This group includes Pastors, Priests, Preachers, Bible Teachers, Counselors, Group Leaders, Elders and Deacons.  Any man who is in a position of oversight in any way over others in eligible to be part of this group.  We recognize that men in such positions have some unique challenges and often cannot speak freely about them to those they work or socialize with.  Poimenes is therefore designed to provide a safe place for the sharing of burdens for these servants of God.

An individual joins the group by invitation only.  This is for reasons of security and anonymity.  Our meetings are held at a private location, and not at any church site.  We can be contacted for more details about our group through e-mail at:

merimnao@thefellowship.org

Parakaleo meets on Wednesday evenings 6:30 – 8:00 pm at The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch in Room S105.  The church is located on the corner of Peek Road and Westheimer Parkway in Katy, Texas, their web address is www.thefellowship.org.

Characteristics of Parakaleo

1. Parakaleo is primarily a group providing support and comfort to its members through the empathy of others who have had similar experiences.  It is not a therapy or counseling group.
2. Parakaleo is a Christ centered program or group, and as such recognizes that Christ is the only “higher power”, however any individual of any faith or no faith at all may attend.  (Jn 14:6)
3. Parakaleo meetings are only for women whose lives have been affected by the compulsive sexual behavior of a significant male in their lives.
4. Parakaleo is a group led by non-professionals; meetings are facilitated by women who have experienced the healing power of Christ in their own lives in the area of dealing with men who act out in compulsive sexual ways.
5. Parakaleo provides a “safe place” for women dealing with men having compulsive sexual problems.  Elements of safety include confidentiality, anonymity and an accepting environment.
6. Parakaleo meetings provide a place of structure and familiarity where the chaos, confusion and craziness of living with a male who is acting out sexually can be put aside.
7. Parakaleo provides opportunities for its members to grow and heal through working through the 12 steps under the guidance of sponsors.

The facilitators for this group are Danita Gross and Betty Farrar, they can be contacted at Parakaleo@thefellowship.org.  Women who might want to be part of this group are encouraged to contact the facilitators ahead of time with their own personal questions.

This group is designed to help men who struggle with sexual purity, particularly in the following areas:

• Sexually immoral thought life
• Pornography
• Sexual acting out such as self-gratification, using prostitutes, frequenting sexually oriented businesses, or adult bookstores
• Adultery

If you are dealing with these kinds of struggles then you have found the right place.

Suggested Resources:

Castimonia – Christ Centered 12 Steps

Castimonia – Suggested Book List

Castimonia – Internet Filtering Software Recomendations

WHO WE ARE

Castimonia is a Christ-based 12-Step Support and Recovery program for sexual immorality or addiction with the goal to achieve sexual purity. We share our experience, strength, and hope with each other so that we may achieve sexual purity and help others recover from sexual addiction or dependency. Although we believe Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, Christianity is not a requirement for attending meetings or working the 12-step program. We are open to any group or denomination. The only requirement for attendance and participation is the desire to stop compulsive sexual behavior and reach sexual purity. There is no cost to attend Castimonia.

EXPERIENCE, STRENGTH, & HOPE

Many of us first come to Castimonia feeling deeply isolated and ashamed of our behaviors and actions. We may believe that no one could understand us or relate to the things we have done or been through. In meetings, many of us share our experience. Our stories disclose in a general way our struggles with sexual purity and how we deal with them. We share about our problem and how it affected our lives but also of our experiences in recovery.

We continue by sharing our strength in recovery; how we have become honest, how we confront the problem, and how we find strength and support from our Castimonia brotherhood. We share of how Christ has helped us shed our shame and how He helped us remove ourselves from isolation. We share the tools and scriptural solutions we have learned in the program that help keep us sexually pure and how truly difficult it was to admit to ourselves, others, and to God the problem we had. We share about the courage it took to enter this program of recovery and of the strength it takes to work the program. We share how Christ is with us in every step of this spiritual journey of recovery.

