Jim Lehmkuhl
Jim is a recovered addict. He'll tell you that directly, because the plainness of it matters. His story is not a polished testimony — it's an honest account of what addiction costs, what Christ does, and what community makes possible.
Jim walked through recovery himself and emerged with a conviction that shaped everything that followed: sobriety without Christ doesn't hold, and Christ without community is incomplete. He had experienced both halves of that truth firsthand. What he hadn't found was a room that held them together.
He looked for a Christ-centered recovery fellowship in the Chesterfield area — something that used scripture as its actual tool, that prayed with you by name, that didn't require you to stay anonymous or follow a step program. He didn't find it. So he started building it himself, with a small group, a consistent night, and a commitment to show up every week regardless of who came.
That was the beginning of Surge Recovery. Years later, Jim still shows up every Thursday. The room has grown. The faces have changed and stayed and changed again. But the posture is exactly what it was at the start: we walk through this together, with Christ, and we don't let anyone walk through it alone.
Jim leads Surge not as a pastor or a counselor but as someone who has been where the people in the room have been — and who has found, week after week, that the combination of scripture, honest community, and prayer is more powerful than he knew when he started.
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