A
Powerful Cooperative Effort by Rock Recovery Ministry in San Diego with
the “Upper Room” Devotional of Early A.A. Utility
Dick B.
It is my privilege and pleasure to comment on, recommend,
and commend the foregoing contribution by Rock Recovery Ministry.
I am one of those recovered alcoholics blessed with over 27
years of continuous sobriety and presenting to those in recovery some 46 titles
and over 1500 articles on Alcoholics Anonymous History and on the Christian
Recovery Movement. My son Ken and I have now devoted over 24 years researching,
publishing, and spreading to ministries, churches, Christian Fellowships,
treatment programs, prisons, the homeless, and sober living facilities the
fruits of accompanying recovery efforts with a decisive, determined, and
disciplined fellowship to ground the effort on the Bible and include 12 Step
reliance on God in that discipline.
My son and I have been in San Diego with members of Rock
Recovery Ministry a number of times. I attended and spoke at their bonfire
meeting--pictured here. I attended and led one of their Bible studies primarily
for newcomers. At the urging of David P., we attended one of the very much
needed and unique newcomer orientation meeting at the home of David and his
wife. David also showed us the residential housing where attention to Bible,
prayer, A.A., the Twelve Steps, Christian Fellowship, and financial
responsibility were patently there.
Probably the most impressive parts of what we saw at Rock
Church in San Diego involved two distinctly different scenes. The first was the
thousands of individuals, couples, and children who poured into church services
on Sunday--and we were informed that about one-third of them were in the Rock
recovery program. The second was the use the ministry made of the almost
forgotten "Quiet Time," "Quiet Hour," "Morning
Watch," daily devotions, and 11th Step suggestions which were
"musts" in the A.A. Society from its very beginning in June of 1935
and thereafter.
It is now well-known by historians and hopefully by
thousands in recovery that early AAs utilized the "Upper Room"
quarterlies to guide their morning devotions. See www.dickb.com/goodmorn.shtml.
And Rock has put a splendid twist on this Upper Room and
morning devotions restoration to recovery today.
As I understand it, a large part of the fellowship reads a
segment of the Upper Room like the one above and then uses the popular
technique of "texting" the group the sharing of those who studied the
segment and want to contribute their understanding, comments, or questions.
One of the strengths of early A.A. was its close resemblance
in principles, practices, and program to Acts in the Bible and the accounts of
the daily Bible, prayer, fellowship, breaking of bread, attendance at Temple or
homes, with witnessing and conversion that produced enormous numbers of new
believers, healings, and fellowship in First Century Christianity.
I think it fair to liken what goes on at Rock to what went
on in the early A.A. Christian Fellowship and in turn among the First Century
Christians.
A final word about this particular contribution. Among early
AAs, the Book of James was considered "absolutely essential" to their
recovery. And the first chapter of James makes a strong case for dealing with
temptation, asking God for wisdom, resisting the enticement, and--as Rock puts
it--putting on the whole armor of God (per Ephesians 6), recognizing that the
battle is not against flesh and bones, but against spiritual wickedness spawned
by the Adversary and his minions.
And people in recovery today may someday recognize
temptation as the major incitement to obsessions, addictions, excessive
drinking and using, and even the death which the Adversary seeks to visit upon
Christian believers, per his relentless mission Jesus defined in John 10:10 to
steal, kill, and destroy.
Good for this exemplary contribution and for the discernment
that enabled the Rock to grace the Upper Room with a definition of the problem
and God's statement of the solution.
In His Service, Dick B. dickb@dickb.com
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