- Starting price
- Free to attend, then $30-$75 in books
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- Web directory - In-person church groups - Online video groups
- Developer
- Watermark Community Church (Watermark Resources)
- Launched
- 2013
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
The verdict
Re:generation is the strongest church-run alternative to Celebrate Recovery for a congregation that wants daily homework, open mixed-struggle groups and mentors drawn from a participant's existing Christian relationships - and it is free to attend. It is the wrong starting point for anyone physically dependent, in withdrawal or in crisis, and unusable for anyone whose nearest host church is hundreds of miles away, because there is no self-serve version.
Try Re:generation ↗Opens regenerationrecovery.org
Re:generation is not a product you download. It is a 12-step recovery ministry that a local church runs, and regenerationrecovery.org exists to explain the programme and point you at a congregation already hosting it. Watermark Community Church in Dallas started its recovery ministry in 2002, set out to write new curriculum in 2011, launched Re:generation in-house in 2013 and began expanding it to other churches in 2014. faith.tools lists it as a 'Christian Accountability App'; there is no iOS or Android listing at all. What you get is a printed workbook series, a weekly two-hour gathering, and a mentor.
The shape is fixed. Newcomers spend roughly two months in a Groundwork group, then a step-group that runs eight to ten months, for about a year in total. Groundwork homework takes about 10 minutes a day, step-group homework about 30. The twelve steps are titled as single verbs - Admit, Believe, Trust, Inventory, Confess, Repent, Follow, Forgive, Amends, Continue, Intimacy, Regenerate - each anchored to a Scripture passage and framed as 'A biblical path towards healing, reconciliation, and freedom'. Christian Standard reported in January 2024 that the workbooks name 117 issues and draw on nearly 900 Scripture passages.
Watermark is a non-denominational evangelical church and Re:generation is explicitly Christ-centred: the stated objective in Watermark's own comparison document is 'Full devotion to Christ, with "sobriety" from addiction being a road-marker along the way'. It is also not a chemical-dependency programme in the narrow sense - the FAQ answers 'Can I come if I don't have a chemical addiction?' with 'Yes!', and open groups deliberately mix struggles rather than sorting people by presenting problem.
One thing needs saying once, plainly, because Re:generation's own public pages do not say it. This is discipleship, not clinical treatment, and it is not a substitute for medical detox, medication-assisted treatment, psychiatric care or professional therapy for anyone who needs those. If you are in withdrawal, physically dependent on alcohol or benzodiazepines, or in crisis, you need medical help now rather than a weekly group: in the US that is 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or SAMHSA's free 24/7 treatment referral helpline on 1-800-662-HELP (4357). A weekly meeting and a workbook can sit alongside clinical care. They cannot replace the part that keeps you alive.
✓ The good
- Free to attend, everywhere - the only participant cost is the workbook series, bought a book at a time roughly every six weeks
- Daily curriculum rather than a weekly lesson - Watermark's comparison puts Celebrate Recovery at about one 10-minute lesson a week against Re:generation's daily reading with Scripture memory and prayer
- Mentors come from outside the ministry - participants pick 'Christians already in the participant's life outside of the recovery ministry' rather than a sponsor from the room, so the support structure survives graduation
- Open groups mix struggles on purpose - groups host any issue and teach common roots, which is what lets one curriculum serve anxiety, grief, codependency and pornography alongside substance use
- Leader guides and per-step training videos are free downloads - a church can read the Steps 1-3 Leader Guide off Watermark Resources before committing to anything
- No licensing fee for a host church - the implementation page states costs are the same as launching any new ministry
- Virtual groups are first-class - Watermark runs re:generation Online with 90-minute weekly meetings and PDF workbooks, while its own comparison notes Celebrate Recovery offers virtual groups only as alternatives
✗ Watch out
- Two different official book prices - the national FAQ says most books are $10-$15 and the year totals '$55-$75', while Watermark's own re:generation Online page prices every hard-copy step book at $11 and totals '$30-$61'
- You cannot start it alone - no individual sign-up, no self-paced track, no way to buy the year and work it yourself; if no church near you hosts it, the answer is to persuade one to launch it
