Tributes continue pouring in for John Baker, co-founder of the Christ-centered support group Celebrate Recovery. Baker, 72, died unexpectedly on Tuesday, according to the ministry’s social media posts.

National director Mac Owens requested prayer for Baker’s wife, Cheryl, and family, saying John will be missed “more than words can express.” He writes, “To say this took us by surprise would be an understatement. John touched more people with the healing power and grace of Jesus Christ than anyone else that I have ever known personally, and one of those lives was mine.”

John Baker Dies

Dr. Jim Denison wrote this:

In an ever more secularized society, it is urgent that Christians redouble our commitment to the personal integrity that enables our public witness. As I noted yesterday, sin always affects more than the sinner. To stand publicly for Jesus, we must first spend time privately with Jesus.

The converse, however, is true: when we meet Jesus in person, we will stand for him in public.

John Baker experienced Jesus in a way that “transformed him from a driven businessman with an addiction to alcohol, a failing marriage, and alienated children to a Christ-follower with a passion to help others with their ‘hurts, habits, and hangups’ through the principles of recovery.” This is how Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church, described Baker, the founder of Celebrate Recovery, a biblical twelve-step program used by more than seven million people.

Baker died unexpectedly this week at the age of seventy-two, but not before God used his personal transformation to offer hope to the world.

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