The Vision Behind Celebrate Recovery

Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White, founder of Vive 18, and I’m hanging out with my guy from church, Torin Holmes. And I really wanted to chat with Torin because he’s always been just a bright light, especially in the space of recovery. And he started this program at our church every Saturday and I want to ask him all the questions about it because it is booming and I’ve gotten a lot of questions like what is Celebrate Recovery? How do you make sure that it’s successful and people actually show up? I don’t know. Hopefully we’ll get some ideas from Torin or just see what he did and learn from that but Torin man tell us a little bit about you and yeah why we’re chatting today. 

Yeah, well, my name is Torin. Yeah, I do attend here at Arcadia City Church. I oversee the recovery ministry, so that’s kind of what my job title is, is liaison. Since I’m not a pastor, it’s not official, yeah, we did, we started a celebrate recovery. It’s every Saturday night, started at June 15th. So we’ve been going about three months now and it’s really the vision behind what Celebrate Recovery is for us was I sat down with Pastor Dave and we were talking how do we be more intentional about walking with these dudes in recovery and discipleship. And what that looks like is really our church mission is helping people take their next steps with Christ. So walking alongside them and being more intentional about relationship and really that’s the breath behind what CR was. And the conversation started with what kind of service would we do? What would we offer? My idea was like, let’s do an AA meeting. And he said, well, let’s do something a little deeper. Let’s do like a worship and we’ll do some food and maybe do a message or something. 

Inclusivity in Recovery Programs

And then we’ll kick it off with some small groups and then we’ll end it. And I was like, well, that’s celebrate recovery. So we started with the idea not knowing what a CR was and that was the idea was we’ll do a CR. So I mean, that’s kind of been the heart of it. I was at the rehab that we pretty much primarily go to, which is Crossroads. I graduated there. I did four months there, 122 day program. And just working through your 12 steps 12 steps in the AA Alcoholic Anonymous book talks about giving back, working with other alcoholics and helping walk them through the steps, speaking at meetings, helping at meetings, getting a service commitment. So plugging in really, and that’s really what it’s been, is just continuing to do that 12 step and plugging back in and doing what it entails. So mean that’s pretty much it. 

Okay, cool. What I’m starting to understand too is that Celebrate Recovery isn’t just for people who are in recovery. That mostly it’s very, very helpful for those and that they’re the ones who are like, yes, this is exactly what I needed. This is awesome. But there’s also, I mean, I guess it’s ask you like who’s showing up and what might be helpful, you can. You can guesstimate as well, but like if you were to look at who’s coming to Celebrate Recovery and find value in it, what percent are maybe just around recovery, maybe family member, friend, whatever, who is there for just general support and then maybe in the recovery space too, who’s fresh, who’s veteran, who’s, you know, that kind of, if you could break it down as best as you can. 

That’s good. You know, Celebrate Recovery, the model, as whole is really good. mean it’s not just geared towards people in recovery or people that are drug addicted or alcoholics. It’s more geared towards the saying is hurts habits and hangups. if you fit any three of those categories, if you have any hurts from your past or hurts from even your present or hangups, things you can’t stop doing that you find yourself doing repetitively, I want to stop shopping so much, I can’t stop eating so much, whatever it is or gossipy could be anything or or habits I mean bad habits I mean these are the these are the three things that they focus on and I would say it’s it’s it’s for us and for our Celebrate Recovery it was more geared toward the dudes in recovery that we’ve been working with and how do we kind of take next steps with them and just because of what Celebrate Recovery is and their model it’s become this open forum for for anybody to come and we’re kind of taking new steps and it’s a whole new area so it’s fresh. I don’t really know exactly what it looks like as a whole right now. 

I can tell you the number one thing that keeps everybody kind of involved is that we’re so we’re so like connected with these people. know, it’s not, it’s not like a, hey, I don’t know you, why don’t you come to this thing? It’s, hey, we know each other, we’re in relationship together, come be a part of what we’re already doing. You know, come show up to this event. This is, this is our group, you know, it’s not, it’s not something that’s like, hey, come to this thing I know about or heard about. It’s come to this thing that we are putting on and this we’re a part of. And now these people begin to feel like they’re a part of it because they’re in relationship with us too. So yeah. 