- Reach is a fraction of the obvious alternative - Watermark's comparison page puts Re:generation at "several hundred churches and prisons" against Celebrate Recovery's "35,000"
- No clinical or crisis language on the public pages - the about, FAQ, what-to-expect, struggles and 12-steps pages carry no statement that the programme is not a substitute for professional treatment, and no referral guidance
- A host church must sign a doctrinal licence - the Launch Guide requires a 'Host Church Use Trademark and Copyright License Agreement' and notes 'churches unable to sign because of doctrinal differences will not be allowed to move forward with re:generation'
- Launching it is a year of work with a dozen volunteers - Watermark advises 12-15 trained leaders at launch, warns that fewer than 10 changes the plan, and describes a pilot phase of about a year
Best for
- Churches wanting a daily-homework recovery curriculum
- Participants who already have Christian friends to mentor them
- People with non-chemical struggles seeking a step framework
- Congregations already near one of the host churches
Avoid if
- Anyone in withdrawal or physical dependency
- People needing clinical or medication-assisted treatment
- Individuals with no host church within reach
- Anyone wanting an anonymous or self-paced programme
What Re:generation is
Re:generation is a biblically-based 12-step discipleship and recovery ministry, written at Watermark Community Church in Dallas and licensed free of charge to other churches to run locally. A participant joins a Groundwork group for about two months, then a step-group for eight to ten months. The weekly meeting runs about two hours: worship and either a teaching or a testimony, then men's and women's small groups on the week's curriculum.
Participants buy six workbooks over the year and choose a mentor from their existing Christian relationships rather than a sponsor from the room. A StruggleFinder questionnaire helps a newcomer name what they are dealing with first. The site itself is a directory and explainer, not the programme.
Daily homework is the actual differentiator
Most church recovery programmes ask for an evening. Re:generation asks for an evening plus 10 minutes a day for two months and then 30 minutes a day for the better part of a year, with Scripture memory and written prayer built in. Watermark's own side-by-side with Celebrate Recovery makes the contrast explicit: one 10-minute lesson weekly there, daily curriculum here. Across a ten-month step-group that is roughly 150 hours of individual work against about 40 hours of meetings.
That load is the design and the risk. It is why the programme can credibly call itself discipleship rather than a support group, and why drop-off pressure is higher than in a weekly-attendance model. A participant working two jobs, or in early sobriety with no stable housing, is asked to build a study habit at the moment habits are hardest to build. Churches should read the daily requirement as the thing most likely to break.
Groundwork first, then the twelve steps
Nobody walks into a step-group cold. Groundwork is roughly six weeks to two months of foundational content - the national FAQ says about two months, Watermark's Plano FAQ two to three - covering love, grace, repentance, identity in Christ and forgiveness before any inventory work begins. A second Groundwork book adds six more weeks of content for people who finish the first while waiting for a step-group to open.
The step-group then runs the twelve steps across eight to ten months, in four workbooks, with the Inventory Workbook attached to Steps 4-6 - the only book Watermark prices differently, at about half the others. The final step, Regenerate, is framed as carrying the message outward: graduates return as leaders, which is how a host church builds the 12-15 leaders Watermark wants at launch.
Mentors, not sponsors; open groups, not struggle-specific ones
Two structural choices separate Re:generation from most 12-step derivatives. First, mentors are 'generally Christians already in the participant's life outside of the recovery ministry' rather than programme alumni. That leans on existing church relationships instead of building a parallel social world, and the mentor is still there when the year ends - though a participant with no Christian friendships has a harder time filling the role.
Second, groups are open. Rather than sorting people into a pornography group and an alcohol group, Re:generation puts mixed struggles in one room and teaches shared roots - Watermark contrasts this directly with Celebrate Recovery's struggle-specific grouping. One curriculum then serves anxiety, grief, codependency, anger and substance use; the cost is that nobody in your small group necessarily knows what your withdrawal or relapse pattern feels like.
