Higher Ground - A Twelve Step Guide To Spiritual Wholeness
Who among us does not want to be healthier in our soul? Who doesn’t want to understand who we are, why we are here and where we are headed in life? Every one of us is intended by our Creator to be whole. We each have a unique pathway already prepared for our life and we are destined for a purpose greater than what we can possibly imagine.
Understanding and consistently applying this twelve step guide to spiritual wholeness - rooted in Biblical truth - will guarantee improvement in our spiritual health. This journey to inner wholeness is for all of us who are honest enough to recognize and admit our inherent brokenness. It focuses on bringing health to our spirit, attitudes, mind, imagination, emotions, words and behaviour and will press us onto our personal pathway specifically designed for us by our Creator.
My prayer is that the Shepherd of your soul will guide you to the place we all want to be – secure on the right path that leads to fulfillment and purpose!
This manual is intended as a Twelve Step interactive guide in small group discussions, in conjunction with homework, which is to be completed in the privacy of our personal quiet times.
About the "Higher Ground" Leaders Training Guide
A Twelve Step Guide to Spiritual Wholeness
This manual has been prepared to accompany the Higher Ground Workbook, for pastors and leaders. It includes current testimonials from many Twelve Step participants and graduates; the benefits of giving place to a Christian Twelve Step Ministry; easy steps on how to begin a group; how to advertise; choose and train facilitators for your church, business or home. Hundreds of satisfied participants attest to the wholeness that they have discovered along their journey up to Higher Ground.
Twelve Steps Defined
Twelve Steps evolved from the Oxford Group’s assumptions. Their principles are based on the Bible which underlines each step as follows:
I know nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Romans 7:18
Step Two – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:13
Step Three – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1
Step Four – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Lamentations 3:40.
Step Five – Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16a
Step Six – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:10
Step Seven – Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. If we confess ours sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9
Step Eight – Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Do to others as you would like them to do for you. Luke 6:31.
Step Nine – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24
Step Ten – Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall. I Corinthians 10:12
Step Eleven – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Colossians 3:16a
Step Twelve – Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself or you may also be tempted. Galatians 6:1
Ten Benefits
There are 10 major benefits to using the Twelve Step Program:
Higher Ground Testimonials
Here's what some of our Higher Ground grads are saying:
"The dysfunction of my childhood home was still chasing me at forty years old. The Higher Ground Spiritual Journey opened up doors for me into freedom I never could have imagined!" - Mary"Thank God Almighty - I'm free at last!" - Robert
"I thought the Twelve Steps were just for alcoholics and drug addicts. I was brought up in a godly home and everyone thought I was a good girl - nobody would have guessed the struggles I was having with self-doubt and low self-esteem…It took two suicide attempts before I was ready to begin to begin my road to Higher Ground! - Ruth
"I'd already been through AA two times and failed..I felt like a complete loser. What I'd never understood was that Jesus Christ is the only real Higher Power!" - Ray
"Thank you for providing this Higher Ground Twelve Step Journey for people like me who have been stepped on and bruised by life…to all of us silent, self-loathing, hurting and desperate people, who look like everything is OK on the outside - this has been a God send!" - Stella
"You may be finished with your past, but your past is not finished with you!" - Paul
"This has undoubtedly been the most difficult but also the best thirty-two weeks of my life." - Gary
"After completing the Higher Ground Twelve Step Journey, I am no longer the same person." - Carol
"I'd tried counseling, yoga, prayer and self-discipline - but nothing helped me deal with my inner rage and anger….After six months working through the Twelve Steps of Higher Ground, I am finally free!" - Blake
