Celebrate History The story of Celebrate Recovery starts with a gentleman by the name of John Baker. John grew up in a Christian home located in the small town of Collinsville, Illi-nois, population of 10,000. He gave his life to God at the age of 13 and was convicted to enter the life of ministry when he was 16. But there was a problem. John never felt like he was good enough for anyone else and therefore how could he be good enough to serve God? During his college years at the University of Missouri he joined a fraternity and dis-covered what he believed to be the answer to all his life’s hurts – alcohol. After his first drink, he finally felt like he fit in and was good enough. John met and married his wife Cheryl in his senior year. During the Vietnam war, John join the Air Force and learned to act like an officer and drink like a gentleman. After the war, he joined the Scott Paper Company, had two children, Laura and Johnny. With 8 promotions in the first 11 years of his business career, John, from the outside, seemed to be on top of the world. With all the business success came sev-eral relocations of his family. Attending church became less and less important. John was also becoming uncomfortable with his lifestyle, business practices and priorities. John was making unhealthy choices that were hurting the people he loved. His drinking further increased and John turned his back completely on God. Proverbs 14:12 says, “Before every man there lies a wide and pleasant road that seems right but ends in death.” With mounting frustrations, Cheryl asked John to go to counseling or to leave. Much to her surprise, he left, which started a 13 month separation. John’s life was out of

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 JANUARY 2013

THE PRATT FRIENDS GAZETTE Pratt Friends Church 824 Maple Street (620)672-5493 www.prattfriends.com

MARK YOUR

CALANDER!

FAMILY NIGHT &

BIBLE STUDIES

RESUME

WEDNESDAYS

6 PM , MEAL

6:45 PM , JR . H IGH

YOUTH

7 PM , B IBLE STUDIES

POTLUCK FOLLOWED BY

BUSINESS MEETING

SUN , JAN 6, NOON

CELEBRATE

RECOVERY PUBLIC LAUNCH

JAN 14, 7:30 PM

(SEE ARTICLE)

Leadership

Institute

Mon, Jan 7, 6:30

HAVILAND , KS

FRIENDS WOMEN

THURS , JAN 10, 7PM

JR. HIGH

QUIZ MEET

SAT , JAN 12

10:30 AM-? PM L IBERTY M IDDLE

SCHOOL HERE IN

PRATT

FELLOWSHIP

COMMITTEE

MON , JAN 14

KATHY TRESNER ’S

NOMINATING

COMMITTEE

SAT , JAN 19, 10AM

NURSING HOME

SERVICES

2:30 PM & 3:15 PM

SUN , JAN 27

Brad and Chelsea Carpenter Brad and Chelsea Carpenter, missionar-ies to Rwanda, Africa, under Evangelical Friends Missions, will be our guests on Sunday, January 6, during morning worship and at the meal afterward. The Car-

penters have worked to help the Friends Church in Rwanda be self-sustaining and strong.

Bible Quiz Tournament Pratt Friends Church will be hosting the first EFC-MAYM Bible quiz tournament of the new year on January 12. The head-to-head competition will take place at Liberty Middle School, while meals will be served at the church building. Our own quizzers, coached by Sammy and Ceress Sanders, will face off against teams from churches far and near. Volunteers will be needed to help with the meals. If

you’re not working, be sure to come support our team.

Business Meeting At our quarterly business meeting to be held after the dinner on January 6, the 2013 budget created by the Stewards Committee will be up for approval.

Other items of business may also come before the body.

control and he didn’t have the power to stop it on his own. While on a business trip that October, John woke up and knew the he couldn’t take another drink. But he also knew he couldn’t live without one. Finally, he had hit bottom. John went to 90 AA meetings in 90 days and started straightening his life back out. During a visit with his children, they asked him to attend a church service with them at Saddleback. He agreed to attend even though he hadn’t step foot in a church for over 5 years. There he knew he was home. Cheryl and John earnestly worked on their issues and 5 months later they re-newed their wedding vows. Here is where most would say the “feel good” story ends. But, in this case, it is where Celebrate Recovery starts. John had joined a small group at church and continued to attend his AA meetings. In the church small group he felt like he couldn’t share about his struggles with alco-hol because they didn’t want to go that deep and in the AA meeting, he was mocked when he shared that his Higher Power was the only true Higher Power, Je-sus Christ. John could not find a safe place to share the victories and freedoms over his past sin of alcohol that Christ was giving him. So in 1991, John wrote the senior Pastor of Saddleback church, Rick Warren, a short, concise 13 page single spaced letter outlining the vision God have given him of Celebrate Recovery. The recovery program would be Christ-centered and based on the Bible. He knew surely he wasn’t the only one dealing with pain in their church. The vision God gave him was to create a safe place that not only alcoholics could go for support, but a place for codependents, peo-

