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Celebrate Recovery expands into prisons
TAFT -- The mood was jubilant Monday night as 111 inmates met in the crowded chapel of the Jess Dunn Correctional Center for a Celebrate Recovery Inside yard rally and graduation. CR Inside is a rapidly growing prison ministry that takes inmates through a Christ-centered 12-step program designed to free them from the "hurts, habits and hangups" that landed them behind bars. It is an extension of the Celebrate Recovery program found in many Oklahoma churches. Church Celebrate Recovery volunteers are taking the program into prisons. Unlike most prison ministries, CR Inside trains inmates who have completed the program to be the peer mentors and facilitators for others. "This is something that is theirs, something they are doing themselves," said James Remer, chaplain who initiated Celebrate Recovery at Jess Dunn two years ago. "I'm 100 percent sold on this program." He said Celebrate Recovery goes beyond drug and alcohol problems. "These guys are dealing with a lot of things. I want to offer them something that will really impact them, settle the issues they're
dealing with." Mike McKenrick is the Statewide Director of CR Inside. "I started it in 2003 out of the back of an $800 van with one person to help me," he said. "It's just unbelievable where it's at." The program is in 21 locations in the state, including four county jails and 17 state correctional institutions. About 180 male and female inmates have gone through the 12-step program, called step studies, a process that takes about a year. McKenrick said Jess Dunn was the first prison in the state to establish inmate Celebrate Recovery facilitators. "It teaches them accountability and leadership," he said. About 130 volunteers with Department of Corrections badges coordinate the program inside the prisons. All have completed the step studies themselves. Volunteer Jeff Coleman went through the 12-step program at First Baptist Church in Inola and now goes to Jess Dunn about twice a month. "The inmates are actually running it. We're just there for support, which is a wonderful thing," he said. Coleman said he had had a lot of "clean time" from cocaine addiction over the past 20 years, but never really had full recovery until he went through Celebrate Recovery. "Addictions are a symptom of a deeper problem," he said. "My compulsive behavior stemmed from an anxiety issue I had always covered up." Monday's meeting was run by Bryan Ashworth, who has been incarcerated for six years in Oklahoma. He handed out diplomas to more than a dozen inmates who had completed their step studies. The meeting was a mix of personal testimonies and exuberant worship with a live band from Family Church of Tulsa. "In my life there were hidden issues I didn't want to talk about," Ashworth told his fellow inmates. "I was a rage-aholic. CR gave me the opportunity to slow down enough to deal with the real issues." Transparency is the key to healing, he said. "Your issues are only hidden if you refuse to deal with them." A similar graduation ceremony will be held in two weeks at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a women's prison with the state's only faith-based character pod, a living area for women who all have volunteered to pursue healing through spiritual means. CR Inside's work does not stop at the prison walls. McKenrick said CR Inside works with the Department of Corrections to help inmates adjust to life after prison. Part of that adjustment is developing relationships with inmates inside of prison that continue after their release. One former inmate now is the leader of a Cele brate Recovery chapter in a Tulsa church, he said. McKenrick, a Celebrate Recovery volunteer who paints houses for a living, is on several state boards that deal with prison issues, including the 10-member Reentry Policy Council, a panel created in 2007 by the Oklahoma Legislature to oversee DOC re-entry policies and programs. Prisoners who make a successful re-entry to society have a positive effect on society, instead of a negative effect, and save millions of dollars by cutting recidivism, McKenrick said. Jan Thomas, National Director of CR Inside, said the program started in 2003 after he incorporated Celebrate Recovery material into his prison ministry at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Las Cruces, N.M. Since then, CR Inside has grown to hundreds of jails and prisons in 45 states and eight foreign countries, he said. Thomas is a retired prison warden living in Las Cruces. Celebrate Recovery was developed in 1991 at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, a mega-church in Southern California.
You can contact our Oklahoma state representative Mike McKendrick by emailing
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