That’s cool. And I think the lesson that I’m taking away from that is, one, I’ve seen and experienced the power of an invitation. You’re not just saying, this is an event, and maybe you’ll find it helpful, or this thing’s pretty cool, you should go. 

You’re like, no, hey, I’m a part of this thing. It’s amazing. Like, will you come with me? Or like, will you be a part of this? That’s so powerful. Then feeling like a number or feeling like, I’m being promoted to because this is a program. It’s not, you built it with the right intentions, meaning how can we serve people better? How can we help people better? And specifically the people that are wanting it, asking for it. And I know from, from you, you have a lot of great people that are now filling your shoes. And as Christians, we call it discipleship. But if someone’s not even a Christian, it’s talking about being a scalable model of duplicating yourself and making change so that because we know we can’t do everything alone We need volunteers. We need people who are being mentored to do great work and so how how has that process been and from the outside looking in I’m like dang You’re successful at that and part of it is because you are right. You’re doing life with these guys. Is there anything else though that you feel like has been really helpful to have them wanting to help and wanting to support? 

Building Relationships in Recovery

Yeah. A big part about, big part of relating with people is knowing yourself and knowing who God is now to me. There’s a long part of my life where a lot of your right feeling or what’s called righteousness, where you feel like a lot of that is self-based, where you’re, I’m operating in my own righteousness or God is good because I’m good and I’m good because God’s good. Like that’s kind of it. And just from path of life, I’ve learned, you know, I’m not perfect. I don’t have it all together. Most days my cheese is sliding off its cracker. And really the truth is I recognize how much grace I need and how much mercy I need and how much I’ve been forgiven. 

So I don’t come into any relationship or any situation with this pompous attitude or I’m somebody or I’m perfect or thinking, you know, I got it all together come into it like dude I’m broken and hurting and worse than you and I need this just as much as anybody and I’m up there teaching the lesson and I’m thinking to myself dude like wow this lesson I hope that I hope I can hear what I’m saying because then I’ll say this I hope I can hear the words that are coming out of my mouth because God knows I need it you know I think I think helping that helps relate to these people because the relation isn’t hey yeah this guy’s this guy’s got it all together so I want to be around him it’s like no this guy recognizes that he doesn’t have it together and that’s that’s an easier line I feel like. 

A lot of times, as believers, we wanna give this picture to people that we’re perfect. And we want people to think that we have it all together and we put on our Sunday best and I’m great, I’m good, and God is good, and life is good, but that’s not the truth behind closed doors. Like, dude, we’re struggling and there’s people that need prayer and there’s hurts and there’s death and there’s lot of things that are, there’s sickness and accidents and a lot of things happening that allows this and really the heart is like, giving people a safe place to feel like they can be themselves, you know, and be accepted and not feel like they have to hide it, you know, not feeling like they have to pretend. And I think that’s pretty good. think it’s helpful. I think it helps people. That’s what has been a good camaraderie is allowing to relate to people on a level of, look, I don’t have it all together either, you know? 

Creating a Safe Space for Healing

Yeah. It’s an example of mission first. It’s not about anyone, anything, any activity. It’s the mission. And you’re like, I’m a servant of the mission. And when I speak, that’s what I’m sharing. And it’s helpful for me too. I don’t have it all together. And that’s being a person who talks about my faith you know, wanting to be an example, but also realizing like not everybody’s like that. And before I came to know about Christ, I was like, what are you talking about? All those hypocritical people, all those fake people, all this stuff, you know, I had, cause honestly, they’re out there, right? Like, and none of us are perfect. I’ve been that person too. And I think that what’s really cool about watching is,there was a point at our church when we started this program and the leadership was kind of like, hey, this is the mission. This is gospel. This is Jesus. Some people won’t like it or they might feel uncomfortable. But that is their issue. They have to deal with God about that because that’s not true church discipleship Jesus and maybe that’s some growth they need to have as well. And so what’s cool is seeing on a Sunday and Saturdays, volunteering throughout the week is this has become a really safe place for anybody, just like what you’re saying. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to dress up. You just here as you are and you’re gonna be loved. And that’s powerful. And I think for anybody listening, if you think about the best organizations across the world, is the ones that thrive are the ones where people feel seen, heard, and loved. They go there and they’re safe. 

