Celebrate Recovery: Program deals with hurt and pain

By Elena Hammond

Hidden hurt and pain and the residue of a past drug addiction were lurking in Myron Jones’s life when he first encountered Celebrate Recovery at his church in Salem several years ago.

Jones offered to lead music at Celebrate Recovery, a weekly 12-step meeting for people with addictions, hurts, habits and hang-ups. He didn’t plan on participating. But that changed as he witnessed how Celebrate Recovery helped people.

“I saw that people were real,” said Jones, who then attended CR at Salem First Church of the Nazarene, where he served as a worship pastor. “I saw that people were transparent. I saw that people were in pain. Celebrate Recovery offered a way to deal with hurt and pain.”

He eventually started dealing with pain and anger in his own life with the help of CR. Months later, he found himself going through a divorce and CR was pivotal in helping him with that period of life, he said.

“Once that pain came to the surface, I realized it was time to deal with it,” Jones said.

Now, as a member of Foothills Church in Stayton and a Sublimity resident, Jones is helping lead and launch a new CR group. Celebrate Recovery will meet at Foothills at 5:30 p.m., Sunday nights, starting Jan. 11. The evening will include dinner, a worship service and small group time. Child care is available.

Celebrate Recovery is open to anyone. People dealing with problems such as drug addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, gambling addiction, anger, bitterness and painful pasts are encouraged to attend. Anyone with a hurt, habit or hang-up is invited. 

Celebrate Recovery is a program started by Saddleback Church in California. It operates in a manner similar to 12-step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Participants will find a place to share their problems with each other in a safe, confidential and non-judgmental environment. The main difference is that other groups ask participants to rely on a “higher power.” At CR, that higher power is recognized as Jesus Christ.

Starting a CR group in Stayton is part of an ongoing effort at Foothills Church to reach outside of the church walls and into the community, providing hope for the hopeless and help for people in tangible ways. Church leaders hope CR will help Foothills’ members as well as others in the Santiam Canyon who are struggling with addictions and hurts.

Jones found that facing problems in his own life wasn’t easy. Through CR he is “now able to recognize when I see myself starting to develop old patterns … I still deal with stuff. But it doesn’t matter where I’ve been as much as it matters that the grace of God is with me as I look at the future.”