Posted: 5/13/05

Recovery groups enable churches to help people heal
An article in which our Former Pastor, John Pollard is interviewed

By George Henson
Staff Writer

RICHARDSON—If churches want to see new faces in their pews, they need to help people heal from their hurts, habits and hang-ups, asserts Pastor John Pollard of Richland Baptist Church in Richardson.

Pollard serves on the national board of directors for Celebrate Recovery, a Bible-based 12-step program to help people recover

from a myriad of life issues. The program was developed by John Baker, a layman at Saddleback Church in southern California,

and now is one of the prongs of ministry promoted by Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven ministry. At Richland, eight issue groups

meet. There are separate men’s and women’s groups for both chemical dependency and codependency, as well as women’s
          groups for victims of abuse and for eating disorders. A men’s group for sexual addictions also meets, and an anger/violence

group is slated to begin this summer.

          Most churches begin with the groups for chemical addictions and codependency, Pollard said. Each Friday night at Richland,

people come for a dinner, a large-group meeting with a reading of the 12 steps and the corresponding Bible verse for each,

special music or guest speaker and a time of testimony. The large group then is dismissed to meet in issue-specific groups.
          A fellowship time for coffee and desserts follows.

Participants in recovery groups meet a second night to work through the Bible study workbooks in a discipleship class. The 12 steps of the program are based on the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. “This goes against everything we’ve been doing in Baptist churches for the last 30 years—we’ve been bringing everything to the lowest common denominator, making it as easy as possible. If you love these people, you’ve got to make them work. They have to invest as much in their recovery as they have in their addiction,” Pollard said. “The truth is, that’s the only way they are going to get better.”

When Pollard explained that the program required two nights at week for at least two hours each time, the people in his church said that no one would go for it; it was too much to ask. People in recovery often have a different reaction, he said. “Two nights a week—I can’t get by with only two nights a week.” The need for healing can’t be overstated, Pollard said. “If every church out there had Celebrate Recovery and everyone who needed it came, we wouldn’t be able to handle them,” he said. “In Celebrate Recovery, I’ve found a ministry that brings people to the church, and they are knocking the doors down to get there.”

Pollard has baptized more than 50 people who have come through the Celebrate Recovery program. “This is the No. 1 evangelistic tool in our church,” he continued. “Over 80 percent of our new members are coming through Celebrate Recovery.” The program is not something just for the people outside the church, however. “Eighty percent of the people in our churches need Celebrate Recovery or something like it to deal with their baggage,” Pollard said. He first became interested in small-group ministry in the early 1980s when he was pastor in a church made up primarily of young couples. The church launched a support group for women who had been sexually abused as children. Fifteen women joined it.  Armed with a conviction that small-group ministries could be effective, Pollard began looking for an umbrella-type program that could address a variety of issues. He knew he had found it when he attended a three-day training conference at Saddleback Church.

“I told my church the next Sunday, ‘I’ve just been to a remarkable conference, and I’m getting ready to fill this church with every drunk, drug addict and dysfunctional person I can find. If you are not comfortable with that, that’s fine; the exits are clearly marked,’” he said. And Pollard acknowledges some “blessed subtractions” did opt to leave, but 22 people showed up for his first leadership meeting. Two admitted to being alcoholics. The rest said they didn’t have a problem but felt called to help others overcome theirs. “Within two months, all of them had identified at least two issues they needed to work on,” Pollard said. “They were in denial, and would not admit to themselves there was a problem in their lives until they thought there was hope of recovery.” Richland, a church of about 200 members, had 78 people present for the first Friday night of its Celebrate Recovery meetings. Pollard cautions, however, that Celebrate Recovery is not a quick fix. Some look at the 12 steps and believe it will be a typical three-month study, but eight to 12 months is a more realistic goal for recovery, he said. Group leaders are people who have gone through the program, he said. Pollard’s Friday night job—“I make the coffee, because you can’t have recovery without coffee,” he quipped. The Bible study is the key to the recovery, he said. “Some say the Bible says that God helps those who help themselves, but what the Bible really says is that God helps those who admit they have a problem and cry out to God for help,” Pollard said. Getting that help should come easiest at church, but too often that is not true, he said. “The church should be the one place where we can come and be honest about our hurts, our habits and our hang-ups, but in reality, it’s the last place anyone would do that,” he said. That needs to change, he asserted. “There are two kinds of churches: 12-step churches and 1-step churches. That one step is accept Jesus Christ and all your problems will be over. ... But the truth is that our churches are filled with hurting people.”

The ministry is not just a benefit to those who go through the program, but the church as well. “It has filled my church with people who have a celebration of grace, and they have become the hardest workers in my church and leaders in other ministries,” he said. He said some of his best Sunday school teachers and youth workers have worked through the steps of recovery. “They have experienced the pain of bad choices in their lives.” This is a tool many pastors have been looking for, he continued. Pollard said his church has helped 35 other churches begin Celebrate Recovery ministries and would be glad to help others. He can be contacted at (972) 231-6400. “I don’t know too many pastors who aren’t heartbroken about what they hear in counseling sessions, but they don’t know what to do,” he said.  “Used to, they had to send these people out to someone secular, and then you didn’t know what they would tell them. That’s not the case anymore.”