Pratt Friends Church

824 Maple Street

Pratt, KS 67124

PAGE 2 JANUARY 2013

JANUARY WORKERS

“Pray continually.” I Thessalonians 5:17

Families Grieving: Gasperson, Carpenter, and Bryant Families Linda Young (breast cancer) Richard Kennedy (lung disease) Scott Jackman recovery from knee surgery Cold and Flu Season: Protection over our families and healing from illnesses going around this season. Celebrate Recovery– Pray over launch on January 14th, 7-10pm

Praying for Our Friends

Greeters S.S. De Brauher

Worship Sharon Lukens

and Lois Jackman

Worship Warriors Jan 6 De Brauher Jan 13 Patty Fox Jan 20 Lois Jackman Jan 27 Eve Garrison

Children’s Church Jan 6 Marc Compton and Isaac Garrison Jan 13 Christy Keller Jan 20 Ray Banbury Jan 27 Phyllis Routon, Missions Lesson

THE PRATT FRIENDS GAZETTE

Family Night Meals

Jan 9 Casseroles Jan 16 Potato Soup Jan 23 Chicken & Noodles

Jan 30 Veg/ Beef Soup

Ushers

Leon Tresner– left Jeremy Gasperson– center

Ben Fox– right

Pray for the following families this month: Joe and Anita Headrick, Alex, Zarek and Caleb;

Scott and Lois Jackman; Jeff and Christy Keller, Josh and Prairie Rose;

Becky Lathrop, Katie and Matthew; Rick Logan How can you encourage these families?

ple with eating disorders, those strug-gling with sexual addictions, anger, those dealing with past or current physical or sexual abuse, those in need financial recovery and many more. In short, anyone dealing with any kind of hurt, hang-up or habit would be helped. After Pastor Rick Warren had read the letter, he called John into his office and said “Great John; you do it.” Since Celebrate Recovery started in 1991, over 10,000 people at Sad-dleback have completed the program. The program has expanded to over 10,000 churches and over 500,000 individuals have completed the pro-gram.

Pratt Celebrate Recovery The history of Pratt Celebrate Recovery started with many in the community feeling the leading and prayerfully asking God to bring Cele-

brate Recovery to our community. In February 2012, over 12 individuals from the different churches in the Pratt community attended a one day seminar in Oklahoma City where the processes of starting a Celebrate Re-covery was presented. Afterwards meetings were held and the decision was made to start a Celebrate Recov-ery ministry. From the beginning it was felt this would a community min-istry and not of any one church. Our focus is on our one and only higher power, Jesus Christ and not any one denomination. The Pratt Celebrate Recovery leaders have met for 10 months to prepare and train. Each leader is going through the 12-step program to prepare ourselves to lead those who hurt, have hang-ups or habits that have made their life un-manageable. On January 7 an informational meeting will be held for the profes-sionals in Pratt and the surrounding communities that recommend their clients and others to join a recovery program. These professionals can include, but are not limited to Pastors, counselors, judges, lawyers, etc. The

meeting will be held 7:00 pm at the Pratt Friends Church, located at Law-rence and Stout. January 14 is the official launch of Pratt Celebrate Recovery to the com-munity. Anyone with life’s hurts, hang-ups, and habits are encouraged to attend. It has been said many times that anyone and everyone could use Celebrate Recovery. How many times we all have stuffed our hurts and tell everyone everything is ok, when it really isn’t? Pratt Celebrate Recovery will meet every Monday, 7:00 pm at the Pratt Friends Church. If you need more information, please use one of the resources below: Pratt Celebrate Recovery Information Line 620-450-6120

Website www.PrattCR.org

Email info@prattcr.org

Find us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/prattcr