And so a lot of our growth, hey, how come my organization isn’t growing? How come my organization isn’t taking off? Maybe it’s just built on a leader instead of the mission. Maybe it’s that we don’t have a feeling of safety and a feeling of being cared for. And the question should be, how can we get that set first? So we could actually handle some growth, you know? Because Celebrate Recovery here being a safe place, it was able to attract, you know, upwards of people right away and handle it really well. I think so. Yeah, any thoughts just on any of that stuff? 

The Structure of Celebrate Recovery

Yeah, I mean the culture is different. The culture is perfection and the good, happy family and everything’s good and just really what happens if you look under that veil, a lot of times for people that are just coming to know Christ, it’s like their first experience. they meet people like us who know, like Matthew 5 talks about, about being poor in spirit, we know we’re desperate for God, I need God, I’m broken without him, know, my spiritual bank is broken, I’m broke, right, I need Jesus. A lot of times for people who are just new to Christ and they’re meeting people like me and they’re meeting people like Nick A and Gabriel and Devonte and Nehemiah and they’re meeting us and they’re seeing these dudes who claim they don’t have it all together. It draws an easier line. It says, okay, wait a minute, I could do that because they start to recognize, they already know they’re not perfect. They know they need God. 

They just don’t know how to do it. They’re scared or they’re worried about it, you know, but but when they start to see that there’s a line that you can you can do this dude, like you don’t have to keep living the way you’re living and and guess what? There’s a better life out there for you. You know, what’s going to keep you sober is is conscious contact with your higher power and and community and those are the those are like the two big things and seeing that line because a lot of a lot of and sadly dude a lot of times we as believers, I mean if you’re drawing this line for people like look you gotta be perfect. You gotta give up. You gotta give up all your sin to be able to come to God. Definitely don’t show up to church smelling like smoke and sagging your pants and wearing a hat. Like, don’t do that. 

But you know, once you get your stuff together, when you get proper and you’re proper, once you get it all together and you become a little bit more perfected, then you can come to church, then you can come to God. And then God will accept you. It’s backwards. Yeah, that’s exactly it. You know, it’s backwards. And that’s not how we met God. That’s not how we believe in God. And that’s not who God is to me. God is come as you are, broken, hurting, hungry, needing, and full of sin. You know, come as you are. Come be loved by me and allow my love to transform you and to change you. And that’s really what the heartbeat of our life in recovery is about.

There was a student that I was speaking to after a recent school program. And actually it was one in Kansas and there was a lot of students coming up to talk after, know, either saying like, hey, you know, I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t want to use drugs at my school. And so I feel alone. I really resonated with your story. I’m going to keep it up. One saying, I’m trying to quit vaping, like, and you know, nicotine, like nicotine is powerful. So these young kids are using nicotine and also involved in sports to do well in school. 

So they know, like I know this isn’t right, but I’m trying to quit. I am definitely addicted. And one of the students was telling me more and I was like, hey, tell me more about it. What have you done so far? How have you tried to quit? And I did see the missing pieces. It was like, I tried to do this program. And I tried to this text line. I tried to do this curriculum. 

And the missing piece and what I was trying to encourage him with it by the end of our discussion was like, Hey, my biggest hope for you is that you find community and being in a school, I can’t always share Christ, but I was like, and you find that community, like you have some places you can look and asking him about it. And what’s cool is knowing how powerful when you do get connected to your purpose through your design and how you’re created by God. 

