Cheri Readie said she started the Broken Places ministry, which meets every Tuesday at the Holly Pointe Building on Main Street, a little over a year and a half ago. “It's a ministry that is pretty much based on deliverance and healing,” she said.

It's a place for people who are struggling through something and just need a place to come as they are and find encouragement and love.

That's how Broken Places, a nondenominational ministry meeting weekly in Butler, describes itself.

“I guess I am the founder of Broken Places. It's been a little over a year and a half that we've been up and going,” said Cheri Readie.

“It's a ministry that is pretty much based on deliverance and healing. It's for anybody because when you are looking at things in your life that need balancing or things in your life that you need delivered from, that's every person,” said Readie.

Broken Places meets at 7 p.m. Tuesdays in the Holly Pointe Building, 220 S. Main St., and brings in different speakers and musicians.

Readie said, “I just really felt like the Lord was pressing me to start something like this.”

She said Broken Places was not a ministry just for people with drug or alcohol problems.

“But addiction is brokenness,” said Readie. “It is a heart issue — whether it's rejection by society, the world or family or feeling unloved, like they don't belong.

“Sometimes what happens, whether it's family issues or sexual abuse, is people begin doing things that are unhealthy for them: alcohol, drugs, pornography or becoming a workaholic,” said Readie. “We all have a void in our hearts and in our life. The bottom line is that only thing that is going to fill that void is Jesus.”

Readie said, “I really felt like the Lord wanted me to open this ministry.”

She said people try programs and people are failing programs.

What they need to improve their lives is a relationship with Jesus, she said.

“That's where the healing begins, that's where the forgiveness begins and you get new hope,” Readie said.

Readie stressed that Broken Places isn't a church.

“It's a ministry. It's Holy Spirit led,” said Readie. She and her husband, Sean Readie, are members of Intersection Community Church and real estate investors, as well owners of the Holly Pointe Building.

“We pray. We have a board. We dig into topics God wants us to know about,” said Readie. “Where he wants us to go next, we fully rely on the Holy Spirit to do this.”

During meetings, there is no single person who speaks, and there are different praise and worship teams as guests.

A typical meeting starts with worship, then a time of testimony and prophetic word, a guest speaker, prayer time, a time of fellowship, and snacks, said Readie.

For Tuesday's meeting, Joe Russo, the advancement officer for Adult and Teen Challenge in Cheswick, will be guest speaker.

Russo said, “I will be giving a synopsis of Adult and Teen Challenge, who we are and what we do.

“We are a clinical short-term program. We offer a 10-day detox program, a 28-day clinical program and a long-term safe space Christian residential program. All of our programs are residential.”

Of Broken Places, Readie said, “We all need to grow and develop a relationship with the Lord. This is one way to be close to Him.”