Member Ministry: Celebrate Recovery
25422 Trabuco Road #105-151, Lake Forest, CA 92630
Website: http://www.celebraterecovery.com/
Email: jbaker@saddleback.com
Voice: (949) 581-0548

History:
The Celebrate Recovery ministry was begun by Rick Warren and John Baker at Saddleback Community Church (a large congregation in southern California). Rick, the Senior Pastor, describes the initial motivation in this way “While undoubtedly many lives have been helped through the twelve steps, I've always been uncomfortable with that program's vagueness about the nature of God, the saving power of Jesus Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So I began an intense study of the Scriptures to discover what God had to say about ‘recovery.’ To my amazement, I found the principles of recovery, and even their logical order, given by Christ in his most famous message, the Sermon on the Mount.” John Baker wrote an extensive curriculum based on Rick sermons which is the basis for their program.

Attitude toward AA and other 12 Step groups:
Generally supportive but there is an emphasis on the lack of Christian content in ‘secular’ programs. While the eight ‘Recovery Principles’ of the Celebrate Recovery program are structured as a practical application of the beatitudes they contain all the central features of the twelve steps of AA. For a comparison of the eight ‘Recovery Principles’ and the twelve steps of AA see John’s story at http://www.celebraterecovery.com/johnb.htm

Groups:
Materials for group leaders and participants (workbooks, audio tapes, video tape) have been published by Zondervan and can be purchased through www.pastors.com.

Events: An annual 'summit' is scheduled at Saddleback Community Church in August. One day conferences are also scheduled in many locations throughout the year.