LIGHT. HOPE. TRANSFORMATION.
City of Refuge Calhoun is a faith-based environment that helps individuals and families transition out of crisis in Calhoun - Gordon County Georgia.
Programs
9:45 a.m. Sunday School for kids, youth and adults
10:45 a.m. Sunday Worship Service and Children’s Ministry
1:00 p.m. Sunday Small Group
7:00 p.m. Monday Men’s Bible study
6:00 p.m. Tuesday Celebrate Recovery meal, large group and small group
9:00 a.m. Women’s Bible study
6:00 p.m. Wednesday Youth Group
Multiple Wednesday Small Groups
12 step studies for men and women
Get Involved / Take Action
Work Together with us! Whether a church, individual or corporation, we need to work together to bring positive change to our community. Our Celebrate Recovery program is active and effective in helping to change lives. Join us as a change champion, learn the formula for success and our plan, and join us by sharing your support and spreading the word throughout our community, so we can come together and do great things in our own Jerusalem.
Why this community?
Calhoun and Gordon county are the only remaining primarily rural and small town areas along the I-75 corridor between Chattanooga and Atlanta. While our community is small, it has big town resource needs to assist individuals and families that are in crisis with many different causes. Sex trafficking, homelessness, un and underemployment, grief, loneliness, drug and alcohol addiction passed from generation to generation, abuse, financial instability, housing instability and lack of affordable housing, sexual and pornographic addiction, codependency, perfectionism, workaholic, anger, anxiety, depression, divorce, eating disorders, family problems, fear, gambling, guilt, insecurity, internet addiction, low self esteem, lying, need to control, nicotine, overspending, people pleasing, pride, PTSD, shopping, stealing and stress just to name a few.
Did you know that using federal guidelines for the definition of homeless, at any given time we have between 200 and 300 school age children in Calhoun and Gordon County that are homeless? We know we can’t eliminate it all, but we can change many lives! We can do it together!
We are blessed with many churches and faith based organizations, and City of Refuge Calhoun exists to bring the critical resources together, working together to have a better impact upon the community. Our founding organization in Atlanta is 26 years old and shares their formula for success with affiliate locations such as ours. Their formula to address the four needs a family or individual needs to reach middle class by middle age has a 93% success rate, one of the highest.
After being part of the Atlanta organization for nearly 2 decades, it was time to bring the formula for healing and change to our own county that desperately needs it. We don’t want to house someone for a day or week, we want to change their life and get them out of poverty and crisis.
Stories of Hope
Each week during our Celebrate Recovery meeting we celebrate milestones people have accomplished overcoming their hurts, habits and hangups as well as addiction. Every other week we have a testimony from program participants sharing their benefits and challenges. It is wonderful to be in such a high energy charged worship environment supporting each other in celebration of 30, 60, 90 days, 6 and 9 months, and 1 year or more. When someone can stand and say they are 1 year clean from a meth addiction, and another say 1000 days clean, it gives encouragement so others know they can do it too. Imagine your life without whatever your hangup is, something like anxiety or financial stress, and come join us so you can work to improve your life using our proven Christ Centered program.
How about stories of young women from our own town that have been trafficked for the financial gain of others. Kept on drugs such as heroin, meth, fentanyl and others to control them as they are used for financial gain, they are slaves to their owners. We have had them come to us and ask us for help, and we have the resources from Atlanta available to them to recover from the addiction, escape the chains from their master, and case managers and resources so they can live inside our Atlanta campus for approximately a year and transform into the person God intends for them to be when it is more than we can do here in Gordon county. Job skills training from companies such as Chick Fil A, Delta Airlines, UPS, NAPA, Ernst and Young and other top tier companies have training facilities alongside medical, dental, mental health and education all inside our campus.
A young woman in her 20’s came to our Sunday morning worship service 8 months pregnant, having used heroin the day before, and meth very recently. She was hopeless and asked for help. The baby was born and Mom went to the Atlanta campus for roughly a year of recovery and training with the baby joining her to live together as Mom changes their destiny with hope and the assistance needed to escape crisis and poverty not just for herself, but for her future generations.
A young man and wife with children; both parents were IV meth users, him for 10 years. When they came to our Celebrate Recovery program, they changed their lives and the path for their children, breaking generational curses and have celebrated more than a year of not only sobriety, but also growing faith in Christ that they cannot help but sharing with others. We are so proud to have them as part of our forever family!