Celebrate Recovery Essay

Celebrate Recovery
Celebrate Recovery is a ministry that has been designed for people who are hurting for any reason. It is made up of regular folks like you and me, who are on a journey seeking recovery from and celebrating God’s healing of life’s hurts, habits, and hang ups.
Founded in 1990 by Pastor John Baker, Celebrate Recovery is a ministry born out of the heart of Saddleback Church. In over twenty years, more than 11,500 individuals have gone through this Christ-centered recovery program at Saddleback. In 1993, John and Pastor Rick Warren wrote the curriculum which has been published and translated into twenty-three languages.
Celebrate Recovery is a program that is aimed at all issues people have, including alcohol and drug addictions,

The meeting is two parts. Large group, for everyone, takes place the first hour that includes worship, the reading of the 12 steps that everyone says together, and a testimony or a teaching on part of the 12 steps. We end the meeting with the Serenity Prayer. The second part is broken into to smaller group discussions that are gender and topic specific. You may also come and hour before the meeting for fellowship and dinner.
At Celebrate Recovery, sponsored by Brandywine Community Church in Greenfield, we have four different topic groups for men. They are anger, addictions, sexual integrity, and general life topics. For women there are five. Relational brokenness, anger/anxiety, addictions, co-dependency, and general life topics. Small groups are for sharing your own focused thoughts or feelings, whatever they may be. It is also a safe place to share. What is said in the group, stays in the group. Basic requirements is for people to remain anonymous and maintain confidentiality. If someone threatens to injure themselves or others that would be the only exception to the anonymity and confidentiality rule. Cross talk is not allowed either. Cross talk is when two or more individuals engage in conversation not including all others in the group. We are also not there to fix one another, but to be supportive of each other. Each person gets 3-5

The studies are also gender specific. There are four participant guides for the study. They are Stepping Out of Denial into God’s Grace, Taking an Honest and Spiritual Inventory, Getting Right with God, and Growing in Christ. There are questions in each of these books that you answer and you share them in group every week. Before you get to the second book you need to find a sponsor. Your sponsor is needed when you do your inventory. A sponsor is someone who has been through a step study and has completed leader training. The inventory process can be very hard for some individuals and many drop out of the program before doing their inventory. But if you can manage to complete the entire study it can be life-changing! Also, if you decide you want to give back to the program and become a leader it is necessary for you to have completed a step study and to give your testimony in the large group