Welcome to Season 6 of the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I am here to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, and I'm glad you've joined.

Our program continues to be sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John is a good friend and he's helped me and my family in everything

from stock and mutual fund investing to annuities, life insurance, and retirement planning.

I certainly commend him to you if you have needs in any of those areas. You can reach him at

205-326736-3-64. Thank you again for your ongoing encouragement and support. Let's get started.

Hey, welcome. I hope you're doing well, and I hope you enjoy the story that I have to tell you today from this past Monday night.

I actually had full intent of recording something else today. I've been reading a really great book by John Mark Comer called Practicing the Way.

I think it'll end up being a couple of episodes, and I was going to start giving it a go today.

But as I sit here in my office on this rainy Thursday afternoon, the positive lingering effects from that evening have been really dominant for me,

and so I want to take the time to share it with you. To cut to the chase a bit, I attended an

event on Monday night in Tyler called Celebrate Recovery. Up until just a few weeks ago,

I had never heard that term before. It turns out it is a Jesus-centric

program designed to help people cope with addiction. You may know that things like Alcoholics

Anonymous and the 12-step programs have stepped back from Scripture, and apparently

groups like this, which meet once a week, are trying to bring God and scripture back into the center of recovery.

And I got to be there and experience that for the first time.

And here's the setting for that.

I know I've mentioned several times that weekly I get a chance to go be with the Triumph Village guys.

There are a bunch of new Christians who are in this 10-month program, and I like to go

hang out with them and meet those who are newly enrolled. And one of the guys there is named

Joe. Joe and I are just about the same age, and he's been in the program for 16 months. A few

weeks back, he says, hey, have you heard of Celebrate Recovery? And I said no. And he said, yeah, a group of guys from here and other

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