Celebrate Recovery: Helping people deal with hurts, habits, and hang-ups

Helping people deal with their hurts, habits, and hang-ups is the goal of an international recovery program that includes groups in Marion County.

Celebrate Recovery, according to the official website, is a "Christ-centered 12-step program" that was established in 1991 at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Forty-three people attended the first meeting at Saddleback. Since then the program has grown to include some 35,000 churches around the world.

Locally, Celebrate Recovery started seven years ago at Marion First Church of the Nazarene (also known as Marion Naz) in downtown Marion and has grown exponentially over that time, according to Rev. Gregg Parkman, who oversees the program.

Parkman said church leaders saw a need for the program to help serve the local community.

"The reason why we started it is basically as a response to some of the madness in our community," said Parkman, who is also the pastor of the church's Kensington Campus. "A lot of it was substance abuse and addictions. So, we felt as a church that we needed to provide some kind of resource or help. Celebrate Recovery is an established program.

"(Church member John Baker) at Saddleback Church was in (Alcoholics Anonymous) but it wasn't really working for him, so he designed Celebrate Recovery out of AA. In AA, they talk about a 'higher power,' and our higher power is Jesus Christ. In September 2015, we put together a team and went through all the training and brought the program here."

Parkman said the Celebrate Recovery team at Marion Naz reached out to operators of other recovery programs and then promoted it "heavily in the community" before the launch. He said it was definitely uncharted territory, but has blossomed.

"When we started out, we'd have maybe 40 or 50, but that has grown on any given Thursday night, we have 200-plus people - and that includes kids and students," Parkman said. "Last September, we launched a full family recovery ministry. We have a student ministry called The Landing with the material geared toward students (grades 6-12). We also have a kids ministry called Celebration Place (for infants through 5th grade).

"It's opened up a whole opportunity to partner with schools and so many different avenues here in Marion. The amazing thing is a lot of the other recovery organizations that we've partnered with are actually bringing their clients here on Thursday night for our service."

While the word recovery is most often associated with overcoming substance abuse and addiction, Parkman said Celebrate Recovery casts a wider net to encompass a broad range of issues people experience.

"We present it as addressing any hurts, habits, or hang-ups, basically anything that you feel has a hold on you," he said. "That could be depression, anxiety, co-dependency, any unhealthy habit - those are all in the scope that we try to help people with and provide encouragement for them along their journey. We try to help them find the resources they need to overcome whatever it is that they're facing in their lives.

"The scope is pretty broad. We've had people come to us who are struggling with gambling addiction, struggles with pornography, and other issues. We just try to walk beside people where they're at, give them the resources they need, and pair them up with accountability partners and sponsors who will encourage them and guide them. We call Thursday night a 'one-stop shop' to help you find a better place in life."

Celebrate Recovery meets each Thursday at Marion Naz beginning with a meal at 6 p.m. A "high-energy worship" service follows at 7 p.m. At 8 p.m., "open share groups" meet.

The worship service, Parkman explained, is a not a traditional "church" service, but is more informal by design.

"We share a story or testimony of somebody who's been a through a hurt, habit, or hang-up and they talk about that experience," he said. "They talk about where they're at now and how they're overcoming some of those challenges. Sometimes we'll have a lesson - there's 25 lessons that we teach. They're heavy on scripture. Not necessarily a sermon, but some kind of help to help people move the needle in their journey to recovery."

Parkman said the "open share groups" provide a relaxed, safe atmosphere where people can just talk with each other and share what's on the hearts and minds.

"All those are gender specific. It's just a time to get together - it's not therapy," he said. "They talk about their week, share their struggles. There's a lot of encouragement, a lot of prayer support. That's been a really good time for people to come in and just get some things off their chest, be able to talk, and find some support."

Parkman said Marion Naz has reached out to other churches and organizations in the community to join in the effort.

"It's really become a lot broader than just a 'Marion Naz ministry,'" he explained. "We have a lot of outside partners and we've started to see more and more churches get involved. That's what we've been trying to encourage. This thing is much bigger than Marion Naz. We want outside help and outside partners. That's been our focus this past year.

"It's been cool to see the other churches and organizations come in. We're not competing for people. We're all moving in the same direction. We just want to help our community."

Parkman said Marion Naz has partnered with Avenue Church in Ontario, Riverside Church of the Nazarene in Dayton, and some other Dayton area churches to help launch the program.

There is no fee charged for the weekly meal or any of the resources or materials provided to the people who attend Celebrate Recovery, Parkman said.

For information about Celebrate Recovery, go to the Marion First Church of the Nazarene website marionnaz.org and click on the "Ministries" tab.

Email: ecarter@gannett.com | Twitter: @AndrewACCarter

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Celebrate Recovery: Helping people deal with hurts, habits, hang-ups