(By the way, this is obviously not the only test. There are others, such as What s beautiful? but we re getting distracted, aren t we?

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1 Twelve Steps Step 11: Sought to Improve Conscious Contact November Step 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. Why Alcoholics Anonymous is important for the church: AA is a propheticchallenge from Lord of the Church to his church. God has a message for the church through AA. In the 1950 s the church in the United States was in the height of her institutionalized form. This was the era before Vatican II when the world s largest denomination was still holding her services in a dead language. The Protestant mainline church in the U.S. was a General Motors brand executives made a weekly appearance at church to demonstrate their brand loyalty, to the corporation as much as the people of God. Wives in the Bible belt dragged their alcoholic husbands to church, where they got a good dressing down, but not much freedom from their disease. This is an overstatement, of course, but you re catching my drift. In other words the church was culturally successful, but the fire in her fireplace was low. So, out of his passionate love for alcoholics, God raised up AA, and sent AA outside the camp of the church into the wilderness (where the drunks were) but also where prophets go. Alcoholics Anonymous, becomes the first spiritual fellowship organized around pain. (Phyllis Tickle) Not institutional loyalties, ethnicity, etc. This is a stripped down fellowship. Organized around pain. Like the fellowship of Jesus, when it all began Blessed are the poor in spirit Need is way in. AA was not going to fly unless it worked, unless it delivered the goods. So it was a grand experiment: What works? What s necessary to save an alcoholic from his disease? These12 Steps are what works and what s necessary. This has been verified over & over. Those who work these steps only half way only get half cured. So, in a sense, Alcoholics Anonymous is challenge from God for the church to begin to apply the spiritual discipline of reality test to spirituality: what works? What can be verified as effective? The heart of the scientific method. Religion has always been subject to this test. But now it s framed more like an experiment, for all to see. (By the way, this is obviously not the only test. There are others, such as What s beautiful? but we re getting distracted, aren t we?) What a challenge to the church, and I speak as a son of the church. Especially when AA made a strategic decision to low the profile of Jesus name in favor of Higher Power but, and this is a huge BUT, they did the Jesus stuff, based on the wisdom rooted in the gospel. Just like God isn t it? A God who is joyous, happy, and free, speaking to his lukewarm church: You ve got the Jesus Name, but you re not doing the Jesus stuff for alcoholics.

2 AA is doing the stuff, but not using the Name. If it s a choice these two options, which works to get more alcoholics saved from disease? The answer, without doubt, the factbased answer, is AA. Now the response of the church to all this is not (our ought not to be) the dumping of the name in favor of the stuff. We have every reason to believe that a personal savior is attached to his name. After seeing this saviors path verified so powerfully by Alcoholics Anonymous, we might feel more attached than ever to him, and by extension to his name. The response called for is to bear the name and do the stuff associated with the name. That may not be the task of Alcholics Anonymous, but it is certainly the task of the church. What A2 Vineyard is all about: bearing the Name and doing the stuff. So with that little rant finally done with, what was Step 11, again? 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. This is part of what works & what s necessary to save a drunk from drink. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous fleshes this out with three recommendations: 1.) Morning prayer, to start the day with an act of surrender. 2.) Night prayer, to review the day, and resolve to make any wrongs right. 3.) Checkin in with God through the day as needed. I asked an AA friend, Do people in AA, actually do this? Yes! Morning. Night. Check in. If they don t, they don t get well, and they don t last! Was his vigorous reply. When he described (in response to my prodding) what his own prayer life was like, he described a life of prayer that would put most pastors (paid to pray) to shame. What prayers? The Our Father (used at all AA meetings.) Serenity Prayer. GOD, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living ONE DAY AT A TIME; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen Reinhold Neibuhr-1926 [Actually only the first two lines are generally used, but what a payoff for those who go the distance with this prayer!] Often, I imagine in the morning, the following prayer is used: My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from

3 me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. And a night, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always. So if you are a recovering alcoholic, sooner or later you re praying like this, or something like this every, or most every day: morning prayer, checkin in, night prayers. And by the way (another side trail) you are also in AA learning the prayer methodology of the psalms, the prayerbook of the church speaking openly and honestly about what you re dealing with. This happens at the meetings, which I ve got to believe spills over into the prayer of recovering alcoholics. The discover of this pattern (made just recently) blew me away! That this pattern has been experimentally verified as what works and what s necessary AA being the recovery lab. Through the most demanding of reality tests: a kind of survival of the fittest, or should we say, a survival of the humbleist? (For the church of course, the humbling, unsightly little secret: more prayer in AA than much of church!) Listen closely to what God (I think) is saying through AA: Not, Good Christians should pray every day! or If you want to be a committed Christian, not just a luke warm one, get yourself a daily devotional time going! AA is telling us: This is what works. This is what s necessary. AA understands what it s taken me 30 years to verify in my own life. I ve been a Christian for 30 years or so. Praying more or less daily. But during those first 20 years, much of my prayer, perhaps, was motivated by this thought: I should have a daily prayer time. As a committed Christian, as a pastor. Prayer as a responsibility. A duty. But 10 years ago, it finally dawned on me. It s not that I should pray to be a good Christian, pastor. It s that I need prayer like I need food. I started, in other words, thinking about prayer more like a recovering alcoholic--the best thing that s ever happened to me in the prayer department. Then 4 yrs ago, it got even better. I went through a mid-life developmental shift. Which is like a mid-life crisis but without the new wife or the sports car. During this shift one becomes aware of diminishing natural powers. One s own, that is. It s the opportunity of a lifetime: to become more deeply convinced of need for God. During this time I stumbled into my first brush with fixed hour prayer. Eventually I found The Divine Hours a manual of prayer by Phyllis Tickle. Have I mentioned this before? In The

