When God Uses His Megaphone: Christchurch’s Celebrate Recovery Ministry

By the Rev. Dolly McLemore

Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61 to describe his ministry.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
  because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
  he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
  and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

Later in Matthew 25, Jesus said, “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’”

The poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the bound are later described by Jesus in John 4:35, as the “fields, white for harvest.” I used to work in a secular alcohol and drug treatment center, which was a spiritual field “white for harvest.” C. S. Lewis, a master of Christian apologetics, spoke truth when he said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” One tends to hear the megaphone when one is sitting in a residential treatment setting or experiencing pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering can often be instruments of wisdom to tell us something is wrong. At Celebrate Recovery we give space for people to share their hurts, hang-ups, and habits. Through intentional listening, and shared experiences of suffering, those hurting and bound by a variety of hurts and habits are assured that they can find healing, forgiveness, and hope in Christ. Celebrate Recovery is as much (or more so) a pastoral ministry as it is an evangelistic ministry.

Over the last four years, the Celebrate Recovery (CR) ministry at Christchurch Montgomery has walked with participants through many difficult life problems. On their behalf, we have attended court, made recommendations to judges, attended funerals and the birth of babies, helped with transportation and the purchase of a car, and performed numerous other acts of counseling, prayer, care, and mercy. Eleven adults (and counting!) have been baptized during normal Sunday morning worship at Christchurch and many more have made public confessions of faith. Some have even gone through confirmation to join Christchurch!

This year CR at Christchurch was, by God’s grace, able to connect with the local inpatient treatment center where I previously worked. Through much prayer (and having overcome not a few hurdles), CR now sees 22–24 men coming each week in vans (the treatment center’s as well as a Christchurch van driven by volunteers). Here they enjoy a wonderful meal, worship, a lesson or a testimony, a small group, and fellowship. And they keep coming back!

Once a month we offer our CR participants the opportunity to receive Communion, provided they are baptized believers in Jesus. The question of baptism has thus became a focus of our CR participants. Not all have been baptized, but because regular public confessions of faith are becoming more and more common, more and more are asking to be baptized, which has led to a massive uptick in adult baptisms at Christchurch.

On Sundays, a bus (and a church van when needed) bring a growing number of men from the treatment center to enjoy a full breakfast, worship , and a Sunday School hour Bible Study (one that emerged from Christchurch’s NOVO ministry) that is designed for new or pre-believers with no or little Bible knowledge.

Because the men who are being baptized are from all over Alabama and even other states, they are provided with a livestream link for their families to watch and an edited link that shows just their baptism so they and the families can watch it at a later date. These men are not unlike the man delivered from the Legion, and the Ethiopian eunuch, and the woman at the well, who went back to their homes and spread the Good News about Jesus.

All our participants receive a Celebrate Recovery Bible and other materials. In addition to these gifts, they also receive from our CR team their time, their listening ears, and their love and acceptance. As we like to say, “No judgment here folks!” Indeed, we are all sinners saved by the grace of God. Romans 5:1-11 perfectly sums up the Celebrate Recovery ministry of reconciliation: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Amen.

I recently heard from one of the inpatient residents, that a group of the men who come to CR, have started nightly Bibles Studies at the treatment center, using their CR Bibles. Praise God!

Between our local participants, and the men from the treatment center, we serve on average, 35 to 50 participants every Friday, which has become my favorite day of the week! I am truly blessed to be part of a team of faithful believers who are co-laborers in the Lord’s harvest. May God continue to bless Celebrate Recovery as one of the many tools that fulfill his command to serve “the least of my brothers and sisters” and thereby serve Him. Would you like to learn more about CR and how it might transform your parish and community? You can call (334-301-3490) or email Deacon Dolly McLemore for more information.