on our lives and our congregations. Jesus said,  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”  (Matthew 5:3 NIV). When we reach the end of our rope and give up our self-sufficiency, that’s when God moves into our lives with healing and growth. Sin is addicting, and “all have sinned.” That means we’ve all created ungodly and unhealthy methods for handling life, so every church needs to have some form of a recovery ministry. Not one of us is untainted, and because of sin, we’ve all hurt ourselves, we’ve all hurt other people, and others have hurt us. Each of us needs repentance and recovery in order to live our lives the way God intended. At Saddleback, we’ve watched the miracle of  Celebrate Recover...

2 Timothy 2:24, 26 and Colossians 4:5, 6. Why does Paul advise believers to be "gentle" rather than "quarrelsome" in their dealings with outsiders? How does our understanding of the Cosmic Battle affect the way we relate to non-believers? (We deal gently with non-believers because we understand that, within the context of the Cosmic Battle, they have actually been taken captive by the deceptive power of lies. There is a supernatural dimension to the conflict in which we are engaged. Ultimately, we cannot free anyone from this captivity by argumentation, but by helping them come to a belief in God's truth claims - See Luke 4:16-21 and Isaiah 61:1-2.)

Abundance of Life!             It’s the time of year that we celebrate Christ’s birth. Jesus, the Son of God was Born, became a man, died on the cross for you and me, rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of God. Luke 2:10-12 John 19:16-30 Acts 2:24, 5:32, 10:40 & 13:31 Romans 8:34 Jesus came so that we could be reconciled to God. He came so we could have eternal life. What do we have to do? Nothing! It is a gift from God. Well, not exactly. We must choose to accept God’s gift. We must open the gift. We must believe and put our trust in Him. We can’t earn it, we can’t buy it and we don’t have to be good enough to receive it. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”. Now that is stinking awesome, Eternal Life! That is something to celebrate, Amen! But as if that were not enough. There’s even more. In John 10:10b Jesus said, “I came ...