There is a new ministry in Springville aimed at helping people through difficult times.

Friday Celebrate Recovery will have its official grand opening, beginning with a 6 p.m. meal that is free to those attending services.

Celebration Recovery is an outreach ministry of ONEeighty, an offshoot of ClearBranch United Methodist Church.

It’s located in the old Ace Hardware store next to Burton’s grocery in Springville and will be open every Friday night, weather it be Christmas or New Years.

After dinner Fridays, the CR Band will help to entertain those gathered with a spiritual vibe followed by a testimony and bible teaching.

After that service there is a break. Some people who only attend for a worship service will branch off at 8 p.m. while others, staying to help turn their life around, will receive help unlike that found in many places in the area.

People gathered for the after-service sessions split up into gender based groups to get help from chemical addiction classes for drugs and alcohol or for a women’s abuse group, or a grief recovery group or a general women’s group.

Gresh Harbuck, who helps to oversee CR, said that he’s seen many people come through the program and turn their life around through God’s word.

“We’ve been going for about five years now,” Harbuck said. “We started with 20 people coming on Friday nights. Two weeks ago we had 240 people. The growth is enormous. We expect about 500 people on Friday.”

He continued, “I have seen people come in and their life it totally destroyed due to drugs and alcohol. And not only has their life been turned around by God; but then they get into the step programs and are able to mend relationships with their families and sometimes they get their families back.”

Those who have gone through the program are able to go on to become productive citizens and a huge part of the ministry. “We’ve seen them go from complete wrecks to be able to reach their full potential,” Harbuck said. “They’re do-ers, they’re not just people who go and get their cards punched on Sunday mornings.”

Those who have gone through the program have reached out in various ministries and several have wound up entering the ministry, themselves.

“We’ve had some amazing turn-around in people’s lives,” Harbuck said.

There is a general men’s group at CR, a co-dependency class for loved ones of chemically addicted people and CR is about to start a sexual addiction class within a month.

The women’s abuse group, which started with just a few members, hosted a women’s abuse conference lasts year and hope to do that again in 2010.

To visit the CR Friday night service for the first portion or to stick around for the step classes take I-59 to exit 154 and go ½ mile to the Springville 4-way stop, take a left, go half a mile and it will be on the left beside Burtons. A ONEeighty sign is on the