Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Dr. Bob Christian Church Training # 2

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Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Dr. Bob – Vermont Youth Refresher # 2

Dick B.
© 2009 Dick B. All rights reserved

Articles in The Vermont Chronicle for June, 1896

[Introduction to the Vermont Youth Refresher series: After two years of research at the boyhood communities of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob in East Dorset, Rutland, Manchester, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont, we have just acquired The Vermont Chronicle: The Religious Family Paper of Vermont Vol. LXX1 No. 24, June 11, 1896, published by C.M. Stone & Company. In our title Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a Youngster in Vermont, we’ve covered the many training influences that impacted on A.A. and Dr. Bob—Bob’s parents, church, Sunday school, Christian Endeavor activities, prayer meetings, revivals and conversions, the YMCA, St. Johnsbury Academy, and the Fairbanks family. And this timely issue of The Vermont Chronicle for June, 1896 provides a great backdrop for the facts at this peak period of Dr. Bob’s training. In these excerpts, we’ll extract representative portions.]

“A Veteran’s Testimony

“Dr. Alexander MacLaren, of London, England. . . said, among other things in referring to his success in the ministry, ‘I have tried to make my ministry a ministry of exposition of Scripture. . . . I’ve tried to preach Jesus Christ, and the Jesus Christ not of the Gospels only, but the Christ of the Gospels and the Epistles; he is the same Christ. I believe that the one thing the world wants is redemption, that the power of that Gospel on the individual soul; and that men know that they want it. . . . and we have got to preach Christ and Him crucified, the Saviour of mankind. I have tried to preach Christ as if I believed Him; not as if I had hesitations and peradventures and limitations. I have tried to preach Him as if I lived on Him. . . . So if my words can reach any of my dear younger brethren this morning, I do want to say, ‘Concentrate yourselves on the work of your ministry; preach the Bible and its truth; preach Christ the Redeemer, preach Him with all your heart; lift up your voice, lift it up with strength, be not afraid.”

The Christian Church Training of A.A. Cofounder Dr. Bob

In our title Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous (http://www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml), we quote Proverbs 22 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” And Dr. Bob’s training began with his parents. It continued with the entire family’s intense involvement in the North Congregational Church of St. Johnsbury. They attended Sunday morning worship, Sunday afternoon school, Sunday evening services and Wednesday prayer meetings. The “Veteran’s Testimony” above is something one can read in page after page of the sermons and literature at North Congregational; and it’s message is part of the training Dr. Bob received through church sermons and services. The information is available in the still extant archives and records of the family church that we have acquired and now placed in the Dr. Bob Core Library at North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Gloria Deo