meditatio at the water's edge

So Dallas Willard suggested that the church can learn about spiritual transformation into Christlikeness from Alcoholics Anonymous. I've never been to an AA meeting. I didn't know the twelve steps, so I went surfing and found them. I edited them only a little to apply them to Christian spiritual transformation. While there is more to it than these twelve steps, just imagine what would happen in our churches if we really did these things.

The Twelve Steps of Christian Spiritual Transformation
1. We admitted we were powerless over sin — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that Jesus could restore us to sanity.

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

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, 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 other people held captive by sin, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.


I'm sure that you will be able to point out other necessary things, but what do you think would happen if our churches started using these with the goal of individual and corporate transformation into Christlikeness?

Comments?