This FAQ began on August 9, 2006

I would like to know more about program.

Serenity Groups were not designed to take the place of any other recovery program, but to either supplement or introduce people to current 12 Steps recovery programs.  I think what sets Serenity Groups apart from secular (and some Christian recovery programs) is the following:

 

1.  We include a brief discussion of a Bible verse in the context of one of the 12 Steps and our lives and problems.

2.  In addition to praying The Serenity Prayer and The Lord's Prayer in our meetings, we pray for each other, others, and report answers to prayer in the meeting. Praying is either be silent or aloud: it is up to the individual (no pressure is put on anyone to pray).

3. We do talk about God and Jesus Christ in the meetings, but we remain open to hearing from anyone attending the meetings, so we can help others as we have been helped. The program is inclusive in that sense. In the Serenity Groups Fellowship that meets at Stonegate Church in Edmond most of those attending are Bible-believing and Christ-centered, but they do not stuff their beliefs down the throats of others. As with AA, Serenity Groups were designed to be a program of attraction, not promotion, and stuffing truth is not attractive. The material offered freely on the website at SerenityGroups.org can be used in a variety of ways by a variety of groups, so I can only speak of the group I help facilitate at Stonegate. Others may take a different approach.

4.  We usually read one of the short devotional readings from Prayer Steps to Serenity the Twelve Steps Journey: New Serenity Prayer Edition and discuss the reading, but no one needs to have their own copy of the book. This new edition has 12 new readings on The Serenity Prayer and ties each part of The Serenity Prayer to each of the 12 Steps. The abridged edition Prayer Steps to Serenity: Daily Quiet Time Edition is just to introduce people to the 12 Steps in a very simply and non-threatening way or serve as a Bible Study and devotional that is keyed to abridged versions of the 12 Steps.

5.  We have been revising and improving our meeting format over the years, and we will be doing things a little differently when we begin a new study of the 12 Steps at Stonegate Church. Eventually, these changes will appear as alternative meeting guides on the Serenity Groups website. We have had groups in Texas and Nebraska that I know of, but I am not trying to create or control a Serenity Groups Recovery Program, so unless people or a group lets me know they are doing something so I can advertise their group I do not know of other groups. The materials are simply provided for anyone to use or edit to meet their needs or their group's needs, and I know statistically that a lot of materials have been freely downloaded from the Serenity Groups website.

6.  Our meetings are open to individuals or couples attending (for example one in AA and one in Al-Anon, which works for some couples and not for others, we have discovered).  Also, we have had and still have people coming to our meetings who regularly attend AA and Al-Anon, OA, NA, and who are looking for GA and Gam-Anon meetings near their homes. The meetings allow people to remain anonymous unless they choose to tell why they are attending, so there might be some there who just want to learn about the 12 Steps and how to benefit by applying them.