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Community Recovery International
Interview by Allison Graff
What is Community Recovery at New Community Church and what are some of its unique ministries?
It's not Pentecostal, it’s not Reformed, it's not really anything. It's just biblical and eclectic. It's multi-church, interdenominational, multi-faceted.
Community Recovery International is the ministry’s full name. We decided on that name back in 2002 when we felt it was necessary because God was growing the ministry here on Friday nights which you might know as Celebrate Recovery®. John Baker and Rick Warren from Saddleback Church started Celebrate Recovery® in 1991 as a model to implement in any church to address any hurt, habit, or hang-up, or addiction to things like drugs and alcohol—any of life’s issues, really, because it's not just about drugs and alcohol, it's about life’s problems and struggles.
"Recovery" has been a stigmatized and also a one-sided perceived term. When people say "recovery" they think it's about drugs and alcohol. Well that's not how this recovery model started. It started as something to address life's issues and struggles. So if it is drugs and alcohol that's fine. There's a support group for chemical dependency. The program’s founders created a vehicle, or a place, where people can say, "I'm just Joe Sinner and I'm just coming tonight with my struggles and problems." It may not be drugs and alcohol, it could be anything.
I came back to Grand Rapids in 1999 and we bought the Celebrate Recovery starter kit and put it to work. We were able to customize the worship. We started with five groups and 18 people and then it just grew from there. We developed a coffee time where you can connect with people spiritually as well.
| We've identified ourselves as a discipleship, education, and outreach organization for restoring people and communities. |
We developed partnerships with area agencies and treatment centers, including Mel Trotter Ministries and Guiding Light Mission, a CRC homeless mission. We just said, "Let's partner, bring 'em here!" And so we've done that since 1999 and 2000 where we've had people from these treatment centers and people from all walks of life—from the Grand Rapids community and even people from Detroit and other places in the state where they don’t have treatment centers that fit their needs—come as a result to Community Recovery. We just bus them over. So we decided by about 2001, since things were going well and people wanted to give money to the ministry, that we would create Community Recovery from the Celebrate Recovery model.
We've identified ourselves as a discipleship, education, and outreach organization for restoring people and communities. What we're doing is nothing new because we're just bringing people to the table so that they can not only network, but truly connect. Then there isn't duplication, and there is definite outreach to the community where we help people get connected with agencies and organizations that can minister and fulfill their needs, individually, or on a family basis for counseling or treatment if there is an addiction.
Community Recovery is where we came to bring all of this together as far as worship and support groups and working with people in clinical and community settings, Christian and non-Christian settings. All this together is a great way to do evangelism.
Worship at Community Recovery must be different from worship at most churches. What are some of the elements that set it apart?
Some of the elements in recovery-oriented worship—well, we have the rock band, the praise singers, the soloists that will do some contemporary pieces, like many other churches. But of course many of our people come from broken backgrounds, ex-prostitutes, homeless people, so they're just thrilled to be in a place that says, "You matter here. You're our guest and also a member here." Our view of membership is very informal because they need to know that they're cared about. Given that to begin with, they connect so much with the worship experience. A lot of them do standing ovations because they're just like, "Yeah!" They're really connecting.
As far as other elements that set Community Recovery apart, we celebrate clean time. Five years, twenty years, three years clean time from drugs or alcohol or other things.
We also do the full serenity prayer (beyond the traditional four lines), which includes Jesus, as well as God in the verbiage.
We also focus on a step of the 12-step program each month so that in January, we do step one, in February, step two and so on until we’ve done all the twelve steps in the year. Twelve steps, twelve months. We also spin off from the step and do a Bible verse related to that theme. We say the Bible verse together and we talk about moving forward.
We do a lot of interactive things to get them connected as a group. For example, I always say, “God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good, and all God’s people said, ‘Wow!’ ” I do that with everybody to interact. Just like in the African-American church, it’s that, “Are ya with me, are ya with me?” idea.
| Worship needs to be a healing experience. It’s about a spiritual ER, a hospital where we can meet people at every stage of their recovery. |
Testimonials are also extremely important in recovery. Worship needs to be a healing experience. It needs to be a hospital and not a Christian country club. If you have a Christian country club, then you might as well go down to the Elks Club or English Hills and sing a few hymns because that’s not what we’re about here. It’s about a spiritual ER, as well as a hospital where we can meet people at every stage of their recovery.
