This past week I asked our International Director, Bro. Burks, to put together a list to help struggling chapters retain visitors in tough times. The list he provided is based on phone calls that he and his staff have fielded; discussions with successful directors; and several years of his own personal experience as an RU Director in Virginia.  The main focus of this week’s report is how to turn visitors into students. I trust that you will consider implementing these proven strategies in developing your God-given, extremely sensitive and important visitors into active, participating students.  It is the first step to achieving any hope of turning the addicted to the God’s support group—the local church!

Issue 1: The Friday Night Atmosphere!

The official itinerary is integral to creating an atmosphere that portrays a consistent message to every visitor. That message MUST contain the following key ingredients:

1. “No matter your struggles, we are an addiction program that can help you or your loved one.” This message usually takes place twice. Once in a profound statement of sorts in the tri-talk introduction and more importantly, and with definition, in the weekly New Beginnings class.
2. The New Beginnings group leader (who should be a type A, sold-out, RU promoter) should explain the success rate of local chapters of Reformers Unanimous all across America. Some chapters may be very small in attendance compared to others. Credibility will be established if you give them a glimpse of the success rate. Jay Griffin, a Director in Milford, Ohio tells me, “of the students that completed the Stronghold book in their chapter, they had a 93% success rate.” You can safely say there are over 20,000 people any given week attending an addiction program that use the RU materials.  Our RU program graduates simply succeed and that needs to be “hammered home.”  If not, doubt sets in to the validity of a church and Bible-based program in the minds of new students.
3. They should also reiterate this again when they make their mandatory visit on their visitors that week.  Yes! Mandatory visits are expected.  If you sense your New Beginnings class teacher is ineffective, you should replace him quickly. But until you can, the Director should make those visits instead to ensure the student can speak up about any mis-perceptions.

1. An environment of transparency is needed during the first and second talks for this program to be effective. If a student comes to a chapter and the church members are perceived as perfect people without problems, it will be an immediate turn-off to potential students. I cannot stress the importance of everyone on our leadership teams viewing ourselves as student’s first, servants second, and teachers third. By our own participation in all aspects of the program and curriculum, it will create an example for students to follow.

Issue 2: We must remember that Reformers Unanimous is a milk ministry, and avoid serving strong meat.

1. It is necessary to remember that Reformers Unanimous deals with heart issues and not issues of outward conformity. We should avoid discussing hot-topic issues that would be considered strong meat and stick to the modus operandi that we are here to turn their hearts toward the Lord. Standards, for the most part are for the leadership staff to know and follow but not teach as part of RU training.  Of course, some exceptions may apply; but if so, we encourage individual coaching over entire class teaching. When faced with a student who is newer and inquisitive of such things as listed in number one above, a leader should use phrases such as, “That’s a good question, see me after class and we’ll talk about that, but right now let’s stay focused on issues we faced this week in our recovery.” Or perhaps even the phrase, “That’s a great question, let me give you some verses after class to look into that,” in order to turn the conversation in a right direction.
2. Directors should avoid attacking Christian or political figures or denominations and their leaders on Friday night. This will only tear down any influence that you may have in their life, especially those who are new.  Warning the flock is the responsibility of the Pastor, not the RU leaders.
3. It is good for the Director to occasionally remind the students that as their attendance increases, so does the chance that they will hear truths which may take as offensive. Encourage them to allow God to use inside persuasion of His Spirit and the outside pressure of the Word and authority to guide them in right truth.

Issue 3: Reactivate the 2-3-4 Plan and ensure that it is happening every single week.

1. Again, I repeat that every first-time visitor should get a visit by the director or the New Beginnings class leader before the next Friday night. I can remember those early days inviting students, from Friday night, on Saturday afternoon to come on Sunday morning to the second class and taking them to lunch with me on my dime to encourage them to return the next Friday. I had more students join our church as a result of this than any other.
2. One big mistake is the transition between the Beginner’s class and the challenge groups. It should be understood that every person that walks through the door is in the New Beginnings, or Beginners, class and are an active part of the 2-3-4 Plan. I have heard of 2 options to make sure this happens. The first is that the burden is on the Beginner’s Class leadership and Director to make sure the 2-3-4 Plan is implemented on every visitor until they get in a group. The second option is to assign every first time visitor on their second wee, to a group, whether they return or not. The leader will actively pursue them for their class. It is often true that a student doesn’t care what we know until they know that we care.  A visit shows you care.
3. Use the RU official FastTrack software to track the 2-3-4 Plan properly and hold each leader accountable to the calls, postcards, and visits every single week. If a student misses several weeks in a row, and receives no contact from the leadership, the enemy will plant seeds of doubt that we don’t care and are not concerned about their recovery. Please be sure to communicate quarterly to inactive students.

