Thread by @BobKoinonia

Recipe for Revival/Movement, performed 1 on1, 1 by 1, because when the whole world changes for 1 relative to another, it impacts the many, through us, #WeThePeople.
Introducing, the "5 C's of Life Transformation" as outlined to me by phone by an old old timer of AA, James Houck,

the last living link to the spiritual roots of the Alcoholics Anonymous program that produced a 75% recovery rate from alcoholism, which itself sprang from an evangelical movement in the 1930's called "The Oxford Group".
The 5 C's of Life Transformation

is a synthesis of their deep study of the NT, including, in particular, the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13 & the book of James. James (Houck) told me that the model of the 5 C's in action can be seen in Jesus' interaction with the woman @ the well.

They are, as follows:

1) Confidence
2) Confession
3) Conviction
4) Conversion
5) Continuance

Confidence - winning the other person's, with a deeply held point of common interest.

Confession - ours, to them, about something costly, involving the way things were, what happened, & what it's like now..

Conviction - a heartfelt reaction, deeply felt, being so touched, moved & inspired by our confiding in them about something costly, perhaps in the form of an amends or reconciliation - they are then compelled to share their burden & lay it down in turn..

leading to...

Conversion - the epiphany, in the shared burden being lifted away, understood perfectly as an experience in the space of forgiveness & love & mercy. A change of mind & heart (James said it was best done between prior enemies or those we may have harmed, including, presumably..

ourselves)

Continuance - the 5th C. Staying with. Watering and sunning the newly planted seed.

This, James explained, then tried to hammer home (I was kind of interviewing him for research purposes) the notion that the 5th C formed a circle of integrity around the whole thing

5th C Cont'd..

And when it was ignored or when people got lazy regarding their service to others with whom the new seed was planted, everything would fall apart, losing integrity, and here their point of reference was Jesus' parable of the sower.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_o…

Example:

Ebby T. of the Oxford Group, having himself undergone a change & transformation, went to his old friend Bill Wilson to share & to be helpful or of service to the Lord. Bill was so blown away by the change in his friend & it so shook his world that later that night..

Bill had a white light experience in his case standing at a window in deep contemplation over the change in countenance that he'd witnessed in his old drinking buddy, Ebby T.

Bill then ran into Dr. Bob, a proctologist of all things.. & the rest was history (a movement was born)

But here's the funny part of the story that James (then in his 90's) shared with me on the phone, as to how & why AA formed in the first place & why Bill W. sought out another in Dr. Bob the a-hole doctor, & made alcohol recovery by Grace, his sole focus.

Ebby T.'s Oxford Group

had what they called The Four Pillars, which they & via some intersection with what was called "the new thought movement" (deep study of the Gospels) of the 30's, might have thought of as the 4 pillars of the Gospel.
Absolute Honesty
Absolutely Purity
Absolute Unselfishness &

Absolute Love.
Bill Wilson, however, was perfectly happy to lose his addiction to alcohol, but that was a standard that he knew that no one could live up 2 & he wasn't about to give up his cigarette smoking & womanizing, you see. James & I laughed at that one!

@Franklin_Graham

@threadreaderapp "unroll"

@Franklin_Graham Please don't take this the wrong way (Bill's decision), but a wise man might have to admire him in a way for his own wisdom in this regard (not to say that smoking & womanizing is aok!). He didn't want to become a perfect living saint but proceeded to love God & answer the call.

@Franklin_Graham "Sin with courage" my mother once said to me, my own mother! I thought WTH? What does that mean?
It's not a permissiveness, no it's the recognition that we are human & do & will sin, hopefully in lessor & lessor ways. But this notion that we must try to be good, misses the point

of the Gospel message of love, even in spite of ourselves & all our character defects. Yes, we are a work in progress on a path of progress towards perfection, but we are also human & if there's no room for that, then we're only setting ourselves up, even to a kind of piousness

leading to an even greater sin - spiritual pride, which undoes the work of Jesus Christ.
How many "good Christians" have become bland to be good, having lost their saltiness, their passion, their charm, & their joy. They put on wan smiles & nod, but they don't know how to love.