On Friday, July 27, Celebrate Recovery (CR) will host a Benefit Concert by Change of Scene, a quartet singing Gaither Vocal Band music, and Terry Posthumus, a Canadian folk singer-songwriter and worship leader whose repertoire includes classic and contemporary worship songs, as well as original material. The purpose of the concert is to raise awareness and finances for CR.
But what is Celebrate Recovery? Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step program that identifies Jesus as our Higher Power. The principles are modeled after Jesus’
Beatitudes and the purpose is to become Christ-like in character. Celebrate Recovery is not focused solely on alcohol or drug abuse. It deals with every kind of hurt, habit and hang-up: anger, eating addiction, gambling, sexual addiction, co-dependency, domestic violence, divorce recovery, alcoholism, grief recovery, substance abuse, relationship addiction, and the list goes on. In fact, at Saddleback Church in California where the program began, only one out of every three persons is in CR because of alcohol or drug use.
When and how did it begin? In 1991, Rev. John Baker approached Rick Warren, his pastor at Saddleback Church in California and the author of Purpose Driven Life, and said that there was an urgent need for a Christian recovery program for people struggling with addictions. According to Vic, a member of Hope Fellowship Church and a leader in the local Celebrate Recovery group, Rick Warren told John Baker to go ahead and start one, something that Baker did with some reluctance since he had hoped that someone else would take this on. From that resistant beginning, Celebrate Recovery has become the Number 1 outreach program at Saddleback Church and a program that is offered worldwide in places like Iceland, Tokyo, Indonesia, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Latvia, the Middle East and, of course, Canada. It is also used as a prison ministry.
Celebrate Recovery came to Clarington when leaders at Discovery Church, including church planter Martin Spoelstra, completed nine months of training. Since March 11, 2009, CR has met every Thursday night at the Discovery Centre, 140 Queen Street, in Bowmanville. According to Elly Jaspers-Fayer, the CR Ministry Leader at Discovery Church, “The Thursday night meeting at Discovery is a meeting open to all adults and would be where everyone starts out. As people move along in their recovery, they seek to work on their issues and struggles in more depth and in a closed group setting which would be the Step Study. Two men’s Step Groups meet at Hope Fellowship Church every Monday night. These Step Studies are more in-depth support groups with homework and greater accountability. Many people come to both meetings each week.”
My sense is that many more people would benefit from Celebrate Recovery, including many people at Hope Fellowship Church. I am grateful for the faithful, committed leadership of people like Vic, Jordan and Donny who want people to know that “participants are not there to preach and tell you what to do, but to share what they have done!”
I encourage you to attend Friday’s Benefit Concert (July 27, 7-9 pm) in Hope Fellowship’s air-conditioned auditorium. Marja and I are going because we believe in the cause and love a good concert. Will you join us there?
- Pastor Peter
But what is Celebrate Recovery? Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step program that identifies Jesus as our Higher Power. The principles are modeled after Jesus’
Beatitudes and the purpose is to become Christ-like in character. Celebrate Recovery is not focused solely on alcohol or drug abuse. It deals with every kind of hurt, habit and hang-up: anger, eating addiction, gambling, sexual addiction, co-dependency, domestic violence, divorce recovery, alcoholism, grief recovery, substance abuse, relationship addiction, and the list goes on. In fact, at Saddleback Church in California where the program began, only one out of every three persons is in CR because of alcohol or drug use.
When and how did it begin? In 1991, Rev. John Baker approached Rick Warren, his pastor at Saddleback Church in California and the author of Purpose Driven Life, and said that there was an urgent need for a Christian recovery program for people struggling with addictions. According to Vic, a member of Hope Fellowship Church and a leader in the local Celebrate Recovery group, Rick Warren told John Baker to go ahead and start one, something that Baker did with some reluctance since he had hoped that someone else would take this on. From that resistant beginning, Celebrate Recovery has become the Number 1 outreach program at Saddleback Church and a program that is offered worldwide in places like Iceland, Tokyo, Indonesia, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Latvia, the Middle East and, of course, Canada. It is also used as a prison ministry.
Celebrate Recovery came to Clarington when leaders at Discovery Church, including church planter Martin Spoelstra, completed nine months of training. Since March 11, 2009, CR has met every Thursday night at the Discovery Centre, 140 Queen Street, in Bowmanville. According to Elly Jaspers-Fayer, the CR Ministry Leader at Discovery Church, “The Thursday night meeting at Discovery is a meeting open to all adults and would be where everyone starts out. As people move along in their recovery, they seek to work on their issues and struggles in more depth and in a closed group setting which would be the Step Study. Two men’s Step Groups meet at Hope Fellowship Church every Monday night. These Step Studies are more in-depth support groups with homework and greater accountability. Many people come to both meetings each week.”
My sense is that many more people would benefit from Celebrate Recovery, including many people at Hope Fellowship Church. I am grateful for the faithful, committed leadership of people like Vic, Jordan and Donny who want people to know that “participants are not there to preach and tell you what to do, but to share what they have done!”
I encourage you to attend Friday’s Benefit Concert (July 27, 7-9 pm) in Hope Fellowship’s air-conditioned auditorium. Marja and I are going because we believe in the cause and love a good concert. Will you join us there?
- Pastor Peter
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