Local Church Discipleship - Recovery Ministry Overview

At Greenwood Baptist Church we utilize a ministry called Re:generation for Discipleship based recovery. This post is an overview.

A few people asked for details about what Re:generation was - since I talked about it in a couple of notes. As I describe this ministry and others, please understand I’m telling you what we do at our church. It may or may not be fitting in your own context. This article will function as the starting point for an overview, that will include links to future, more detailed, articles explaining various pieces of the ministry.

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Re:generation is a recovery ministry that is for more than just substance abuse, though it certainly includes that. This is for anyone with a sin issue in their life - so all of us. It is a 12 step program, but it is discipleship based. Participants must read and memorize scripture, as well as do things like confess sin and create a repentance plan. It is a national ministry from Watermark Community Church. Our church hosts a local chapter. You can check out the national Re:generation site here.

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So what does the process look like? Well, someone hears about Re:generation and shows up on a Monday night at 6:30pm (that’s when we host our group). The evening begins with a “large group” session that includes about 15min worship with a coffee-shop vibe. Then we have a 15 (ish) minute testimony from one of our folks, or we use one of the videos from the national ministry page. Everyone, no matter what phase of the program they are in, attends this “large group” time.

Then we break into small groups. There are two phases here, so I’ll start with the first. It’s called “groundwork” and it is for people who have attended 0-12 times. In these groundwork groups, we are separated into men’s and women’s rooms so that there is nothing awkward about sharing where we struggle. Once someone has attended at least 8 times in 10 weeks and finished the groundwork book, they can move on to phase two: Step Group.

In Step Groups, we are still broken into men’s and women’s groups. Each group is made up of 8-10 participants and two leaders. In these closed groups (they are the same people for the duration of the group), we work through the 12 steps of recovery that are based on scripture. Spoiler alert, steps 1-3 are understanding the gospel. So around step 3 I expect that we will baptize some people. Then, we move on through the rest of the steps. Its about an 8 month process (depending on the group). Again, they are memorizing and applying scripture during this time. At the end of the 12 steps, we celebrate the step group’s commencement (our term for graduation). You can read more about the volunteer jobs here.

After commencing, I ask for people to serve in the ministry. I also make them aware of other ways to continue growing in faith. But the most important thing is for them to work on developing their own (written out) testimony of how God has worked in their life to free them from their sin struggle. Then they are ready to share with the “large group” at Re:generation. Once a person develops their testimony, they are ready to share it in a variety of settings. We utilize these testimonies in other ministry areas at Greenwood too.

Conclusion

I’ll give a more detailed description about the “large group”, “groundwork group”, and “step group” stuff in the future, and link those articles to this page. I hope you understand that this ministry is something that you can do at your church - no matter the size. We usually have 50-75 people on a Monday night including leaders. But I know of churches that run it with just a handful of leaders and 12-20 people total in attendance. This ministry has allowed our church to encourage lay people to lead out in ministering to hurting people in our community. It’s also a place and time that people will show up even if they might not attend a Sunday service.