By Victoria Ostrosky
We’re all familiar with the concept of ripples – throw a stone into water and ripples form, growing ever wider in scope before they eventually fade. Sometimes, though, impacting lives is more akin to a meteor striking the ocean. The sheer force and size creating, not ripples, but waves of enormous height, affecting lives on a massive scale for many hundreds of miles.
Celebrate Recovery is a biblically based program focused on Jesus, and designed to help heal the hurts, habits, and hangups that many of us drag around with us every day. They use the eight principles Jesus taught in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter five to bring healing in every aspect of our lives.
It all began in 1991 when a tiny pebble dropped into the ocean. John Baker approached Rick Warren, his pastor at Saddleback Church. John was inspired to share his recovery process with others who were chained to addictions. In just over 30 years, God has blessed this outreach and now there are over 35,000 churches across the world hosting weekly Celebrate Recovery meetings.
Stephanie Wedel is the State Representative for Celebrate Recovery and the Recovery Minister at Crosspoint Church in Niceville. Her testimony of God’s deliverance is a story in and of itself, but suffice it to say that when Jesus stepped in and changed her life, her excitement and love was so meteoric in scope that the lives God has allowed her to reach has been nothing short of miraculous. It reminds me of Jesus’ statement about the woman in Luke 7 who poured the expensive perfume over him and washed his feet with her hair. “her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Stephanie’s deliverance greatly impacted her family. “My brother came to me and told me he knew he could change because he saw me do it. That was 6 years ago, and we got him into a recovery program. He’s now the Executive Director of Project Hope Recovery Center – Florida. My dad did the Celebrate Recovery material in prison, and since I’m a state representative for Celebrate Recovery inside jails and prisons I got to share them with him. He was baptized in 2020 and is currently in a Federal halfway house in Pensacola finishing his sentencing for trafficking.” Her mom and step-dad are leaders at the south Crestview campus.
Celebrate Recovery is not just for drug and alcohol addiction. The program is for any kind of hurts, habits and hangups. The weekly meetings begin with large group worship, followed by teaching or testimony. Then everyone breaks up into small groups that are men/women specific. Within those are topic specific groups. For women, they have life issues, loss, trauma, food, and addictions. For men: life issues, addictions, welcome home for veterans or active duty. After the small groups, they attend a cross talk café where everyone has the opportunity to get to know each other over a meal.
As Stephanie says, “you see all kinds of people come. There’s a diversity of people. For people who think they have a deep relationship with God, you get to see that Celebrate Recovery is a way for them to become more like Jesus. Celebrate Recovery is a discipleship program on steroids.”
The weekly meetings average around 20 people, with about 70% of those who attend Celebrate Recovery unchurched and unbelievers. Then during the meeting, they “get to meet Jesus and then go out and tell others. I get to watch God light them up and light them on fire. It’s the coolest thing in the world.”
Of course, Stephanie hasn’t stopped there. She has just opened a transitional home for women called Freedom House for single women with at least six months of sobriety. It’s for women who are leaving homelessness, incarceration, human trafficking, or addiction treatment, and need a safe place to live while they are given skills and counseling. You can find out more at www.freedomlifecompass.org.
Celebrate Recovery isn’t a place to wallow in our difficulties and failures, but a place of celebration as God does His supernatural work in our hearts to heal us so we can be more fruitful for Him. Find a local church that hosts a meeting, so you can discover more about the program, by going to www.celebraterecovery.com. You can also email Stephanie at swedel@crosspoint.church.
Author: Sowal Editor
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