The Importance of Community in Recovery

The impossible is now possible. That’s as simple as it hopefully can be for someone to understand. When you hear the gospel, you’re like, whoa, the God of the universe is available to me. That’s incredible. Maybe I can do this. And I have all these people around me who have done it. And I remember talking with a bud about you know, you started the 12-step program or something, as a young person, feeling like everyone else is old there, so they’re not going to get you, they’re not going to understand you, but in reality, it’s like they were you. They get it, and they’re the best people to help you out, and they’re gonna understand all those feelings. And so, I mean, that was the best that I could do, and then pointing him to local resources and stuff, but I think you’re spot on is if you don’t have that higher power, that mission, that purpose, dang, it’s gonna be tough. And if you don’t have community, that’s gonna be tough. I haven’t heard of, I don’t know if I’ve heard of any success stories without that. 

Like somebody just went through a program by themselves and stopped. Maybe a couple and I’m just chalking that up to a miracle. Yeah. So let’s talk about the logistics of what does that look like? You mentioned worship, message, small group time. I’m very interested in it. 

The message is how do you choose who’s going to share that message? Is there any parameters or anything like that? And then also, what does small group time look like and what kind of topics, like do you give them topics to talk about or anything like that? 

Yeah, I just want to touch on the vape thing for that kid who’s struggling, doesn’t know what to do or whatever. He’s a kid, right? Abstinence. I mean, that’s the best way to do it. Just stop and you got to refuse to do it anymore, right? As for the curriculum, mean, is Celebrate Recovery is organized by far. By far one of the best structured programs out there for recovery if not the so it’s modeled after the AA model of 12 steps but it’s also more geared towards a Christ centered relationship and they have a they have a real structured outline of like what the service order looks like the team what the team is designed around it’s it’s built around a group of people like each person has a part and each person plays a role and each person does does their their part and it makes it all kind of work together the service is determined based on what week it is. So it’s a 52 week program. It’s 52 weeks lined out. You got a lesson every other week and it’s taught from the curriculum that they have. 

Logistics of Celebrate Recovery Meetings

I teach the lessons every other week and then every other, every once a month we have a sermon from our pastor and then another, the other week we do a testimony. So once a month we do a testimony, that’s in a four month week. And then then so the lessons are, I mean, they’re based out of the book. I’m really just going up there and just reading the lesson, you know? I do have some spitball moments and it’s like a heart thing, like you’re feeling it from your heart and there’s things that God reveals to me throughout the week when I’m studying it and then there’s always like the spirit movement taking place and it’s used as an outline but we use it as an outline and a format because we know that it’s working. We use the 12 Steps of Recovery because the 12 Steps of Recovery has been proven that it works. 

So that’s, I mean that’s the model and everything. we have the lesson, we have, so it goes lesson, sermon, lesson, testimony. And usually the structure of our CR, what we do is we provide a meal at first. And that’s what the structure is. It’s structured to have a meal, a community meal, so you guys are all eating together, bonding the community together, making friendships, making connections, making relationships. And then it goes from meal to worship time. And I would say, I would say Celebrate Recovery is more centered around worship than anything because they give the opportunity for people that normally wouldn’t go to church an opportunity to see what worshiping God looks like. And I would say that’s the center of Celebrate Recovery is that worship the worship time, the worship moment, because that’s the heartbeat of Christianity, that’s the heartbeat of being a believer in Jesus Christ, that’s the heartbeat of following God, is that we want to give God everything and give him praise and give him glory and give him honor, and that’s our heartbeat. So that would be the center of what CR stands for. Then we go through the 12 steps, we go through the 12 traditions, we hand out chips for various lengths of recovery. So say you got somebody in there, it’s their first day, they’ll come up there, get a little newcomer chip and say somebody’s got 30 days of continual abstinence or continual sobriety. 

Sobriety could be a plethora of things, alcohol, drugs, sobriety from porn. There’s people that are sober from shopping or whatever, from dieting. mean, there’s alcohol, nicotine, there’s all kinds of things. And so they’ll come up and get a 30-day chip all the way up to a year and then a year and a half and then multiples of years. And that’s a good time, is we like to celebrate each other’s recovery. So that’s kind of in the name, right, celebrating their recovery. 