We have testimonials for that spiritual hospital emphasis. People get up and say, “I’ve been there, I know what you’re talking about,” “I’ve been on the streets,” or “I’ve slept under that viaduct, just like you.” Then people in the audience can say, “Wow, that happened to you too? I want what you’ve got!” “You’ve got three years sobriety? Holy cow! How’d you do it?”
When I do a clean time celebration, especially for people with five years or more, they’ll often share a few words. People then ask the person, “How did you do it? What was it like?” or say “I’m there, I’m hungry, I want it!”
How is worship a healing experience for participants at a Community Recovery service?
One of the key ways that we see healing happen at Community Recovery is through celebratory worship. Singing, expressing yourself, being open to do that, again not in a Pentecostal sense, but more in just the informal sense. So if people raise their hands, that’s fine, if they don’t, that’s fine too. People who are coming out of alcoholism and narcotics, sometimes their minds are kind of in the fog. Some of them will talk to each other during the singing time. They have no idea how to act in a worship setting because they haven’t been in a while. But others have, and they’re singing and participating. And whether they want to get up and dance or just stand there and sing and meditate, the service gives them options. The opening song time that they have is very upbeat and very high energy because we want them to get connected and be focused and know that their attention should be up at the front and not with their neighbors.
Then we’ll have prayer during song number two. Anybody who wants to come up to pray, sometimes they’ll line up, or come one by one, or a few at a time, and we have a bunch of prayer partners up in front.
It’s also healing for worshipers when I am able to, or another speaker is able to share our own struggles or problems. Not in an inappropriate way, but in an appropriate manner. That way they get involved with the process of coming together as a big group together with God.
There are these things in addition to holding hands at the end of each night, where they’re able to say the Lord’s Prayer together and just know that it’s going to be okay and they can go to group now prepared in their hearts.
There are people sitting in every church suffering, often silently, with addictions, depression, or other life issues. What would you say to pastors and worship leaders who might be able to make worship a healing experience for these people?
The first thing they need to do is to create an environment where it’s okay for people to say, “I’m screwed up.” If people don’t feel safe, they won’t. I don’t care if you’re rich, poor or middle class. This is where I get really, really adamant because too many churches feel unsafe to people. They just do. I don’t why—it’s not for me to say—but that’s what I keep hearing. If we can create churches across denominations that are safe places to come to share your problems and know that people are not going to gossip, judge, or look down on you, that’s the big one.
| We need to be able to say that there is joy and healing and deliverance in Jesus Christ. People need to know that there’s hope in the world, and if they can just get hope, they can capture the vision to help communities become restorative communities. |
The second thing is that the senior pastor must support creating a safe environment. You may have a multi-staff church, but whatever church it may be, the senior pastor must support that kind of environment and be able to be vulnerable. As Peter Scazerro says in the Emotionally Healthy Church, we need to be vulnerable, and also share our weakness. 2 Corinthians 10 talks about that: “My strength is made perfect in your weakness,” and “My grace is sufficient for you.” Churches need to be places where the pastor can say, “I’ve got problems too, I struggle with lust, I struggle with alcohol.” No one is immune to problems and struggles and hurt and pain.
Senior pastors need to be able to say that there is joy and healing and deliverance in Jesus Christ. People need to know that there’s hope in the world, and if they can just get hope, they can capture the vision to help communities become restorative communities, communities that can have real hope and honesty, working through conflict and issues. Why? So they can grow closer to the Lord and grow closer to each other. That’s authentic. Like I said, it’s got to be a spiritual hospital, not a country club feeling and mentality. The country club mentality, even though it looks nice, doesn’t feel safe. A spiritual hospital will feel safe to people because they know that someone cares.