What a church actually has to do
There are no licensing fees. Instead there is an interest form, a signed use agreement, and a recommended three-phase rollout starting with a pilot group of potential leaders that 'usually' takes about a year before the ministry opens congregation-wide. The Launch Guide's sample pilot budget for 16 people is $392 - $176 in Groundwork workbooks at $11 each, $16 in commencement coins, $50 in supplies, $150 in meals - with workbook costs usually passed on to participants.
The licence carries a doctrinal condition worth knowing before a church invests that year. The Launch Guide instructs a church to 'Sign and return the Host Church Use Trademark and Copyright License Agreement' and adds that 'churches unable to sign because of doctrinal differences will not be allowed to move forward with re:generation'. What those differences are is not published. A church outside broadly evangelical statements of faith should settle that question first, not last.
Pricing
Attendance
Free
No charge to attend. Host churches fund the meeting the way they fund any ministry - room, volunteers, meals, and at Watermark's Plano campus free kids' ministry for children eight weeks to fifth grade. The Plano FAQ adds that if cost is an issue, tell leadership.
Participant curriculum, per re:generation Online
$30 - $61 for the year
Watermark prices its own online groups item by item: Groundwork book $11 hard copy or $5 PDF, each step book $11 or $5, Inventory Workbook $6 or $5. Five books at $11 plus a $6 Inventory Workbook is exactly $61; six PDFs at $5 is exactly $30.
Participant curriculum, per the national FAQ
$55 - $75 for the year
The national about and FAQ pages state six books total, most at $10-$15, Inventory Workbook about half the others, and a year totalling $55-$75. Both figures are Watermark's own and are reported here as printed rather than averaged.
Church leader training conference
$139 per person
The Watermark Re:generation Training Conference, 14-15 September 2026 in Dallas, is $139 per person or $119 each for groups of three or more. Nothing on the page states attendance is mandatory to launch; it is aimed at church teams exploring or already running the ministry.
The participant-facing headline is honest: attending is free. The workbooks are not, and they are bought one at a time roughly every six weeks rather than as a lump sum, which helps someone with no savings.
The two published totals do not match. The national about and FAQ pages say six books, most at $10-$15, Inventory Workbook at about half, total $55-$75 for the year. Watermark's own re:generation Online page prices every hard-copy book at a flat $11, the Inventory Workbook at $6, and totals $30-$61. Five books at $11 plus $6 is $61; six PDFs at $5 is $30. The flagship's own maximum is therefore $14 below the top of the range the national site advertises, and its flat $11 does not match the '$10-$15' band.
A third figure exists. Watermark's Plano campus FAQ describes '$10 charge for the Groundwork book' plus '$10-15 charge for each of the four books' and totals approximately $55 - a five-book sequence, where the national page says six. Groundwork Book 2, optional content for people waiting on a step-group, is the likely explanation, but no page says so.
Downstream prices run higher because churches set them. Watermark's Resource Usage Guide tells host churches to order Groundwork Book 1 online and states 'Your church determines the selling price'. The ONE&ALL Church store lists Re:Gen Steps 10-12 at $17.00 and a Steps 4-6 and Inventory bundle at $27.00 - both above the national FAQ's $10-$15 band. Ask your host church what your year will cost.
For churches the only published price is training. The September 2026 Dallas conference is $139 per person, $119 each in groups of three or more, and nothing states it is compulsory. Leader guides, per-step training videos and mentor material are free downloads, and Watermark says every church running the programme gets direct coaching.
Where Re:generation falls behind
No clinical framing anywhere on the public site. The about page, FAQ, what-to-expect page, struggles page and twelve-steps page were all read for this review; none states that Re:generation is not a substitute for professional treatment, none mentions detox, medication or therapy, and none carries a crisis referral. The subject surfaces only in leader material, and oddly: the Launch Guide lists 'Handling Suicide Threats' among sample leader-training topics while its 'Encouragement and Reminders' section tells leaders to 'Rely solely on God's Word when counseling people through hardship. God knows better than the smartest of men.' A reader should not have to open a leader PDF to learn how the programme handles a medical emergency.