The Role of Newcomers in Recovery

Then it goes into the message and then there’s like a 20 to 25 minute message. Sometimes it varies. It could be 30 minutes, you never know. And then we break up into small groups and the small groups is really because even our church, even Arcadia City Church believes that relationships and deep intimacy with Christ doesn’t just take place in rows, it takes place in circles. And that’s where a lot of that relational period is gonna take place and a lot of movement of the Holy Spirit is gonna take place is in those small share groups because people are able to express what they’re going through. You’re meeting new people, you’re hearing stories. And I would just go a step further, just something you wouldn’t even know to ask. The most important person in the room is the newcomer. 

The newcomer is what keeps us because those are the people who are just starting and you’re like, do let me help you and seeing them grow and seeing them change and being able to see them, that’s the most important person in the room. So hopefully I answered that question.

Yeah, that was perfect. And I’m glad you added that. The most important person in the room is the newcomer. There’s so many lessons that I feel like Christ reveals through his word, through the Bible, that we see in day-to-day life. And I mean, that’s one of them, right? Is that to be the greatest of these, you become the least of these. Jesus was washing feet, hanging out with the quote, least of these. And the religious people were getting upset about it. You had mentioned earlier today that you’re doing life with people. You’re inviting them to be a part of something you love and you’re a part of. And that invitation, rather than that advertisement just something I’ve seen over and over again, not only in scripture, but building our platform of sober, drug-free parties. That’s the model. Invite people, don’t advertise. You get huge turnouts that way. And you talked about it not being in rows, but circles. 

And I think of when I was in college, discovering this moment of like, would spend thousands of dollars to bring in a comedian, a band or somebody, and we would all face them and watch them. And there was no connection between us because of it. Sure, we were entertained, but we were not connected. And so I think there’s so many just golden things for us to take away from chatting with you right now about Celebrate Recovery and how to do it right with the right heart, right mission. And almost for me, anytime I learn how to do something correctly, I’m also picking up the pieces of if it’s not working, can I identify what’s going wrong? Because maybe I’m not hitting one of those marks that you talked about. man, I’ve been too focused on the leader instead of the mission. We’re not facing each other and building relationships. We’re just like being entertained or watching a screen or something like that. And so I hope for everybody listening to this, whether you start Celebrate Recovery or not, or you’re part of it, there’s lessons to be learned. And if someone is interested and they’re like, yeah, I think that our church or our community would really benefit from a partnership and doing Celebrate Recovery, which if you’re in a coalition, I mean, that would be huge, a huge asset. And what I’ve seen is y’all are just on fire. wanting to help the community, wanting to serve and to be partnered with people who are like that, that’s a game changer. So if somebody does want to start, was there somewhere that you learned about it or places they can go to kind of check out resources to do that in general? 

Starting Your Own Recovery Program

Yeah. Research is big. I would say for the person who’s not in recovery, wanting to start a recovery meeting, a get people that are, you know, plug in, plug in with people that are the champion or plug in with people that are doing recovery. It’s, it’s, it’s going to be harder. I feel like, and I don’t know, dude, I don’t know all the answers. You know, I’m not, don’t, I don’t know. I don’t, but, plugging in with people that, do, that do recovery and then go to different CRs and see how they’re running their CRs and, and reach out to the, cause there’s reps for, for celebrate recovery and there’s, there’s a way to go about it. 

You know, they have a very modeled structure. in fact, actually, this last route, I can’t remember what it’s called, rally or what it’s called, but it’s like the big meeting at Saddleback Church out in California. And it’s like a convention for cell bay recovery. I can’t remember what it’s called. 