4 Divine Hours I discovered the the Big Book pattern of Alcholics Anonymous: morning prayer, checkin in through the day, night prayer. Morning prayer. I look forward to it like breakfast. As soon skip it as breakfast. Do sometimes, but don t like to, get cranky! The Divine Hours to start, sometimes to finish if I m committed violence against time by way of hurry. (Thanks to Eugene Peterson for that understanding of hurry.) Then in recent months something feels like, Communion of Saints, Fellowship of Spirit prayer. For loved ones, and wannabe loved ones in an expanding circle. Not agenda driven. More like holding them before heart of God. Maybe connecting with them in heart of God, the one who holds our souls in life. Checkin In as needed. And darn it, I find it s almost always needed. So I ve got the usual grab bag of prayers, none of them copyrighted. Prayers like, Lord,Help! Or the Jesus Prayer (a variant of Lord, sorry!). [Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.] Or Lord, thanks! Often, just an inner acknowledgment of God. Often, The Divine Hours Mid-day prayer. And why do I lament this necessity of checkin in prayer. Because it s driven, in my case, not so much by loving affection for God (let s talk!) It s driven by need because I get off center so fast. I use up my conscious Godcontact so fast. Like food, I need it at regular intervals or I get cranky. Night prayer. I use the Divine Hours again here. And combine it with a variation of Step 10 prayer, the Bedtime Exercise of Daily Awareness. (Walk thru day, thanking. Talk over the tough spots with God.) Then it s Good night, sleep tight, don t let the bed-bugs bite! 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. Point of prayer: to improve our conscious contact The motherlode of prayer! When begin to pray, worry: am I making any contact? Learn: contact comes many forms. Before conscious contact, unconscious contact. Then sub-conscious. Then barely conscious; low-key conscious contact all the way to most intense Maybe you re a little frustrated about prayer. I m not making good enough contact! Step 11 says, sought through prayer & meditation to improve our conscious contact Step 11 would be a much more difficult step to take if it was, made top-flight conscious contact with God. But that would be beneath the genius of these steps. No, we re simply invited to seek to improve our conscious contact with God, something we can all do, one day at a time. There s another little golden nugget tucked in here as we understood Him How we understand God greatly influences our prayer does it not?

5 How this maps onto my experience: I started praying after meeting Jesus, who introduced me to God as my Father; got me talking to God in first place. God: a dad who cares about you. (Not that I didn t also pray as an atheist. I did. It s the dirty little secret of atheism, how much we atheists prayed, and felt as much guilt and shame as pre Vatican II Roman Catholics when we did it!) My early understanding of God though was a little distorted, because my father image was a little distorted. Not so much from my dad, let s leave him to rest in peace, but from me as a father. Don t get me wrong, I was a good father, loving, caring. Still am, I hope. In fact, as a young man I was the best father I knew. Probably because I didn t know many, being so young. But being so young, and being me, I was also driven to be a good father. Anyone who writes a book on childrearing titled, The Obedient Child is maybe a little driven, and a little young. So I was also a little impatient for kids to be all they could be, we re going to do this right! High standards. But without that long range perspective. So if I missed prayer, I understood that God was likely to be irritated with me, like I was when one of the kids forgot one of their chores. And I was careful about pouring out my heart when it was filled with incorrect thinking, because I expected quick correction from God, like I gave. I didn t understand as well that sometimes God hears all that stuff out and puts a hand on our head to make it better. Now I understand better that God is an ancient of days father. One who s been around block with kids. Wise, still high standards, but patient. Hopeful of a good outcome. All the vitality young father, but also the wisdom & patience of a grandfather, or grandmother Only not worn out. Much closer, this understanding, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ The Our Father of the Our Father 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. What do they say in AA? Keep it simple stupid? There are s o many things to pray for. Things we re meant to pray for, daily bread, needs, wants. But the central, foundational, seminal, thing to pray for the prayer that keeps us sober, sane, on center: praying for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Our disease is self-will run riot. And there s only one cure for self will: surrender to His will. It s at issue every day. Someone does you dirty: after we reel, vent, get angry, self will starts run riot; our disease makes a comeback. Only cure: surrender, then & there, God help me know what your will for me is in this situation is, then give me the power to carry that out.

6 Our only exit from resentment, anger, worry, distress, envy, scheming, grudges. All the healthy stuff! It s the prayer of Jesus: Not my will, but yours be done Every time we pray this, gently bending our will away from self-will run riot, toward surrender to His. By nature, it can t be done in an instant a mega monster spiritual experience. It can get started in one of those, but it takes a gentle nudging every day, then often through the day, then almost instinctively moment by moment to get the job done. That nudging, of course, comes from the Spirit. But it s for us to do the yielding, or at least the allowing the yielding, as long as we re free. Conclusion: Let s be one of the churches that hears what the Spirit is saying through Alcoholics Anonymous this call to what works & what s necessary. If struggling with prayer, but you don t have the benefit of being a recovering alcoholic, start thinking like one Let go of your I m supposed to pray to be a good Christian and ask God to show you your personal need for improving your conscious contact with God. And follow that need like a hungry man follows his hunger to food. If you re part of AA, learning to pray in this way.thanks for being part of God s prophetic challenge to church. Invite you to hang out with us in the church alcoholics and non-alcoholics, so we can learn from each other about prayer. Opportunity: Beginning Sunday Nov. 21, thru the Sundays leading up to Christmas, Introducing TDH Support Group. Purchase Christmastide an inexpensive ($5) version of TDH for Advent/Christmas. Framework for morning & night prayer. (Dinner thru advent: doing evening prayers together) Small groups consider sampling this together? Want more background info? Ken s Corner Jan. 05 begin a series on prayer ending with Phyllis Tickle Feb. 12/13