It's shortly after 7 p.m. on a Friday in the chapel area of the Jessup Correctional Institution, and music fills the halls. But maybe not the music you would expect.

"I'm on the road to recovery," about 50 inmates are singing. "Trust along the way." Clad in blue Department of Correction shirts and gray pants, the inmates sway back and forth, and tap their hands to the beat on the seats in front of them.

The men's Friday night worship is part of the Celebrate Recovery Inside program, led by pastors and lay people from Columbia's Celebration Church. The program emphasizes recovery from addiction and other issues through a biblically based, 12-step program, according to Handel Smith, 48, a church pastor.

The program also draws from the best-selling Christian self-help book, "The Purpose Driven Life," which teaches people that everyone has a purpose in life that they can discover, according to Smith.

In addition to preaching, the program advocates a small-group environment, where prisoners can work through their problems with each other's help. While Celebrate Recovery Inside is a prison-based ministry, Celebrate Recovery, engineered at Saddleback Church in California, is offered to church members too, Smith said.

"It's actually a Christ-centered, 12-step program that is available in the church and/or, now, in prisons all over the world," Smith said.

About 170 prisoners have gone through the program in the nearly two years the Columbia church has been active at Jessup Correctional Institute, Smith said. The church also has an active women's prison ministry based on the same principles.

Celebration Church is a non-denominational, Bible-based church in Long Reach that uses "The Purpose Driven Life" -- written by Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church in California -- as a foundational tool, Smith said. Using the Saddleback Church model, Celebration Church's prison ministry was founded in part by Smith because he had a friend in jail, he said.

Sgt. Sonji Lynn, the volunteer activity coordinator at the Jessup Correctional Institute, said she has seen a marked difference among the inmates who have been in the program.

"It keeps them grounded. It teaches them forgiveness," she said.

James Wood, 37, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder said that when he entered prison at the age of 24, he didn't see a future.

"The first thing I felt was hopelessness. You could just feel the hopelessness," he said.

Wood, the son of a Baptist minister in Harford County, gradually came back to the religion of his youth. He took a correspondence school degree from a university in Florida and was eventually ordained by a church in Baltimore.

Today, he said, things don't look as bleak. "My faith in God is what has given me hope," he said.

He also said the program has helped him overcome his drug addiction.

"I realized that instead of being dependent on things, I need to be dependent on God," Wood said.

Denatian Kent, 34, who is serving a 60-year sentence for attempted murder, said he suffered physical and mental abuse as a child. At 11, he started dealing drugs and tried to act as tough as possible.

"The streets, they overwhelmed me. Trying to be that person overwhelmed me," he said. "I was looking for an identity."

Today Kent said he is motivated by a desire to help other prisoners. "My whole goal is to give understanding," he said, citing the Celebrate Recovery Inside program for his change of heart.

As part of the program, prisoners form small groups after the service and talk about issues, with the help of a group leader.

"There is a lot of emphasis placed on the group and accountability," Smith said.

Severino Alcantara, 35, serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, said the small groups help inmates talk about subjects they wouldn't discuss with the general population in prison. The inmates can trust each other in a small-group setting, Alcantara said.

"Opening up has given me the opportunity to keep moving forward," said Alcantara, who credits the small group discussions with helping him deal with alcohol addiction.

Inmates are encouraged to ultimately take over the program, preaching in the chapel and becoming small-group leaders.

Wood is one of those leaders and preached a sermon in the prison chapel at a recent service.

"If somebody has a brother who is caught in a sin, go and restore him," Wood told his fellow inmates, quoting St. Paul. "That's what this is about."

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