They came out with the fact that they’re doing, they’re opening up the forum to be able to be hour long ran meetings. So for the person who can’t run a meeting for two and a half hours and support doing a meal and get enough volunteers for worship and do a lesson every week, for the person who’s, or for the group of people that aren’t able to do those things, they’re opening it up to people that, to do just an hour long meeting, like any AA meeting, like you just start and a finish and it’s just an hour, like check in, check out. that’s, but that’s, to open it up for people that are wanting to have recovery at their church. Kind of something about what you said, you said about how we love getting plugged in and we love serving and this is what we do. I think I would just add to that, really it is what we do and we our heartbeat is just circulating. Like God is doing something in and through us and that open invitation kind of thing, like you said, like not broadcasting it, but inviting people and not, you know, don’t promote it, but invite. And that’s what it is, is when we’re meeting people, we’re not inviting them to be about something that we’re not doing. 

We’re inviting them to be a part of something that we’re doing ourselves and that we’re a part of. So, I mean, that’s the biggest thing is it’s not, we’re not faking the funk, you know, we’re out here living this life and whether they come or they don’t, you know, another big, big note I would say would be, you don’t have to have some big extravagant meeting. It doesn’t have to be a bunch of people. Yeah, we had 87 people at our, like our second one and we continue to have like 70 people, but those aren’t, that’s not what we’re doing it for. We’re doing it for the one person who we’re able to connect with and we’re able to walk with and help disciple. And yeah, does God know that our cup and our table is a little bit bigger than that and we’re able to handle more than that? Yes. Is he gonna put more people in front of us because he recognizes our ability and our capability? Yes. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s never about the majority of people. We just want to give that space and give that availability for the one and then work on the one. Not getting too caught up, like you were saying, on the leadership or getting too caught up on is this perfect? It doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s another good thing too right there. Hey, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have the whole thing all together. The meeting doesn’t have to be slickity split before you start, just start and then work all the kinks out after you’re starting, you know? 

Closing Thoughts and Resources

Yes. That is the perfect way to end this, man. And I think that for anybody listening, that it doesn’t have to be perfect, you just need to start. And how you start is looking for that champion. Is there a Torin near you that is just eager to help out? Call Torin. There we go. I love that. So Torin, he’s available. He would chat with anybody who’s like, yes, let’s do it. 

Think there’s something just closing. If we could be the type of person who says, I’m gonna show up whether or not anybody else does, going back to the numbers that you cannot fail over and over and over and over again and not learn from it. It’s impossible. If you’re willing and you’re doing this for the right reason, and if you’re doing anything in life for the right reasons, like you have to improve. And I just love what you said so much because it’s never about the numbers, it’s about the one. And maybe the one person who needs this most in your community is the one that you just want to ask them to be that champion. Maybe they don’t have it all put together, it’s not going to be perfect, it’s not going to be up to your standard, but they’re going to become a person who brings it there and something great is going to happen in a year, in six months. Like, we don’t know, but that person is going to say, hey this person invited me to start something. They see me as a leader. They see me as somebody who can create change. That’s pretty awesome. Even if that’s just the thing that starts and you’re there to support them, change is bound to happen. 

So let’s end the episode. Torin, this isn’t about your music, but you just released a new song, which I loved. It’s called Sober, I think so, I’m sorry to put you on the spot, but can you plug, can you tell people your name on Spotify? They can go check out your music. And then if you want, if people want to get in touch with you, they’ll talk about Celebrate Recovery, your email number, whatever you feel comfortable sharing. And then we’ll end the episode. 

Yeah. If you look me up online, Teeholy is T-E-E-H-O-L-Y. It’s on Apple Music, Spotify, on the prison tablet even. So it’s everywhere. And then, yeah, if you want to get a hold of me for if you’re trying to start a Celebrate Recovery or you just have questions about what recovery looks like or you’re interested in and maybe what that would look like for your church or something, yeah, my email is torin@gracesoberliving.org. So torin at gracesoberliving.org. T-O-R-I-N. Yeah. Cool. 

Thanks, man. This has been this has been really great for all of you watching and listening Please please share this episode with someone who you think might find it helpful Don’t keep it to yourself and let us know if you have any questions We’ll see you next Monday for another episode of the drug prevention power hour.