Celebrate Recovery UK Conference

The Celebrate Recovery UK Conference is held every other year. The conference is a celebration of Christ-centred recovery and brings all participants together for a fun, engaging day.

Celebrate Recovery UK Conferences 2025

We’re excited to announce three regional conferences designed for everyone connected to or curious about Celebrate Recovery! Whether you’re a leader, a participant, a church exploring Celebrate Recovery, or simply interested in learning more, these events are open to you. With three dates and locations to choose from, there’s a convenient option for everyone who wants to attend:

Click here for further information about this event. 

Click here for further information about this event.

Click here for further information about this event.

Each conference is a full-day event packed with inspiration, insights, and resources to support your journey.

Celebrate Recovery UK Conference 2023

The Celebrate Recovery Conference 2023 took place in Derby on the 7th October 2023.

Thank you to everyone for coming; some travelled many miles to join the Celebrate Recovery UK
family. It was good to be together.

The event was aimed at our Celebrate Recovery (CR) leaders and participants as well as church leaders investigating the programme for their own churches.

Someone who had been considering running CR commented:

“Because of this conference, I’m closer to starting a Celebrate Recovery group.”

One CR leader said the day had provided:

“Time to reflect on what makes our CR group successful.”

We covered a lot of content and most people appreciated the variety of speakers, testimonies and interaction.

Someone summed up the day with this reflection:

“I liked that there was some fun as well as the serious stuff.”

The Order of the Day

This year’s conference was opened with a time of worship; this is a key element of Celebrate Recovery, keeping us looking to Jesus for hope, healing and help. With a packed programme, our UK Director, Tony Turner, kicked off our first session by modelling a CR General Meeting Night. The Large Group Time included a powerful testimony from Liam. We then had some fun with role play, modelling a badly run Open Share Group meeting (with Tony sneaking into the women’s group!) to highlight some common mistakes, before modelling a correctly run group which followed the small group guidelines for safe sharing.

Session 2 focused on ‘7 Keys’ to starting a Celebrate Recovery group and keeping it growing. Catherine Robinson (North East & Scotland Rep) organised a game of word ‘Bingo’ during our focus on CR’s ‘7 Unique Features’ led by Kath Leigh (North West & N.Ireland Rep) and Val Turner; this ensured that delegates were glued to every word spoken. Later, Catherine took us on the journey to recovery; our lost and heavily burdened actor – Kath – was encouraged along the path to recovery with Jesus leading the way.

After lunch, we looked at the practicalities of starting a CR ministry following the 90-day kick-off strategy, before discussing around our tables the important qualities of a Celebrate Recovery leader – in ‘Top Trumps’ style. Other sessions included sponsoring people through the eight principles, and the top 10 hints from CR leaders for keeping a CR group thriving.

It was great to hear from Andy Townsend, a Celebrate Recovery UK Trustee, about our vision for growth, looking to develop 50 new groups in the next 5 years, and to hear further wonderful testimonies from Claire and Iain showing how God is using CR to bring hope to different situations.

We were also blessed to have Mark and Julie Macklin from Purpose Driven UK on hand for advice about the many Celebrate Recovery resources on sale.

It was certainly a day to remember, and our Celebrate Recovery UK family has just got a little bigger!

Take a look back at some of our previous conferences

Celebrate Recovery in the UK has hosted Conferences for many years. The conclusion we always reach after the event is of happy, shared times, where God’s blessing has been truly apparent. The highlights of recent conferences would be too numerous to list, but we’ve tried to provide a flavour here of events held over the years.

In 2006 we held our first Celebrate Recovery UK conference, input being received from from Dave Dent (as guest speaker) and a small team from the US. Seeds were sown at this time for the beginning of our UK growth strategy; taking Celebrate Recovery to every area of the UK. 

The 2012 Conference saw significant growth in Celebrate Recovery in the UK. We had the privilege of John and Cheryl Baker being with us and sharing during the conference. This was a time of great blessing to us.  John and Cheryl Baker are the founders of Celebrate Recovery and first started Celebrate Recovery in Saddleback, USA, in 1991.

We held our first online Celebrate Recovery UK Conference, ‘Come on a Journey’, in October 2021. This huge team effort included six testimonies shared by participants in the main sessions, and 12 seminars led by Ministry Leaders from around the UK. Our guest speaker was Richard Cobb, Celebrate Recovery’s International Field Director, who not only pre-recorded his interview for us but also joined us live from Alabama, US. Around 90 people attended and the conference feedback was very positive. The team’s effort to make pre-recorded videos means we now have 12 recordings of very varied seminars which are a great resource for events going into 2022.

Come to a Celebrate Recovery UK Conference

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIVUK) To me,...

The Seven Keys of Celebrate Recovery: Key 5 – Curriculum

Curriculum plays a crucial role in shaping the journey through Celebrate Recovery and John Baker knew that the foundation of an effective recovery ministry needed to be firmly rooted in the Bible. Romans 5:4 tells us: “For everything that was written in the past was...

The Seven Keys of Celebrate Recovery: Key 4 – Fellowship

It's very difficult to determine out of all the seven keys which one is the one that has the most impact on our own recoveries. I would certainly put the 4th Key Fellowship at the top of my own priorities for the following two reasons: · Emotional Support: Life is...

Relapse is not the end of the road

Most of us who are in recovery will have faced, or been very close to facing, relapse back into an unhelpful and/or unhealthy habit, that we thought we had broken free from.  This can feel quite devastating at the time and may even convince us that we will never...

The Seven Keys of Celebrate Recovery: Key 3 – Senior Pastor’s Support

The third key for growth of your Celebrate Recovery ministry is Senior Pastor support.  I can’t emphasise enough the importance of this key.  When we launched Celebrate Recovery here in Derby in 1998, our pastor was on board from the start, in fact his video is still...

A Church Leader’s View of Celebrate Recovery

As a church leader, I've seen the powerful impact of Celebrate Recovery in our congregation transforming countless lives and our church culture. It's all too common to feel you're the only one who struggles. So just by running such a group, we signal loud and clear...

The Seven Keys of Celebrate Recovery: Key 2 – Leadership Training

Leadership stands as a cornerstone of all that we do; it is also a skill that requires continuous refinement and development, which is why leadership training is the second key of a successful Celebrate Recovery group. Leadership training plays a pivotal role in the...

May is Mental Health Awareness month

Statistics show that the number of people struggling with mental health has sadly increased over the last few years – with one in four adults, and one in ten children, being diagnosed in the UK – and we all probably know others who don’t feel able to seek help....

The Seven Keys of Celebrate Recovery: Key 1 – Worship

The large group worship time at Celebrate Recovery is the first Key or, as we see in the leader's guide, the first pillar of a strong and vibrant Celebrate Recovery group. Worship points us to JESUS and clearly sets us apart from other recovery groups. At its core,...

Amazing Grace Testimonies

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,  That saved a wretch; like me!I once was lost, but now am found,  Was blind, but now I see. I love testimonies! I love hearing what a wonderful God we have – loving, seeking, forgiving, full of amazing grace. I...