Going to Meetings

I have a friend in AA. Sometimes, without him knowing it, he will embarrass me by talking about his dedication to his journey in sobrieity. He doesn’t mean to do it. In fact, he rarely knows he’s doing it. He’s just telling me about what’s going on in his life. The conversation will go something like this.

“Do you want to meet for lunch?”

“I can’t,” he’ll say. “I promised a friend I’d meet him at the meeting today. He’s just getting started and sometimes, the new guys need someone to walk into the meeting with them”.

We’ll continue talking and as we talk, I’ll find out he usually goes to at least four or five meetings a day. He’ll lead several and will attend others. He doesn’t go every day, but he rarely misses more than two days in a row. If he’s going through a tough time, he’ll go to more than one meeting a day. I’ve known him to go from a breakfast meeting to a lunch meeting to an evening meeting.

“Some days,” he’ll tell me, “it’s all I can do to stay sober more than a few hours at a time.” If I ever introduced you to my friend, you’d be impressed. He’s smart and well read. I always enjoy my time with him. He’s always thinking about something, which of course, makes me start thinking about things.

But, honestly, he’s much more committed to his sobriety than I am to being a disciple of Christ. He never misses reading from the “Big Book.” He’s ruthless in maintaining his emotional health so nothing undermines his sobriety. He protects his sobriety at all costs.

I don’t know if I’m that committed to following Jesus. It’s embarrassing how far behind I am. He’s a lot more committed to following the AA way than I am following the Jesus way.

One of the things he likes to remind me about is how AA does church better than the church does. Think about it. The door is open to anyone who needs to walk in. When you show up, no one judges you. Everyone is there to work on some version of the same problem. Everyone knows the framework of the twelve steps. Those who are further along are expected to help those who are just getting started. It’s the AA way.

It should be the church way as well.

I wonder what would happen if people in the church started thinking about church the same way members of AA think about their meetings? What if church members started attending several services during the week? What if every Christian understood they couldn’t stay faithful to Christ without attending their meetings? What if every disciple did a rigorous self inventory every day to assess how they were doing? What if every disciple measured themselves against the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount the way AA followers do with the twelves steps?

Why do so many Christians think church attendance is optional? Why do we think the sufferings of others aren't any of our business? Why do we not seek out a mentor the way AA members look for a sponsor?

Simple.

Every addict knows they are powerless to live a sober life in their own strength. Christians, on the other hand, think following Christ is a matter of finding the will power to follow some simple rules of good behavior.

AA members know what’s at stake. I’m not sure most church members do. What would happen if we adopted some of the AA ways into our discipleship process?

What if we began every day by reading the “Big Book”?

What if we started our day by doing a rigorous self evaluation to determine if there is anything lurking in our lives that would sabotage our faithfulness to Christ?

What if we never missed a meeting?

What if we looked around us every day to see if there is anyone around us who is struggling to see if we could help?

What if sinners saw going to church the same way alcoholics saw AA meetings?

What if we understood we can’t handle our problems on our own and we need help… and if we show up at the nearest AA meeting we’ll begin to find the help we need?

What if, one day I could tell my friend, “Come to our church. We do AA better than you do.”

I don’t know about you, but I would love to be part of a church like that.

This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.