Availability, the binding constraint. Published counts vary widely: Watermark's own blog says "180+ churches offer re:generation", the faith.tools listing says 215 locations, Christian Standard said "more than 300 churches and organizations" in January 2024, and Watermark's comparison page says "several hundred churches and prisons". Whichever is current, it is two orders of magnitude below Celebrate Recovery. There is a directory and there are online groups, but no version of Re:generation a person in an unserved town can simply start.
No outcome research of its own. The strongest public evidence is testimonial - church stories, a Christian Standard feature reporting that more than 20 staff at one congregation completed it, and Watermark's 2025 year in review noting 351 people commenced from the programme. Nothing peer-reviewed and specific to this curriculum was locatable. That is normal for church recovery curricula and still a gap: a church choosing between programmes is choosing on design and testimony, not trial data.
Language coverage is thin. Grace Church in South Carolina describes its participants as "among the first Spanish speaking participants ever to experience the curriculum" in a pilot with Watermark - Spanish was being piloted, not shipped. There is a students version and a prison presence, but the core product remains a printed English workbook series plus a weekly room.
Nothing digital to speak of. Compared with Relay, The Freedom Fight or Covenant Eyes there is no app, no streak, no urge log, no check-in and no dashboard; StruggleFinder is a questionnaire. Defensible for a programme built on embodied community, but a participant who wants support between Monday nights gets a workbook and a phone number.
Re:generation vs. Celebrate Recovery vs. the app-based programmes
Celebrate Recovery is the default and the gap on reach is not close: 35,000 churches and prisons against several hundred. If you want a meeting this Friday within driving distance, Celebrate Recovery is likelier to have one, and it has been running since 1991 at Saddleback under John Baker. Watermark's own comparison document is unusually candid and worth reading first. Celebrate Recovery sorts groups by shared struggle, uses sponsors, sets homework at about one 10-minute lesson a week, and states its objective as freedom from a specific sin or struggle. Re:generation mixes struggles, uses outside mentors, asks for daily work, and states its objective as full devotion to Christ with sobriety as a road-marker. Neither framing criticises the other, and Celebrate Recovery's footprint is itself an advantage for a participant.
Against the app-based Christian options the comparison breaks down, because they are not substitutes. The Freedom Fight is a free seven-month video curriculum with 60-plus videos and optional certified-leader groups; Relay is a therapist-designed accountability-group app; Life After Pornography Coach is a ten-week ACT-based course at $9.99 a month. All three are single-issue - compulsive pornography use - and all three can be started tonight by one person with a phone. Re:generation is multi-issue, embodied, free at the door, and cannot be started by one person at all. Where the struggle is pornography and no host church is in range, the apps win by default; where someone wants a year of structured discipleship inside a congregation that already knows them, they are not in the running.
None of these are clinical care, and the published evidence discussion applies to the 12-step framework generally rather than to any of these products specifically. It is mixed rather than settled, which is a reason to combine a programme like this with professional help where that is indicated, not a reason to choose between them.
The bottom line
Re:generation is a serious, well-supported, genuinely free-to-attend recovery curriculum, and the daily-homework design plus outside mentors is a real improvement on the weekly-lesson model for churches that can staff it. The rating reflects two things the website does not solve: you cannot access it unless a church near you already runs it, and its public pages carry no clinical or crisis framing at all, which for a ministry serving people with chemical dependency is an omission the reader has to fill in. Check the Find a Group directory before anything else, read Watermark's own Celebrate Recovery comparison, and get medical care in place first if you need it, letting the group be the part that comes after.
Alternatives to Re:generation
Celebrate RecoveryThe default Christ-centred 12-step programme, at roughly 35,000 churches and prisons against Re:generation's several hundred. Struggle-specific groups, sponsors, a lighter weekly lesson, a free companion app. The obvious first check if no Re:generation group is near you.
The Freedom FightA free seven-month Christian curriculum for compulsive pornography use - 60-plus videos, Bible studies, daily check-ins and optional certified-leader groups. Single-issue and self-startable, which is exactly what Re:generation is not.
RelayTherapist-designed small groups for porn recovery, gender-separated, with urge logging and optional live Zoom meetings. No filtering and no church required. Around $7.99 a month per App Store listings; no published pricing page.
