Our Story

We are a small, widely dispersed group of Christian men and women active in our 12-Step Fellowships but longing for deeper levels of emotional and spiritual growth and support than either our Fellowships, our Churches, or our individual spiritual journeys presently afford us.

 We have been meeting together for some time seeking God’s guidance regarding how we might join with other like-minded seekers to share our current directions and discern God’s will for moving our community forward. Our search has led us to study, experiment with, and share what we have come to identify as four basic pillars upon which we are building our new community life.

Our Four Basic Pillars

  • 12 Step Recovery

    We are committed to our 12-Step recovery Fellowships, with no intention of leaving them, attempting to change them, or seeking to create a substitute for them.

    We believe that addiction is rarely restricted to one substance or to one compulsive behavior; therefore, we address our multiple addictions, shortcomings, and our charisms honestly – sharing them with God and one another.

    We also believe that, over time, our Fellowships have moved away from some of the spiritual practices that were deemed essential by AA’s pioneer members, and we have benefitted greatly from exploring these together and sharing them with those we serve.

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  • AA's Pioneer Program

    We began studying AA’s spiritual roots as they originated within the Oxford Group, originally known as A First Century Christian Fellowship.

    Here we discovered a simpler but richly rewarding way of working the Steps as well as discovering the lost 11th Step practice of Two Way Prayer and the Four Absolutes of Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love.

    Through these and other spiritual practices we have come to experience a more intimate relationship with God and with one another. This, in turn, has led us to a new, or in some cases a deepened, exploration of our Christian faith.

  • The Emerging Church

    We commenced to study scripture and the works of Christian scholars – particularly those describing the early centuries of the faith along with the new expressions that are emerging today.

    We are drawn especially to the desert fathers and mothers, to the mystics, and to the contemplative life of the monastics of all ages and faith traditions.

    We sense a calling to be “monks in the modern world” but seek an expression of this that fits both our times, our temperaments, and our circumstances.

  • Analytical Psychology

    The depth of change we seek has led us to explore the elements of Jungian psychology. Here we are discovering, owning, and sharing our shadow parts with God and one another as we seek the wholeness of body, mind, soul, and spirit to which we believe God is calling us.

    We pursue dream work, active imagination, and inner-child work, along with other spiritual practices such as meditation, contemplative prayer, fasting, and pilgrimages to enrich our spiritual lives and enliven our experience of God.

Our Present and Future Direction

Knowing individually the greater sense of peace and purpose that has come to us from the seeking and following God’s will, we believe that our new community must rest on the secure foundation of finding and following God’s will communally; therefore, all decisions regarding our formation and functioning are brought to God in prayer and shared with the community through an ongoing and evolving process of discernment. We remain very much “a work in progress.”

As with the Oxford Group, we have no requirements for membership other than a desire to join in this spiritual journey and commit to discerning and following God’s will, found through a group conscience and expressed through love and service.

We have each discerned a particular guided work that helps the community fulfill its mission of advancing the practice of Two Way Prayer among members of all the 12 Step Fellowships.