Last night, as is my usual practice, I headed over to the local “8:05 Group” of Alcoholic Anonymous for my weekly does of 12 Step education. For the record, just in case anyone is wondering, I don’t have the disease of alcoholism. I understand that God has allowed me the ability to have a beer […]
Category: 12 Steps
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous One of the interesting things about the 12 steps is the recognition that recognizing our powerlessness and insanity and believing that God has the power to transform us doesn’t […]
We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. –12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous– I left us with a question in the last post: do we REALLY believe in a God who has the power to transform the church? To quote Bishop Vashti McKenzie, “…if so, why don’t we […]
We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. –12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous– So far, the 12 steps have asked us to admit that we are powerless to effect change and manage our churches and denominations. But the 12 step model goes even further, suggesting that our problems […]
One of the things that we church people have done these days is to revere the culture of competence. We have taken the call to be a community of broken individuals working toward wholeness and transformed it into a product to the sold to the highest bidder; a commodity to appeal to the masses. This […]
We admitted we were powerless…that our lives had become unmanageable. –12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I don’t know about you, but as the pastor of a traditional, historic, aging, church that has been in numeric decline for some years now, it’s time for me to come to terms with the powerlessness I feel in regards […]
About a year and a half ago, a new member to our church community came with a request. He shared that he and his wife were recovering alcoholics, and that they were dedicated adherents to the AA 12 Step Movement, attending meetings almost every night. He noted that there were no meetings in our immediate […]
only wonder understands 