Issue 4: Encourage curriculum participation for every student.

1. 1. The best way to encourage students to do challenges is for the leadership to have completed challenges.
   2. If a student seems to be resistant in doing challenges, it is time for that leader to meet with them privately and find out the root cause. If they have memory problems or get stuck on particular challenges, then creatively find a way to shorten or go around those challenges to keep a student motivated and participating.
   3. Have a dynamic award ceremony. If the award ceremony is not exciting it may come across as something childish for a brand new student. This is a time we praise our students for doing what is right. It can be extremely profitable and a motivational technique in keeping visitors who never get good news.  Have all students come up front to get their awards and have them stay until awards are completed and a final applause is given.  Encourage participation to those still seated who may not be progressing but sensing conviction as a result.  Be careful not to condemn.
   4. If you cannot have an exciting awards ceremony every week, postpone it some weeks or have it faithfully every two weeks.

Issue 5: During the third talk, the director’s message from the Nevertheless I Live Textbook should be relevant to the struggles people face while in their addiction.

A recent phone call into my office by a student who attended an RU broke my heart.  I began to feel his pain for help but having not received it at a local chapter in which he had placed his initial hope by attendance. At this particular chapter, the director has chosen to preach sermons lasting sixty minutes while pupils fall asleep (these were his words). When I suggested he purchase our Nevertheless I Live syllabus for his own learning, his words were, “If the director of my chapter would have used this text book and taught it from his heart I know I would have gotten the help I need.” Directors, I would rather you have a 25 minute message from the RU Textbook and share 5 minutes of your heart to help the addicted every week than have you present profound truths that challenge your most matured students but lose your beginners. With the RU Friday night class being live streamed in Rockford and available for download later, there should be no excuse for each of you men to fine-tune your teaching and preaching skills by listening to the Founder and President every week in Rockford.  Brother Curington has now taught through the textbook 9 times in 14 years.  He is currently on a pace that will take him two years to go through it once.  It’s getting more relevant each year, not less.  That’s God…not the outline or the teacher.

Other Suggestions:

1.) Read something from the Founder of RU every day.  Have you experienced the blessing of Today I Lay, Umbrella Fella or his newest book on Peace?  They are relevant for YOU to be relevant to them.

2.) Read or listen on MP3 to the whole chapter that you’re teaching every Friday night that you are teaching it.  If a chapter takes three weeks, read that chapter three times (once weekly).  Then prepare days before you preach that chapter portion.   Use second talk in order to distribute and collect 2-3-4 plans and to encourage students.  A five minute refresher before you preach would be helpful at that time too.

3.) Ask God to give you wisdom on how to effectively present the Hidden Life message to your people.

4.) Always give an invitation for salvation and spiritual development.

Many chapters are successfully getting visitors weekly through the “Battle is ON” outreach, along with other techniques they have found successful. If you struggle to get visitors, please, call our office today! (815-986-0460) If your struggle is to keep them, then heed these listed checkpoints.

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Dear RU Nation

MANUFACTURE RECALL:  Here at Adversity University, we have come to EXPECT bad things to happen for the good reason of glorifying God in all we do and say.  It has become our expectation that whatever could go wrong…should go wrong! And for that we glorify Him.  So it came as no surprise when our new awards vendor called and RECALLED our recently received name badges that had been on backorder for so long.   The claim was “faulty glue” on the first 1,000 of 5,000 received.  We have no way of knowing which ones went out that were faulty; but if you have name badges with pins falling off relatively easily, please do two things.  First – call us for replacement badges.  We are expecting a new shipment (to come within next few days) which will meet our product quality expectations.  Secondly -  glorify God with us in being chosen by Him to endure difficulty through a another “pop quiz” at Adversity University.

2010 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE:  Adversity University XI.  Mark your calendars for September 27-30, 2010, for another exciting RU international conference! You won’t want to miss this year’s crucial teaching.  As we develop our ministries through seasons of change and times of disappointment, we want to clearly pronounce that the only successful form of ministry is and always will be an expression of the fruit of the Spirit – love.  Join us this year for “The Way IS Agape”. Experiencing, enjoying, and understanding God’s agape love is the “first love” that we ought to never leave as our ministries become taxed with difficulty.  Directors, this is the year to bring you students and leaders , more so than any other; for your love for them can only be matched by the love they could bestow upon others on His behalf.  Nearly 100 educational sessions on effective outreach (evangelism), in-reach (discipleship), up-reach (worship) and down-reach (Spiritual empowerment) will be offered.

REFORMERS UNANIMOUS SCHOOLS OF DISCIPLESHIP—MAJOR OPPORTUNITY!  We thank the Lord for the churches who have helped us influence more people with the curriculum of RU by opening their very own discipleship homes patterned after our program in Rockford, Illinois.  If your church is interested in a ministry such as this for your community, we are here to help.  Whether you need help with your business model, ideas for finding affordable housing, staff training or advice, we stand by to stand with you.

