A Celebration at Saddleback church

The time had come, and the faithful had arrived. They filled the cavernous worship center at California’s Saddleback Church, and, murmuring with anticipation, they waited.

Then, with hands held high, the percussionist, barely visible on the stage behind his drum kit, clicks his sticks, and the “World’s Most Dangerous Recovery Band,” through condo-sized speakers, fills the air with sound.

Three thousand wildly cheering believers, most of them recovering addicts, many of them tattooed and some with pierced ears, noses, and tongues, jump to their feet. Not your usual Sunday church crowd, perhaps, but no less devout.

It was 2009, and this was Celebrate Recovery (CR) headquarters. I was there with a small group from Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock which had adopted the program to help those in the church body suffering from alcohol and other drug addictions.

Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered version of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step program launched in Akron, Ohio over 83 years ago by Bill Wilson and Dr Bob Smith.

CR is a welcome addition to the resources available to those seeking recovery from their addictions to alcohol and other drugs but does not replace AA which offers many more meetings worldwide and has a solid track record.

It was a glorious morning at Saddleback, and this was the opening salvo of the annual Christ-centered Celebrate Recovery Summit meeting at pastor Rick Warren’s twenty-thousand-member church in the heart of Orange County.

It was my first encounter with CR headquarters following the adoption of the program by my church—Fellowship Bible Church—in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it was an impressive opening.

Founded more than twenty-five years ago at Saddleback by Warren and staff member John Baker, CR had quickly become an international program offering a Christ centered, biblically based program for those suffering from addictions.

Twelve Step programs

Like Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery is based on 12 Steps. The basic difference is that AA talks about a God “of our understanding,” and C-R is Christian faith based with Jesus Christ at the top.

During our three days at the Summit meeting, we learned a lot and we had fun. We dined at the Celebrate Recovery Barbeque, with its “Recovery Burgers,” “60-Day Chips,” “12-Step Chicken,” “Serenity Sausage,” “Willpower Pickles,” and the ever-popular “Keep-Coming-Back Onions.”

And we shared box lunches and gallons of coffee at umbrella-shaded tables or stretched out on the grass. Later we attended an evening concert featuring New Zealand’s electrifying Parachute Band.

A glimpse of Celebrate Recovery reveals a fervent and hip addition to what Christians have become used to over the years with the Salvation Army, Union Rescue Mission, and more conventional and sometimes complacent church fare.

In its approach to addiction, Celebrate Recovery is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. CR has 12 Steps which are almost the same as AA’s but, unlike AA, its spiritual focus is specifically on Jesus Christ rather than “God” or a “higher power.”

AA also focuses exclusively on alcoholism, whereas CR deals with a variety of “addictions, hurts, and hang-ups.”

At the time of our visit, seventeen thousand churches worldwide supported CR programs . In contrast, AA has more than one hundred thousand meeting locations around the world, many of them, it should be noted, in rooms provided by churches.

Visitors to Saddleback come to further their own recovery and to learn how to better encourage others back home to do the same. To the extent they succeed, they believe, individuals, families, communities, and eventually the world will benefit.

As it is evolving, Celebrate Recovery ministries are also dealing with huge social issues like prison recidivism and the homeless, and adherents are joining forces with other ministries to address these problems.

Baker’s Plan

It was Baker, a recovering alcoholic, who came up with the Celebrate Recovery plan, sold it to Warren, and watched it flourish. As host of the annual event, Baker spoke at the conference of his own addiction and reaffirmed the goals and intentions of the Summit at Saddleback.

“For a lot of years, I was a functional alcoholic,” Baker said.

He was also a fighter pilot, vice president of sales and marketing for two major food manufacturers, and accomplished much in other areas. By the age of thirty, he had reached an impressive list of life goals. So what did it matter that he drank a little too much? Only that it finally caught up with him.

“Finally, alcohol became the problem of my life,” he said. “It was time to make a choice—to admit that I was wrong and surrender and begin doing it God’s way or continue drinking. I chose the world’s way and turned my back completely on God for five years.”

Going through a thirteen-month separation from his wife prompted him to start attending AA meetings, he said. “And I also started to get back to the Bible. My wife and kids started attending Saddleback Church, and the kids asked me to go with them. I did, and that Sunday morning I heard Rick Warren’s message and heard the music, and I knew I was home.”

Baker’s wife, Cheryl, who shared the podium with him, confessed candidly and with self-deprecating humor to her own contribution to marriage difficulties.

The codependent’s motto

“I spent all my energy in masking my life,” she said. And when confronted, she invoked the “codependents’ motto,” stating with finality, “I am fine and in control, thank you very much.”

In the end, Baker took Cheryl to dinner on Valentine’s Day of 1991, made his amends, and said he wanted to help and be a part of her life if she would have him. She agreed. Shortly after, they renewed their wedding vows. Their son, John, was also a recovering alcoholic with over ten years of sobriety. He, too, shared the podium with his mother and father.

It was soon after the reconciliation that Baker began to work on implementing a vision that God had given him about recovery. He began with a thirteen-page, single-spaced letter that he submitted to Warren.

“I didn’t know Rick very well when I submitted it, but he called me into his office later and said of my proposal, ‘Great, John. Do it.’”

And so began the Celebrate Recovery ministry, which complements and does not replace the regular Sunday service at churches that offer it. It is more comprehensive than AA and the range of addictions it addresses.

A get real focus

 With its “get-real” focus, Celebrate Recovery tends to be a much grittier version of a traditional Sunday morning worship service, and it is also carefully structured to make it a safe place for the needy and hurting to come, bare their souls, and recover.

Most of those attending the Summit meeting were there either to start a new CR ministry or to learn how to run an existing ministry better, and everyone got an operating manual that included mission statements, organization charts, job descriptions, and other operating details.

While this focus on organization and policy is necessary, Baker says, the ultimate aim is recovery, which is highly personal and based on relationships.

Churches, many of which have embraced Celebrate Recovery, believe it is long overdue and very much what Jesus had in mind. But “getting real,” at least in Purpose-Driven Life terms, is not to everyone’s taste.

Madison Avenue marketing?

Some Sunday churchgoers and conservative pastors, possibly unwilling to disturb comfortable routines to confront their own dysfunctions, find Saddleback’s recovery message inappropriate.

Specifically, some have taken exception to Saddleback’s “Madison Avenue” marketing, mission statements, and other business-style strategies.

A later story also included a reference to Rev. Bob DeWaay, author of a book critical of the Saddleback approach, in which he stated that, “The Bible’s theme is about redemption and atonement, not finding meaning and solving problems.”

A spokesman for Warren responded to DeWaay with a comment that, “Mr. Warren believes the Bible addresses sin and redemption, as well as human problems.”

To those who suggest that the Celebrate Recovery message concerning addiction/recovery message is somehow inappropriate, Bob Wood, a Celebrate Recovery founding pastor at Fellowship Bible Church (FBC) in Little Rock more than ten years ago, stated at the outset that, “We’re a hospital for sinners- not a hotel for saints.”