English Lutheran Church

COUNSELING AND RECOVERY

Professional Counseling Services

English Lutheran Church is a satellite counseling center for Lutheran Social Services. Professional counseling by certified therapist, George Strodthoff, is available at English Lutheran Church as well as Ezekiel Lutheran Church in River Falls and Bethel Lutheran Church in Hudson. 

Mr. Strodthoff is sensitive to issues of faith and prepared to address counseling from a Christian perspective. Those who seek these services should call the Hudson office of LSS (715-386-3581) for a confidential appointment. Fees are charged based on ability to pay. Insurance is accepted.

Celebrate Recovery 
at Ezekiel Lutheran Church
202 S 2nd St,  River Falls
Sundays 5:00 PM

We will NOT be holding meetings at English Lutheran on Mondays for the time being. We are looking forward to  being on the "Road to Recovery" with our larger community at Ezeikel Lutheran Church in River Falls, WI. If you are interested in car pooling to River Falls on Sunday evenings, please call Pastor Lauryl at 715-273-4617.

Celebrate Recovery is a ministry of recovery from life's hurts, hangups and habits.  

In Celebrate Recovery we experience fellowship with others who are recovering and celebrate God’s healing power in our lives.  Through eight recovery principles and the Christ-centered 12 Steps we experience transformation and new life. We open the door by sharing our experiences, strengths, and hopes with one another. In addition, we become willing to accept God’s grace in solving our life problems.

By working the steps and applying their biblical principles, we begin to grow spiritually. We become free from our addictive, compulsive, and dysfunctional behaviors. This freedom creates peace, serenity, joy, and most importantly, a stronger personal relationship with God and others.

As we progress through the principles, we discover our personal, loving, and forgiving Higher Power - Jesus Christ.

• provide you a safe place to share your experience, strength and hope with others who are going through the "Principles" in a Christ-centered recovery group.
• provide you a leader who has gone through a similar hurt, hang-up or habit, to facilitate the group as it focuses on a particular step each week. The leader will follow Celebrate Recovery’s small group guidelines.
• provide you with the opportunity to find an accountability partner or sponsor.
• encourage you to attend other recovery meetings held throughout the week, if available.

Celebrate Recovery small groups will not:

• attempt to offer any professional clinical advice. Our leaders are not counselors. We will provide you with a list of approved counseling referrals.
• allow its members to attempt to fix one another.

The Twelve Steps of Celebrate Recovery

1.  We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

2.  Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

4.  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:16a)

6.  Were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character.

7.  Humbly asked him to remove all our short-comings.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

8.  Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31)

9.  Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that someone has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)

10.  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)

11.  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and power to carry that out.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. (Colossians 3:16a)

12.  Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and practice these principles in all our affairs.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in sin, you who are spiritual should restore such a one gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)