Not every chapter can be blessed with what God has given North Love Baptist Church and its RU headquarters.  Our beautiful facilities and trained staff and teaching grant your students an opportunity to experience residential discipleship with a quality that is hard to duplicate anywhere—to God be the glory!  As well, we are fortunate to be able to do so at a price much lower than secular or social treatment.  Though we cannot afford to be a completely free program like others who operate out of apartments or houses using limited staff, we also understand we also cannot possibly offer help to every single person RU reaches with the current size of the headquarters’ facilities.  This has allowed us to be blessed to send students to churches who stand in the gap with their smaller, but still effective discipleship houses.  Personally, I think there could be an RU patterned home in every state in America and every one of them could be kept full!  That’s how great the need is for our low cost option or other’s no cost option.

With that said, we still want the Rockford RU to remain the first option for your student’s intense discipleship.  We feel strongly in our residency discipleship program’s success rate.  We are pleased to report our program success has grown even more effective over the course of the last 18 months.  Our recent survey of grads or parents of grads reports increase of those experiencing victory in Christ over their addiction from 82% to 87%.  Equally high numbers (plus or minus a few percentage points) report being faithful to church and in a right relationship with their family.  God has been so good to these grads who have continued in the things that they have learned.

*****With the opening of the new ladies’ home, allowing us to move our graduate program into the Mulberry facility, Rockford can now open more beds for both men and women and reduce our overall operating costs.  This is a much needed relief for us and also gives us the ability to offer something we have wished for so long.  For those chapters or churches who love or prefer the Rockford Schools of Discipleship and would like to send someone here for FREE, I have a new funding system that will allow each chapter that qualifies to have a FREE scholarship to the men’s and women’s home (that’s two scholarships) available to them at all times.  That’s right FREE!  If you are interested in this, please email me at weneedu@reformu.com or call me personally to discuss.  I will only be offering twenty church scholarships.  We already have two churches who have qualified and have students attending for free right now!  Call my secretary, Beth, at extension 100 and tell her you’re interested in the Church Scholarship Program for more details*******

WOMAN’S PROGRAM LAUNCH:  After 18 months of reconstruction, our men’s schools of discipleship have nearly completed our R.U.T.H. Home.  As with any church-based building project, we have faced many difficult circumstances and much resistance.  Through it all, our testimonies remained strong and God’s glory and many miracles were enjoyed.  We thank God for these hard working men who worked this project at less than one third of every bid we had.  Though our men had to work through capital raising slowdowns and city and architect squabbling, their abilities and resolve have saved tens of thousands of dollars. This good stewardship has been blessed by God in many ways.  Effective April 1^st, we will begin taking applicants for this new home and have decided to increase our occupancy from 25 girls to 40 as God provides.  With a recent graduation bringing us down to 20 girls, we are going to use a limited time special to help us fill this beautiful building with precious and needy ladies.  Please be advised that we are offering a 50% scholarship to the first 20 applicants who screen successfully for our program.  If there is anyone in your RU ministry, church or family who has needs or has contemplated entering our program, now is the time to make every effort to get them here.  We hope this offer will be met with the enthusiasm necessary to stimulate your students to give residency discipleship a legitimate part of their lives for long lasting benefit.

Have a wonderful day IN the Lord!
Steven Curington
Watch our Friday Night Class Live at 7 p.m. tonight!  Click Here

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How does the Hid-N-Life relate to my affections? If I appropriate my identity in Christ by faith, I need to also cooperate with God’s Spirit as He “restores my soul.” This process of renewal in the mind, will, and emotions (Romans 12:1-2) depends on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

An aspect of this renewal that has been impressed upon me lately is that of renewing the affections. If Christ is my life, I will delight in that which HE delights. My affections will be directed to what is valuable to Him.

How prone the flesh is to delight in the sensual and carnal desires of this fallen world. I recently heard a great definition to help identify present day idols in the lives of 20^th century Christians. One simple question will reveal unhealthy delights. How would you respond if it is taken from you? Idols are a very real addiction in our society today. This should be no surprise to us as it is in the list Paul gave us for the manifestations of the flesh. James rebuked the early Christians for following after their own lust or pleasures (James 4:1-3). Why else would John need to caution us in his first epistle? 1John 2:15-16, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” This delight to have, be and do can be changed by the inside persuasion of a new spirit as well as the Spirit of God.

The true believer has the blessing of a regenerated human spirit – “the new man” (Colossians 3:10). We have been made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Yet the soul is still vulnerable to the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil. “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;” 1 Peter 2:11.

