Calvary Church acknowledges the presence of hurt in the lives of believers. Encouragement Groups and leader-directed conversations offer hope and healing centered in God's grace.
Calvary’s Encouragement Ministry offers classes and groups that meet weekly to provide biblically based instruction and encouragement for life’s challenges. Many groups provide an environment for safe recovery from addictive practices or harmful relationships, while other groups focus on life issues and spiritual growth. All groups are confidential.
Thursday Encouragement Groups meet at 7 p.m.
Sunday Encouragement Groups meet at 9 and 10:45 a.m.
Calvary West Encouragement Groups meet on Tuesday's at 7:00 p.m.
email the Encouragement Ministry
call the Encouragement Ministry: 630-585-3240
Thursday Groups
Jan. 12 – Mar. 25
Encouragement Group members join with others in similar circumstances to work together in facing the challenges in our lives. Childcare is available for a minimal fee.
Clearing Your Past for a Brighter Future
Room 220
This group will help you identify the ways that past experiences affect your present relationships.You will be encouraged to enter into a healing process. You will also gain a clearer sense of identity and a healthier relationship with Christ Jesus, by a deeper experience of His unconditional love.
Divorce Care
Room 223
This class is designed to encourage those who are recently divorced or going through a divorce. It will cover issues faced in all aspects of the divorce experience and offer real-life applications for recovery and being single again. Part of the class is instructional using video, guest speakers, and divorce recovery instructors. We also have small breakout groups for discussing and applying specific solutions to each person’s circumstance.
Divorce Care for Kids
Room 224
This multimedia program for children in grades 2–5 is designed to help minimize and eliminate the short and long-term effects of divorce on a child’s schoolwork, relationships, emotional health and spiritual life. The BIG D is also available for Jr. High children.
Grief Share
Room 203
This group offers an opportunity to interact with others who have experienced recent loss. You will learn about others’ experiences and share your own in the framework of biblical teaching on grief and recovery.
Imprisoned No More
Room 201
This group provides Christ-centered support and empowerment to individuals and families that are dealing with the effects of incarceration. The group provides referral resources for employment and other needs that impact the families of ex-offenders.
Overcoming Conflict
Room 231
This group will help believers turn conflict into opportunities to strengthen relationships by becoming peacemakers in every area of daily life. Learn to Glorify God, get the log out of your eye, gently restore, and go forward to be reconciled.
Single and Parenting
Room 222
Thursday Groups (year ‘round)
These groups meet every Thursday throughout the year except for Thanksgiving.
Codependency
Room 205
(near North West #25, Take elevator to second floor)
This group offers sound biblical processes that promise hope and healing from destructive attitudes and behaviors such as rescuing, controlling and perfecting.
Co-dependency is an inordinate focus on another person for a sense of well being. It manifests in various ways, such as rescuing, controlling and perfecting. This group offers sound biblical processes that promise hope and healing from these destructive attitudes and behaviors. Eleeo groups apply the Beatitudes to the recovery process.
Sexual Addictions – Lifeline (For Men Only)
Room 140
(Between entrance #24 & 25)
A confidential group for men only, this Bible-based program is for those who are seeking healing.
“Lifeline” is a confidential group (for men only) that uses a biblically based Eleeo 12-step program for those who are seeking healing. Freedom is achieved through prayer, support and accountability.
Substance and Gambling Addiction Recovery
Room 141
(Between entrance #24 & #25)
This is a Christ-centered program for those who are dealing with drug, alcohol and gambling issues.
This is a Christ-centered, Bible-based 12-step program for those who are dealing with drug, alcohol or gambling issues. The goals of this group are help, healing and discipleship. This Eleeo group applies the Beatitudes to the recovery process.
Thursday Groups (flexible schedule)
Please call 630-851-7000 x3240 for more information or to be connected.
Cancer Care Connection
Call for location
This group offers encouragement and Christ-centered support through phone calls, emails and or visits.
This group offers encouragement and Christ-centered support through phone calls, e-mails and/or visits for those who are dealing with cancer, as well as their caregivers. Call 630-851-7000 x3240 to get connected.
