CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

Character Defects

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Recovery in the 23rd Century – VIDEO

I love Star Trek.  I grew up a Sci-Fi Geek with various episodes and movies of Star Trek, as well as Star Wars, swirling in my mind.  I often wonder, of all the Sci-Fi movies I have viewed in my life, how many of these movies had a recovery-related theme.  It wasn’t until entering recovery that the Holy Spirit gave me some special “recovery glasses” that have allowed me to spot recovery themes in various media; music, movies, photographs, etc…  These themes can include support groups, honesty, selfishness, selflessness, redemption, etc… that are portrayed in the movie. 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was probably one of the worst Star Trek movies made in terms of fan ratings and overall story line, until I watched it again in recovery.  WOW!  Below is a short summary of the overall movie from Wikipedia:

 Taking place shortly after the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the plot follows the crew of the USS Enterprise-A as they confront a renegade Vulcan, Sybok, who is searching for God at the center of the galaxy.

What I saw in this movie was the healing power of James 5:16 and 1 John 1:9 dealing with confessing our deepest, darkest secrets.  When we do this, we have a chance of being healed and be purified from all unrighteousness!  This is exactly what we do in Castimonia in Steps One, Four, and Five, we release the pain inside of us caused by all of our secrets.  Confessing them to another or to the group is part of this process which only a few actually accomplish.  Once we bring these secrets into the open, we release it and it releases it’s hold on us.

I hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I enjoyed creating it.  As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

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Broken Together- VIDEO

This was such a powerful video for couples that I felt I needed to share with those that are struggling through their marriages, either through sexual impurity, codependency, apathy, or other marital issues.  My hope is that all couples fight together to keep their marriages together, even when it seems that the marriage is done.  God can do what man cannot and that is revive a marriage that is determined dead.  Make sure to watch this on full screen or visit the website below for the original video.

Please visit ignitermedia.com for more great Christian videos!

From Mark Hall, lead singer of Casting Crowns –

Marriage is tough. We bring a lot of fairytales to the picture when it comes to marriage. We bring them to the altar with us [thinking]: ‘This is going to be perfect. We don’t have to be apart. We can just wake up together every morning and no one is going to have morning breath. We’re not going to have any problems.’ And then the problems hit and you don’t know where to file those into your picture. . . The idea I’m trying to say is: ‘Can you lay down who you thought I was and love the ‘me’ that is? Can we take this from where we are now and realize that I can’t be that person?’ Only God is going to be able to make this work and broken people can be broken together.

“Broken Together” is included on Thrive, the latest album from Casting Crowns.

 

https://www.ignitermedia.com/embed/4241-broken-together

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New Castimonia Meeting in Columbus, TX

I am humbled to announce that we will officially be starting a new Castimonia meeting on Monday mornings at First Baptist Church in Columbus, TX on March 30th!  This is our first meeting located outside of the general Houston area and also our first morning meeting.
Location information is written below.
Beginning March 30, 2015
Monday Mornings
Time: 6:00AM – 7:30AM
Location: First Baptist Church
1700 Milam Street
Columbus, TX 78934
979.732.6261
This meeting should help those that live West of Katy/Sealy who may not have the opportunity to travel 2 hours round-trip to a Castimonia meeting.
Praise be to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for all He has done to grow His ministry!

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Conquering our Fear – VIDEO

I recently watched “After Earth” and I thought it had some deeper recovery-related gems.  For those that don’t know much about this movie here is a summary from Wikipedia:

In the future, an environmental cataclysm forces the human race to abandon Earth and settle on a new world, Nova Prime.

One thousand years later, the United Ranger Corps, a peacekeeping military commanded by General Cypher Raige, comes into conflict with alien creatures who intend to conquer Nova Prime. Their primary weapons are the Ursas: large, blind predatory multi-limbed creatures that hunt by sensing pheromones the human body secretes when scared (they literally smell fear). The Rangers struggle against the Ursas until the impassive Cypher learns how to completely suppress his fear, in effect becoming invisible to the Ursa—a technique called “ghosting.” After teaching this to the other Rangers, he leads the Ranger Corps to eventual victory.

In watching this movie, I picked up on  the recovery-related theme.   The subtheme I saw in this movie is that of fighting through and conquering our fears.  This resonates with me in recovery in that I tend to medicate my fear of the unknown with unhealthy activities, even compulsively watching television or sports.  There are a number of fears in my life but one of the things that I have become present to over the last few years is that fear is not real and this is stated clearly in one of the scenes of this movie.  For me, I have to understand that fear is simply Future Events Appearing Real, which means I am afraid of something that has not occurred or may never occur!  I hope this movie helps you with any fears you may have.

As always, take what you like and leave the rest.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

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Vince Lombardi on Emotions

“I’m a highly emotional man, I’m quick to tears and I’m quick to praise and I’m quick to all of those things.  I think anyone who tries to hide their emotions, I think makes a mistake.  I think you’ve got to do things according to your own personality.  This is all part of what ever little bit of success I’ve had too.  I think this is most important.” – Vince Lombardi