When the Lord Jesus is functioning as my LORD and LIFE, He will redirect my AFFECTIONS. What should we delight in?

“Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

(Psalm 37:4)

Delight in God’s perfect will –  “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8)

Delight in the Word of God – “I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.”

(Psalm 119:162)

Delight in God’s moral principles – “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:”

(Romams 7:22)

Delight in God’s comfort – “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.”

(Psalm 94:19)

Delight in the Second Coming –  “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”

(1Peter 1:13)

Delight in the blessing of eternal fellowship with God – “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

(Psalm 16:11)

Evan Hopkins wrote, “We shall seek what we love and delight in. It is where our treasure is that our heart will be also. ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is nothing upon earth I desire beside Thee.’ What are the things we are seeking? It is those things that are filling our thoughts and attracting our affections. It is upon these we set our wills and concentrate our energies. It is not difficult to seek what we love.

Will we ask God to search our heart and redirect our affections to where they belong?

Our Father, we confess that our affections tend to get misdirected as we live by sight instead of by faith. Illumine us so that we will set our hearts on things above, where Christ, Who is our life, is seated with You. Continually restore our soul by redirecting our affections to what is eternally worthy. Amen.

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I was never a “bad” kid, when I was growing up, not by the world’s standards.  As a child, my parents did many bad things to me; things that would affect me much of the rest of my life.  I was raised in the Lutheran Church.  There I was taught about God, that Jesus died on the cross for me!  I wanted to go to heaven some day, when I died, but I didn’t know how to get there.  People always told me that God loved me but I didn’t really believe it.  I wanted to find someone who would truly love me.

All my life, I grew up feeling like I was unlovable.  I thought there was something wrong with me that no one loved me.  If my own family didn’t love me, how could God love me, when I really didn’t know Him or have a relationship with Him?  I tried to find ways to make my family love me.  I found that I was pretty good at sports so I immersed myself in them.  I joined the military, and went off to college all in vain attempts to find love.  Nothing worked!  While at college, wanting to fit in and be loved, I began drinking heavily and doing drugs.  I just wanted someone to say that they cared for me!

One spring day, one of my teammates shared the gospel with me and for the first time I realized that it had nothing to do with me!  It was all about what Jesus did for me!  He paid the price, he loved me enough to take my sin on Himself and pay the price for them with His own precious blood!  I realized that there was nothing that I had to do, not getting my family to be proud of me, not their love for me or their approval would get me to heaven, but God’s love and sacrifice was all that I needed.    That day I trusted Jesus as my Saviour and I began a new relationship with Him!  I didn’t know much else about God, so I remained in the Lutheran church.

At college, I met a boy who told me he loved me.  We married and 15 yrs. later I found out that he never truly loved me.  I had wanted so badly to find someone to love me that I was blinded to things that I should have noticed and been obvious to me long before I married him.  I was devastated for a long time.

I poured myself into my children.  I committed my everything to them in hope that they would love me!  Then my best friend had to move away but her brother and his family were moving in next door to me. I already knew them so I felt better.  They were going to a Baptist church and had invited my kids and I.

I went to church with them and discovered that there was a place where God’s word was preached without apology or compromise!  I knew right away that I needed to join that church.  I knew that if I wanted to learn to live right and to have a better life for me and my kids that FBC is where we needed to be.
We joined the church and through the grace of God, I have grown in the Lord!  I was struggling with a smoking addiction that I just could not overcome.  When Preacher announced that they were going to be starting an addictions program called RUI, I thought that this would finally be what I needed to overcome my addiction.  Although I had tried to quit many times before, I just could never do it.

I began to work the program and God started to prick at my heart, regarding my smoking.  Finally I gave up!  I gave it to God!  I told Him that I could not do it, I needed Him to help me.  He did and I have been free from the addiction of smoking for the last 3 and ½ yrs.  Fast forward to the day I found out that I was sick, very sick with cancer. Even though I knew better, I stopped relying on the Lord and went back to my smoking.  It was my “security blanket”.  I know that I truly hurt my Saviour’s heart when I did that but I felt so alone and once again as if no one loved me, not even my Lord!

Recently, God has shown me some areas in my life that I needed to deal with.  I have never dealt with the feelings of being unlovable  and that has plagued me all of my life.  I have always felt unloved and worthless all of my life.  Even though I know that God loves me, I still struggle with feeling like He really does love me.  I know myself better than anyone and I am well aware of my shortcomings, therefore it is hard for me to understand how He could love someone like me!  I am going through a process now, of painstakingly breaking down the walls that I have built up in my life over the last nearly 50 years.  I am beginning to understand that God does love me!  I am starting to understand that I am someone who could be loved by God and others.

Looking back over my life, I can see God’s hand in much of my life, guiding me every step of the way.  God is so merciful to me; He truly does love even a sinner like me.

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