Life After Pornography CoachA ten-week course applying acceptance and commitment therapy through video, journaling and peer support, at $9.99 a month after a seven-day trial. Psychological rather than discipleship framing, and narrower in scope.
Covenant EyesScreen-accountability monitoring rather than a recovery programme, so complementary rather than competing: a Re:generation participant working a pornography struggle may run both, since Re:generation supplies no device-side tooling at all.Frequently asked questions
Is Re:generation a treatment programme?
No. Watermark and third-party coverage both describe it as a biblically-based discipleship and recovery ministry, and Christian Standard characterised it as a discipleship ministry rather than a treatment programme. There are no clinicians, no medical supervision, no assessment and no medication; the leader material assumes volunteers, not therapists. Its own public pages do not spell out what it cannot do, which is why this review does so in the introduction.
How long does it take and how much time each week?
About a year. Groundwork runs roughly two months (Watermark's Plano FAQ says two to three), then a step-group eight to ten months. The weekly meeting is about two hours - large group worship, teaching or a testimony, then a men's or women's small group; online groups run about 90 minutes. Homework is about 10 minutes a day in Groundwork and about 30 in a step-group, including Scripture memory and prayer.
What does it cost?
Attending is free. Books are not, and the published totals disagree: the national FAQ says six books, most $10-$15, total $55-$75 for the year, while Watermark's own re:generation Online page prices hard-copy books at $11 each, the Inventory Workbook at $6, and totals $30-$61. PDFs are $5 a book. Individual churches set their own selling price - the ONE&ALL Church store lists Steps 10-12 at $17.00 - so ask your host church. Watermark's Plano FAQ says to tell leadership if cost is a barrier.
Can I do Re:generation on my own, or online?
Not on your own. There is no individual purchase-and-work-it track; the curriculum is built around a group, a leader and a mentor. Online is possible: Watermark runs re:generation Online with weekly video meetings and PDF workbooks, open nationally, and its own comparison notes virtual groups are a standard option rather than a fallback. Open groups are listed at regenerationrecovery.org/locations.
How do I find a group near me?
Use the Find a Group link on regenerationrecovery.org, which resolves to the locations directory. If nothing is close, the site's other route is Bring Re:generation to Your Church - a pitch to church leadership rather than something you complete yourself. Published counts of host churches run from 180-plus on Watermark's blog to more than 300 in Christian Standard, so the directory is the only current answer.
Does a church need training or a licence to run it?
No licensing fees - Watermark states costs are the same as launching any new ministry. A church does submit an interest form and sign a Host Church Use Trademark and Copyright License Agreement, and the Launch Guide notes that churches unable to sign because of doctrinal differences will not be allowed to proceed. Training is provided rather than sold: free per-step leader guides and training videos, mentor training recommended for all mentors, and direct coaching. The optional Dallas conference is $139 per person, $119 in groups of three or more. Watermark advises 12-15 trained leaders at launch and a pilot phase of about a year.
What does the research say about faith-based 12-step programmes?
It is mixed, and it concerns the 12-step framework rather than this curriculum. The 2020 Cochrane review of AA and 12-step facilitation covered 27 studies and 10,565 people and found high-certainty evidence that manualised programmes designed to increase AA participation can produce higher continuous abstinence than other active treatments including CBT - 42 per cent abstinent at one year against 35 per cent - while performing about the same on drinking intensity, alcohol-related consequences and addiction severity. A meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials and 3,700 participants, summarised by the Recovery Research Institute, found a small but significant advantage over active controls and cautioned that the spiritual component may not be the active ingredient, with social-network change looking more important. No peer-reviewed outcome study specific to Re:generation was locatable.
Sources & further reading
- About re:generation ↗
- Re:generation Frequently Asked Questions ↗
- re:generation Online (curriculum prices) ↗
- Watermark Resources: re:generation details and implementation ↗
- Re:generation Launch Guide (PDF) ↗
- Watermark Resources: differences between Celebrate Recovery and re:generation ↗
- Christian Standard: A Recovery Ministry that Works (Jan 2024) ↗
- Cochrane: AA and 12-step facilitation review (2020) ↗
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