Rainbows in the Night
Call for location
This group is intended to bring hope and healing to women who are dealing with the hurt and pain of abortion.
Many women of various ages are going through life hurting from the pain of abortion. This group is intended to bring hope and healing through the love and acceptance that are available in Christ.
Standing for Marriage
Guest Welcome Center.
Call for time
This group is for separated or divorced individuals who are, by faith, believing for the future reconciliation of their marriages.
This group is for separated or divorced individuals who are believing for the future reconciliation of their marriages. Join with others to pray and seek God’s direction for personal change, growth and marital reconciliation through biblical encouragement.
Supporting our Troops
Call for location
This group supports those who are coping with the separation that comes with deployment and helps you to prepare for the struggles that arise when your loved ones return.Through Christ, it is possible to cope with the separation, struggles and fear that come with deployment. This will also prepare you for the struggles that arise when your loved ones return from service. This is for anyone who has served in a war and/or their family members who are looking for a new hope. To get involved, call 630-851-7000 x3240.
Sundays, 9:00 a.m.
Jan. 8 – Mar. 25
Healing Path for Marriage
This Bible-based discussion group challenges couples who are struggling with their marriage to move toward heart-to-heart communication. Pre-registration is required. Please call 630-585-3240
How to Speak (and Hear) the Truth in Love
Room 140
We will learn from a biblical perspective about how to hear what is said, speak what we mean and identify how and where communication goes wrong so that we can speak and hear the truth in love.
Parenting Through Difficulties
Room 205
This group provides a confidential setting for parents of teens and adult children who are dealing with difficult issues, including disrespect, abusive behavior, alcohol and drug use and illegal activity.
Sundays, 10:45 a.m.
Jan. 8 – Mar. 25
Every Man’s Marriage
Room 220
This class will help you to discover the common misconceptions about what it means to exercise biblical authority and understand the role of submission in the marriage relationship.
Divorce Care
Room 231
This group is designed to encourage those who have recently gone through a divorce or are currently going through a divorce.
Healing Path for Marriage
This Bible-based discussion group challenges couples who are struggling with their marriage to move toward heart-to-heart communication. Pre-registration is required. Please call 630-585-3240
A new husband, a new father, a new man
I am a grateful recovering alcoholic. For 17 years, I drank and drugged myself into a life of legal problems and deep depression. Nearly eight years ago, I started attending Calvary's Thursday night substance recovery program. I have been clean and sober for over seven years!
Christ Jesus is alive, and he meets alcoholics, drug addicts and men addicted to pornography every Thursday night in the rooms at Calvary Church. If you have wanted freedom from your destructive behavior or if you have ever wondered just how active God really is in people's lives, then you need to come to these classes.
I have found true freedom, true joy and true peace. Jesus has plenty of it to give, and he wants to give it to all of his children.
Pushed Past my Limit in Parenting
By Leigh Otto
“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it!” (I Corinthians 10:13, The Message)
Maybe you are like me. When I first read this verse, I thought, “This is great. God won’t let me down, and I can’t be pushed beyond my limit!” Then life happened. I am and continue to get pushed past what I think my limits are. I have come to realize that my limits and God’s ideas about my limits are different. The tests that I have experienced while parenting have pushed me far beyond what I thought my limits were—all the way to where God sets his limits.
At those places and at those times, God has faithfully reminded me of the rest of that verse: “I am always here to help you through.” With parenting, I often interpret that to mean that he’ll make it go away or change my child. Then I realize that God is not working it out like that; instead, he is bringing people into my life to encourage me. These are often people who have walked the same path and have also been stretched beyond their limits. They provide me with the insights and tools to go forward and see God’s victory unfold.
If you now find yourself parenting through difficulty, Calvary Church has encouragers available for you.
Parenting through Difficulties
Sundays, 9 a.m., Room 205
This is an Encouragement Group for parents of teens and adult children.
For full information, choose the "Sunday Groups" tab above
Back in Control Workshop
This workshop provides Bible-based tools for parents of children of all ages.