During a recent speech in Los Angeles, President George W. Bush praised Saddleback Church’s Celebrate Recovery® program as a ministry that does what government cannot – change hearts. “We used to drink too much,” President Bush said about the similarity between himself and Celebrate Recovery’s founding pastor, John Baker. “And our hearts changed, and then we quit. That is a tried-and-true formula. The problem is government is not good at changing hearts. But people like John Baker [have been good at] and successful [in] doing that.” President Bush’s comments on Celebrate Recovery came after a 45-minute conversation with Baker and representatives of three other faith-based recovery programs. His remarks came during a speech at the 11th White House Faith-Based and Community Initiative Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 3.   John Baker “It was a recognition I never expected,” Baker said. “The exciting part was that after our 45-minute meeting with the president we all stood and prayed together. God got the recognition. He was the true champion, not John Baker or anyone else there.” Celebrate Recovery, Saddleback’s biblically-based recovery program, started in 1991 when Baker approached senior pastor Rick Warren about the need to help thousands in the area overcome a variety of hurts, habits and hang-ups. In typical Saddleback style, Warren told Baker to “go for it.” Together, the two created a Christ-centered recovery program based on the Beatitudes of Jesus. Since its founding, more than 7,500 people have gone through the Celebrate Recovery program at Saddleback. In the past 13 years, more than 150,000 people have participated in the program from prisons, rescue missions and more than 2,500 churches. “When I started this ministry in 1991, I was really just thinking of the people in our church who needed a safe place to recover from their addictive and compulsive behaviors,” Baker said. “Soon a few other churches tried it, and God started really working through it. It’s really been great to see what God has done through this. He is the one who should get the credit.” Celebrate Recovery has become the top community outreach program for Saddleback Church. When the program began, more than 70 percent of the people in the program were members of Saddleback. Now more than 70 percent of the people who attend Celebrate Recovery come from the local community. “Celebrate Recovery is the church in action. ... It is the clearest expression of the church in action in America today.” Rick Warren “Celebrate Recovery is the church in action,” Warren said. “It is the clearest expression of the church in action in America today.” During the speech, President Bush also introduced Leticia*, a single mom whose drug addiction had landed her in prison and contributed to her losing custody of her child. That’s where she found Celebrate Recovery and turned her life around. After completing the program, Leticia overcame her addiction, rebuilt her life and now has custody of her child Isaac. She now says that her experience with Celebrate Recovery has been an incredibly powerful part of her life, “knowing that it was [God’s] grace that kept me alive for such a time as this.” “This is a person who was lost in prison, a drug addict, who lost her family – and now she’s here with the ability to say those words with clarity,” President Bush told the crowd of approximately 1,200 church and community workers. Leticia completed the program in a prison in Grants, N.M. The New Mexico prison system began testing Celebrate Recovery as a tool to help inmates in 1999. Currently, Leticia is one of 167 people who have completed the program and has been out for at least a year. Only 13 of those prisoners – 7.8 percent of the total -- have returned to prison. Typically, the recidivism rate in the New Mexico prison system is 78 percent according to Baker.  Other prison systems – including California’s – have begun to experiment with implementing the program in its prisons. Recently, 135 men signed up for the Celebrate Recovery program at the Jamestown Prison in California. Unlike the program in New Mexico, the Jamestown program will be led by inmates. ”The reason it works in prisons is Jesus Christ,” Baker said. “We don’t just talk about a higher power. We tell people about the one and only true Higher Power who can really help them overcome their hurt, habit or hang-up – and that’s Jesus Christ.” Here are a few other examples of how the program is being used at Saddleback and across the country: Tommy* had been homeless and struggling with alcoholism when he wandered into the Celebrate Recovery program at the Orange County Rescue Mission. He had tried a few Alcoholics Anonymous programs, but in his words, none of them could “fill the empty spot in my soul.” His time in the Vietnam War kept coming back into his mind and drinking seemed like the only way to drown out those memories. After several years of ignoring God’s call on his life, he walked into the Orange County Rescue Mission and started attending Celebrate Recovery. After working through the program and getting sober, he has resolved the issues of his past that have plagued him and is helping others recover from their addictions through Celebrate Recovery. Gary*, a Baptist pastor from Minnesota, hit rock bottom in September of 1999 when he exploded in anger toward another pastor. For years he had been struggling with an anger addiction and codependency problem. But it was two years later when he found the Celebrate Recovery principles at a conference at Saddleback and he started seeing God begin to heal old wounds. Through the 12-step program, Gary began to confess the sin of how he was expressing his anger, ask forgiveness from those he hurt and keep a daily journal. Slowly, Gary began to realize that it was much better to work through his pain than to run from it. Now, Gary has successfully completed the program and is helping others through it. Diane*, an adult child of an alcoholic, always believed she had to please everyone and bury her emotions if she was going to thrive. Since she had to tread carefully around her father as a child, those feelings carried over into all of her relationships. A friend invited her to Celebrate Recovery at Saddleback in 2000. Four years later, Diane has recovered from her own hurts and is now a leader in Saddleback’s Celebrate Recovery program. * The last names of the program’s participants have been removed to protect their privacy. This year’s Celebrate Recovery Summit will be held at Saddleback Aug. 18 to 20. Joining Baker will be Rick Warren, John Townsend, Henry Cloud and Steve Arterburn. For more information about Celebrate Recovery, visit http://www.celebraterecovery.com/.