I’m looking into AA…

January 7, 2012 | Category: Life is all spiritual, The Closet

AA

What’s does Alcoholics Anonymous and the church have in common? Well before you scoff about how different they are, let’s take a look at the basics of A.A. and then we’ll lay it up against the function/purpose of the church and see what’s what.

Ok, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid movement which says its “primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.” AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (Bill W. and Dr. Bob) in Akron, Ohio.With other early members, Wilson and Smith developed AA’s Twelve Step program of spiritual and character development. (source)

Knowing then that the 12 steps are the central focus of AA, it’d probably be wise to see what they say.
These are the original Twelve Steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (source)

Follow with me now as we look at the twelve steps through the lens of the global church and its mission. I think that if you haven’t been shocked already by the twelve step program of AA you will be after this glance.

Alright let’s get started; first off for our purposes I want to step back from the word alcohol and swap the word alcohol out and replace it with what alcoholism is - sin.

1. We admitted we were powerless over sin—that our lives had become unmanageable.

This is good theology. The Word tells us multiple places that we were “dead in our sin” for example Ephesians 2:1-3 says

“1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodyt and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

So Step one is admit you’re sinful, and as a result of your sin your life will be unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

This step is phenomenal for a couple reasons, first we acknowledge that there is a God (Power) that’s greater than ourselves, and we put our faith in Him (came to believe). Which is exactly what scripture tells us happens:

“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” -Ephesians 2:8-10

second, we trust that he can restore us

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.t The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” -2 Corinthians 5:17

Step two is we believe that there is a God greater than us who can restore us and make us right.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

 “31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” -Acts 16:31

I’m hoping that this one doesn’t need much explaining, its a pretty clear picture of salvation, so long as we understand God to be Jesus Christ. 

So the first three steps pretty much lead you to the realization that there is sin in your life, the result of you will not be able to manage on your own, and that our only hope is that we place our lives in the hands of the God who can restore us and make us right before Him. AA just laid out the essential building block for becoming a committed follower of Christ. If the first three are this good I can’t wait to dig into the next nine. But on account of the fact that this is rapidly becoming an incredibly lengthy post I’ll do what the best preachers do and pick up next time and call it a series.

Think I’m way off base? Have something to add? Let me know.

Picture on top courtesy of alcoholics anonymous

 

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

2 Comments

  1. Matt Rothacher
    on February 10th, 2012
    1

    Very cool man!

  2. Berrik
    on January 19th, 2012
    2

    I’m with ya. I took part in Celebrate Recovery while I was in Missouri at my parents’ church. Their 12 steps have scripture along with them and also are set up to include more than alcohol, but all our “hurts, habits, and hangups”. The focus is completely in Christ for recovery.

    http://www.celebraterecoverygabc.com/12-Steps.html

Leave a Reply





Warning: array_filter() [function.array-filter]: The first argument should be an array in /homepages/26/d283912879/htdocs/mattrothacher/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-tweaks/tweaks.php on line 650