Men of God
Our Men from our Rehabilitation Program attended a Conference at a local church
On Saturday, some of our Rehabilitation Program Men and staff had the opportunity to attend the Man of God Conference hosted at Grace Bible Church Fair Oaks. The teaching at the conference complemented our pastoral staff’s approach and efforts in how they counsel, teach, preach, and disciple them. We love it when the men we care for are also cared for by the community of churches we partner with. It’s a community effort!
Grace Bible Church hosts a Man of God conference annually and does a fantastic job! They also host chapel on the first Tuesday of each month here at UGM. We love GBC Fair Oaks! They graciously sponsored the men in our program so that they could attend.
Brad Bigney, the author of the book Gospel Treason, taught how to identify and deal with idols in life from a biblical counseling approach and on understanding the “why” at a heart level behind the sin of idolatry that wreaks havoc in life. Bigney defines idolatry as “An idol is anything or anyone that captures our hearts, minds, and affections more than God.” Idols aren’t always obviously bad things–they can be good things that capture our hearts more than Jesus, such as work, money, our spouse, kids, or even ministry. He said we could usually identify when we’re experiencing what he calls a “gospel drift” by what consumes our thoughts, emotions, and words. Is it Jesus? Or is it _______________? We can also tell if something has too high a place in our hearts when it is “shaken or taken.” If our job or marriage is shaken and we experience tribulation, do we lose ourselves in the chaos? If our car is towed, does our heart sink to the floor?
One of the guys that went was convicted of so much idolatry that he didn’t even watch football on Sunday. He became aware that football had become too important, so he studied God’s Word, prayed, and worked on his studies instead of watching the game. Football, in a way, had captured his heart on Sundays more than Christ.
Written by our Operations Manager, Jeremy Gauthier, who has a heart for seeing men stuck in the woes of addiction be set free by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Click here to read his profile on our staff page.
