 A now-defunct recovery-oriented church in downtown Anchorage, Alaska advertises its Celebrate Recovery meeting in May 2019. | |
| Founded | 1991 |
|---|---|
| Founder | John Baker |
| Location | |
Area served | 10 countries |
Key people | Johnny Baker |
| Website | celebraterecovery.com |
Celebrate Recovery is an American Christian twelve-step program designed to facilitate recovery from a wide variety of troubling behavior patterns. The global headquarters is in Lake Forest, California, United States.
The organization was founded in 1991 by John Baker, a former alcoholic staff member of Saddleback Church with the support of Pastor Rick Warren. [1] John Baker served as the primary author of The Celebrate Recovery curriculum and materials. In 2004, the program was approved by the California Department of Corrections and entered prisons. [2] In 2020, the organization was present in 10 countries around the world. [3]
Celebrate Recovery is a recovery program aimed at all "hurts, habits, and hang-ups", including but not exclusive to: high anxiety; co-dependency; compulsive behaviors; sex addiction; financial dysfunction; drug and alcohol addictions; and eating disorders. [4] Celebrate Recovery is one of the seven largest addiction recovery support group programs. [5] Promotional materials assert that over 5 million people have participated in a Celebrate Recovery step study in over 35,000 churches. [6] [7] Leaders seek to normalize substance abuse as similar to other personal problems common to all people. [8]
Celebrate Recovery uses both the 12 steps developed by Alcoholics Anonymous and a very similar set of eight sequential principles that are understood as a lesson of Jesus' Beatitudes. [9] [10] [11] [12] In addition to issue non-specific large group gatherings and individual mentoring, Celebrate Recovery encourages participants to form a small group of "accountability partners" who all have the same problem and support one another closely. [9] Celebrate Recovery groups are held under the management of local church organizations. [13] A study of Celebrate Recovery participants published in 2011 by the Journal of Religion and Health, found that levels of spirituality were associated with greater confidence to resist substance use. [14] Celebrate Recovery has not been significantly studied, so there is no empirical evidence regarding the impacts or efficacy of the Celebrate Recovery program. [15]
The name Celebrate Recovery is a registered trademark of John Baker, [16] and the national Celebrate Recovery organization requires that groups using this name hold closely to a standardized format. [9] [10] They may not use resources outside of the Bible and authorized Celebrate Recovery curriculum materials. [17] Group facilitators must be trained and agree to a list of expectations, [9] including standardized guidelines [18] [19] at each meeting. [17]
Alcoholics and drug addicts make up only 30% of Celebrate Recovery's membership
"We are all broken," program founder John Baker says. "We have all sinned. We have all missed the mark. We are all struggling with a hurt, habit or hang-up."
Celebrate Recovery... function[s] under the auspices of formal church organizations.
CR’s rapid growth and popularity presents some evidence of its potential benefit. However, little is known about its ability to engage, and retain members over time or whether it helps reduce relapse rates and enhances the odds of long-term recovery.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global, peer-led mutual-aid fellowship dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually inclined twelve-step program. AA's Twelve Traditions stress anonymity and the lack of a governing hierarchy, and establish AA as free to all, non-promotional, non-professional, unaffiliated, non-denominational, and apolitical. In 2021, AA reported a presence in approximately 180 countries with nearly two million members—73% in the United States and Canada.
The Christian countercult movement or the Christian anti-cult movement is a social movement among certain Protestant evangelical and fundamentalist and other Christian ministries and individual activists who oppose religious sects that they consider cults.
Twelve-step programs are international mutual aid programs supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions. Developed in the 1930s, the first twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, aided its membership to overcome alcoholism. Since that time dozens of other organizations have been derived from AA's approach to address problems as varied as drug addiction, compulsive gambling, sex, and overeating. All twelve-step programs utilize a version of AA's suggested twelve steps first published in the 1939 book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism.
Craig L. Blomberg is an American New Testament scholar. He is currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado where he has been since 1986. His area of academic expertise is the New Testament,including subjects relating to parables, miracles, the historical Jesus, Luke-Acts, John, 1 Corinthians, James, the historical trustworthiness of Scripture, financial stewardship, gender roles, the Latter Day Saint movement, hermeneutics, New Testament theology, and exegetical methods. Blomberg has written and edited multiple books.
Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian evangelical theologian. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written or edited about sixty books and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2022.
Pastoral counseling is a branch of counseling in which psychologically trained ministers, rabbis, priests, imams, and other persons provide therapy services. Pastoral counselors often integrate modern psychological thought and method with traditional religious training in an effort to address psychospiritual issues in addition to the traditional spectrum of counseling services.
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, public theologian and was a leading figure in the emerging church movement. McLaren is often associated with postmodern Christianity.
Walter C. Kaiser Jr. is an American Evangelical Old Testament scholar, writer, public speaker, and educator. Kaiser is the Colman M. Mockler distinguished Professor of Old Testament and former President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, retired June 30, 2006. He was succeeded by James Emery White.
Higher Power is a term used in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and other twelve-step programs. The same groups use the phrases "a power greater than ourselves" and "God of our understanding" synonymously. The term is intentionally vague because the program is not tied to a particular religion or spiritual tradition; members may use it to refer to any supreme being or deity, another conception of God, or even non-supernatural things such as the twelve-step program itself.
John D. Hannah is an author and professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. His official title is "Distinguished Professor of Historical Theology, Research Professor of Theological Studies." He served as the department chair of Historical Theology for over twenty years and has taught at DTS since 1972.
Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr. was an American Christian counselor, author, Bible teacher, spiritual director, and seminar speaker. Crabb wrote several best-selling books and was the founder and director of New Way Ministries and co-founder of his legacy ministry, Larger Story. He served as a Spiritual Director for the American Association of Christian Counselors and taught at several different Christian colleges, including Colorado Christian University.
Nicotine Anonymous (NicA) is a twelve-step program founded in 1982 for people desiring to quit smoking and live free of nicotine. As of July 2017, there are over 700 face-to-face meetings in 32 countries worldwide with the majority of these meetings occurring in the United States, Iran, India, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia, Russia and in various online community and social media platforms.. NicA maintains that total abstinence from nicotine is necessary for recovery. NicA defines abstinence as “a state that begins when all use of nicotine ceases.
Drug addiction recovery groups are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome their drug addiction. Different groups use different methods, ranging from completely secular to explicitly spiritual. Some programs may advocate a reduction in the use of drugs rather than outright abstention. One survey of members found active involvement in any addiction recovery group correlates with higher chances of maintaining sobriety. Although there is not a difference in whether group or individual therapy is better for the patient, studies show that any therapy increases positive outcomes for patients with substance use disorders. The survey found group participation increased when the individual members' beliefs matched those of their primary support group. Analysis of the survey results found a significant positive correlation between the religiosity of members and their participation in twelve-step programs and to a lesser level in non-religious SMART Recovery groups, the correlation factor being three times smaller for SMART Recovery than for twelve-step addiction recovery groups. Religiosity was inversely related to participation in Secular Organizations for Sobriety.
SMART Recovery is an international community of peer support groups that help people recover from addictive and problematic behaviors, using a self-empowering and evidence-informed program. SMART stands for Self-Management and Recovery Training. The SMART approach is secular and research-based. SMART has a global reach with a presence established in more than 30 countries. SMART Recovery is effective with a range of addictive and problematic behaviors.
LifeRing Secular Recovery is a secular, non-profit organization providing peer-run addiction recovery groups. The organization provides support and assistance to people seeking to recover from alcohol and drug addiction, and also assists partners, family members and friends of addicts or alcoholics. It is an abstinence-based recovery program with three fundamental principles: sobriety, secularity and self-empowerment. The motto of LifeRing is "empower your sober self."
Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), also known as Save Our Selves, is a non-profit network of autonomous addiction recovery groups. The program stresses the need to place the highest priority on sobriety and uses mutual support to assist members in achieving this goal. The Suggested Guidelines for Sobriety emphasize rational decision-making and are not religious or spiritual in nature. SOS represents an alternative to the spiritually based addiction recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). SOS members may also attend AA meetings, but SOS does not view spirituality or surrendering to a Higher Power as being necessary to maintain abstinence.
Gary M. Burge is an American author and professor. He is a New Testament scholar at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Gary L. Thomas is an American evangelical minister and writer of Christian literature.
John F. Kelly is an American-based researcher and professor of addiction medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the Founder and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Recovery Research Institute, Associate Director of the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, and Program Director of the MGH Addiction Recovery Management Service.