Published: May 02, 2007 06:17 pm            

Church program to help with pain

Celebrate Recovery begins Tuesday night at FBC

The First Baptist Church of Cleburne has a new ministry designed to help people with habits, hurts and hang-ups.

Celebrate Recovery is a free 12-step program that supports individuals who contend with personal struggles involving alcoholic parents or spouses, anger, chemical dependency, co-dependency, divorce, eating disorders, financial recovery, grief, relationship addiction, sexual addiction and emotional, physical or sexual abuse.

Senior Pastor Dr. Danny Crosby said the church wants to help people through Bible-based, Christ-centered recovery.

“We are all in recovery because we are all sinners,” Crosby said. “Therefore the program is led by people in recovery for people in recovery.”

Celebrate Recovery is open to anyone in the community, and FBC has invited other churches to encourage their members to participate.

“Folks can just show up; they don’t have to sign up,” Crosby said.

Celebrate Recovery is a national program started by Saddleback Church in California. Confidentiality is strictly enforced.

As people become comfortable discussing their struggles, they may share them outside the group, Crosby said, but discussions about other people’s struggles must stay in the group.

“Our goal is that those in recovery will begin to take leadership roles in Celebrate Recovery,” Crosby said.

The people who come to Celebrate Recovery will form groups that will meet at a time and location convenient for them. The leader of each group will then take the group through the 12 steps.

A group of four people at the church, called the leadership TEAM, or Training, Encouraging, Assimilation and Ministry, organizes the Celebrate Recovery groups.

TEAM member Carolyn Crumpton said she became involved with Celebrate Recovery by asking questions and wondering what kind of recovery the program addresses. In searching for answers, Crumpton said she realized she could benefit from the program.

“I realized this was not just about drugs and alcohol,” she said. “It could be about grief that someone is still bearing or a hurt that can’t be forgotten.”

Crumpton is one of four TEAM members who oversee the ministry. She fulfills the “Encouraging” role of the TEAM.

The TEAM has been meeting for the past eight months to work through the 12 steps and learn the principles of leading.

Crumpton said the leaders want to see people quit denying they have addictions and pain so God can work in them powerfully.

“They will see it differently when they take the first step and stop denying there is a problem,” she said. “This is why we have a passion to help people get real with themselves and with God.”

Dr. Mike Stiles is the director of FBC’s Celebrate Recovery. He handles the ministry aspect of the TEAM. Lois Faulk oversees training of leaders, and Sandy Eyman is responsible for assimilation — helping individuals find their place in the program.

Celebrate Recovery begins Tuesday and will meet from 5:30-9 p.m. Tuesdays at the church chapel. An inexpensive dinner will be offered before each meeting. After dinner, participants will attend a worship service and meet with the whole group. Each session will close with fellowship, coffee and dessert.

For information, e-mail Stiles at drmikesplace@yahoo.com or call the church at 817-645-6684.



Misty Shultz can be reached at 817-645-2441,

ext. 2336, or reporter2@trcle.com

        

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