Short form: The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.
- The Conference has the principal responsibility for service; the Trustees have active responsibility.
- Final decision lies with the Conference on larger matters of general policy and finance.
- Groups are like shareholders, Conference Delegates are like proxies at the Annual General Meeting, Trustees are like the directors of the holding company, and the various branches of service are incorporated into subsidiaries, each with their own directors, budget, staff, and balance sheet.
- Conference has to delegate active responsibility to get anything done, because:
- It meets just once a year.
- It cannot assimilate all of the information necessary to make executive decisions
- It is too unwieldy to handle the enormous volume of executive decisions that need to be made.
- It can only set policy: it cannot take material actions.
- In all my affairs, I take chief initiative and active responsibility.
- Ultimate responsibility resides with God.
- Either God has ultimate responsibility, or I do: double-headed authority is impossible.
- If I have ultimate authority, I'm not going to make it: so it has to be God who has ultimate authority.
- As God has ultimate responsibility, I never need worry about anything.
- That means I am free to be happy.
- If I'm worrying, I'm trying to take ultimate responsibility: I'm sitting in God's seat.
- If I'm worried, I want something I don't have or fear I will lose something I have: I'm not trusting that God will provide what I need.
- Worry is an assertion that God is either not entirely good or not entirely powerful.
- If there is a problem that God cannot solve, I'm asserting that God's goodness or God's power is insufficient to overcome the problem, i.e. the problem is greater than God.
- That makes God very small indeed.
- Worry is therefore effectively atheism: if I say I believe in God, but I have a problem that I believe is greater than God, what I believe in is not God but a tin-pot idol.
- God having ultimate responsibility also means I do not need to pay excessive attention to details in my own service, or in anyone else's.
- Control precludes enjoyment; enjoyment precludes control.
- God gets people sober, I do not: I am responsible for carrying the message, not for the results.
- I fulfil my relationship with God perfectly by doing what God places in front of me to do: whether the results are perfect is God's business and does not reflect on me.
- When God gives me responsibility, he gives me the authority (= power, = ability) to fulfil that responsibility.
- When, in turn, I delegate responsibility, I have to give people this authority.
- I need to take chief initiative to prepare myself for active responsibility, to ensure I am fit physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially.
- That means I need to eat properly, exercise, sleep properly, take inventory, pray and meditate, and stay connected with others.
- When an opportunity for service is presented to me, I ask God whether it is the best use of my time: if it is, I grab it. That is taking chief initiative and active responsibility. I do not wait for others to act first.
- My job is to overcome my fear and laziness by showing up for duty; God then gives me direction and strength from there.
- My chief active responsibility is to carry the message. When I do this, all of my other affairs and problems are right-sized.
- The defects I find in Step Six must be relinquished for me to take chief initiative and active responsibility in Concept VI.
- The distractions from my active responsibility to carry the message are the money, power, and prestige referred to in Tradition VI.
Inventory:
Looking at the above ideas:
Where am I currently falling down?
What can I do differently?