Start a Group

Could your church run a Celebrate Recovery group and bring the healing power of Jesus Christ to all those who are hurting in your church family and community?

Here are six things to do to get started:

Senior Church Leader support is crucial for your success.

Watch the video below and talk to your church leaders about your desire to run Celebrate Recovery.

Purchase the basic curriculum:

– The Celebrate Recovery ‘ Leaders’ Guide’

– The first four Celebrate Recovery Participant’s Guides (often referred to as ‘The Journey’s Begins’)

You can purchase the curriculum direct from Purpose Driven UK.

Contact your nearest Celebrate Recovery Regional Representative to let them know you are interested in running Celebrate Recovery. They can:

– Add you to our friends’ list so you will receive our quarterly newsletters.

– Send you our free ‘Introducing Celebrate Recovery USB – a pack for UK churches’. This contains helpful UK videos and presentations to introduce CR to your team and church and ensure your CR group is a safe and authentic one.

– Support you and your team with guidance and training.

– Answer any questions you may have.

Find out who your Regional Representative is here.

Visit an established Celebrate Recovery group to see the programme in action.

Visit our Find a Group page to find a group local to you.

With the support of your senior church leader, we suggest you recruit a minimum of two male and two female leaders who have recovery experience to join your team to lead the group.

Go through the Participants’ Guides together to familiarise yourself with the programme. The Leader’s Guide and the Introducing Celebrate Recovery USB both explain this.

Useful tools can be found on our CR Tools Page.

With your team, attend the next UK Conference or ‘Introducing Celebrate Recovery’ meeting.

Information about these events can be found on our Events Page.

Once your group has been running for 3 months, your regional rep will check that your group is following the DNA. Once this check has taken place, you can register your group for the website, enabling people in your area to find you, knowing you run a safe and approved ministry.

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...

A Round up of 2023

Dear all, Once again, Christmas celebrations are here and as 2023 ends it's good to look back to see all that we have achieved this year. As I have said many times, Christmas is one of my favourite times as it brings me back to the realisation of what Jesus did...

Reflections on the UK Conference

What is it that makes attending Celebrate Recovery events, in the US and in the UK,  worthwhile? I asked a couple of the guys who came to October’s Celebrate Recovery UK Conference what they felt they got out of the day. Pete is an Open Share Group leader. It was...

2023 Conference

We read in the book of Hebrews 10:24-25 these words  “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works, and let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another” Meeting together and encouraging one...

My Identity In Christ – A Poem

In Principle 5, I realised my character defect of allowing my thinking and behaviours to be controlled by what others thought of me (or what I was mind reading them to think of me). This led to basing my belief system on wrong beliefs which developed into depression...

Does the Bible Offer Help for Specific Issues?

Wouldn’t it be useful if the Bible offered a one-verse-fits-all for recovery? However, each human is unique with unique experiences. Each abuse, anxiety and addiction is unique, as is each person’s journey to recovery. Therefore, I’m of the opinion that there isn’t...

How do we use our mistakes to help others?

In Celebrate Recovery we have a saying that ‘God never wastes a hurt’ which, for those of us who have been in recovery for a while, we know is true, but how does this happen? One of my starkest recollections of my life before attending Celebrate Recovery was the...

What it means to be a UK Rep

Since coming to Celebrate Recovery in 2011 and having worked through a number of hurts, hangups and habits that were holding me back for many years, I still have to pinch myself when I see God using my messes to help others, and having the privilege of leading a...

Starting a New Group

I would like to offer some encouragement to Celebrate Recovery groups that are just starting out. So how did we start? We looked at various Christian recovery programmes. We chose Celebrate Recovery because it focused on our identity in Christ and the hope of recovery...

The Importance of Evaluation

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines an evaluation as: “the process of judging or assessing the quality, importance, amount, or value of something.” I am someone who has often shied away from the idea of evaluating something, for fear of having to cut off things...