Finally, we share our hope with one another. Our hope is for a sexually pure life as God originally intended. We openly discuss our new freedom and give hope, through Christ, to one another in recovery. God can give us this freedom!

You will suddenly realize that God is doing for you what you could not do for yourself.

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually, sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

Castimonia meets weekly on Saturdays from 10 to 11:30 am in the Loft Worship at The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch in Katy, and also on Monday evening from 7 to 8:30 pm in the Community Room also at the church.  For more details e-mail castimonia@thefellowship.org.

Principles of the Merimnao Ministry

David, assisted by his wife Valerie, will be leading a divorce recovery and suppport group.

If anyone has an interest in finding out more about this group please contact David.  He can be e-mailed at drwebb01@gmail.com or called on his cell at 281-734-1084.

Stephanie is going to lead a “Post Abortion Support Group” for women who have experienced an abortion in their past.

If you or any one you know has experienced an abortion please refer them to Stephanie.  This includes those that might want to be part of what Stephanie will be doing with this support group, or it could be that someone might simply want to attend it.

Stephanie can be contacted via e-mail at S.RodenbergLewis@gmail.com or through her cell phone at 832-922-1787.

The “Merimnao Personal Spiritual Assessment Tool” is an 80 phrase ranking system.  Here is a sample:

Answer the following questions using the following scale:

1. Not true at all.
2. Not very true.
3. Sometimes true.
4. Often True.
5. Absolutely True.

Section A – General Discipleship Statements

1.       I love to worship God both on my own as well as in church.                 ___

2.       I spend regular self-study time in the Word of God.                              ___

3.       I pray regularly and whenever I sense a prompting.                              ___

4.       I integrate fasting for spiritual purposes into my walk.                           ___

5.       I know and actively use my spiritual gifts.                                                ___

6.       I regularly give my time, talent and treasure to my local church.         ___

7.       I integrate my faith into my work outside the church.                            ___

8.       I meditate frequently on whatever God has put in front of me.             ___

9.       I follow and actively support my local church leaders.                             ___

10.     I am engaged in spreading the gospel at some level.                                ___

If you choose to look at yourself using this tool please remember it is designed to help you to evaluate your personal spiritual status, and it does not determine or evaluate your suitability for working within the ministry of Merimnao.  Going through the results with a qualified leader will help an individual to interpret what the evaluation tool speaks to.

 The full testing tool can be downloaded from this link.

The Merimnao Personal Spiritual Assessment Tool

A person has emotional cancer when they carry around resentments.  This is what Scripture says about resentment:

Job 5:2 – Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.  (NIV)

Resentment kills, that is plain and simple.  I suppose the question now becomes, how does it do that?  Let’s look at it.

Webster’s dictionary defines resentment like this:

A feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult or injury.

This is helpful because it points us to the source of resentments, but is not a good definition.  When we experience real or perceived wrongs, insults or injuries, our feelings are not primarily those of “indignant displeasure” or “persistent ill will”.  The feeling that overrides all others is that of anger.  We may certainly feel things such as ill will or indignant displeasure, and just as certainly these will end up directing our emotional response to anger.

Now this anger we feel is not the “flash in the pan” type anger, it is the “I’m hanging onto this negative feeling because I’ve been wronged” type of anger.  You know, the kind that sticks inside and stirs a person up.  The problem is, no emotion lasts forever, eventually it has to get resolved in some way.  The way we resolve this type of anger is to convert it into a resentment for storage as an attitude in our hearts.

The great advantage for us here is that whenever we want, and particularly whenever we perceive we have been wronged, we can bring that old anger right back up again and spew it out.

Now, over a period of time we get angry by dragging up the old resentments and from new real or perceived offenses against us or our loved ones.  The result of this is that we start to store more and more resentments in our hearts.  Soon, if we don’t take corrective actions, the heart becomes full of resentments.  Then they start to grow together as we cannot tell which resentments go with which offenses and whom they relate to.  They have become emotional cancer.

As this emotional cancer spreads we become out of control people, in the sense that we no longer are able to hide our problem from others.  They can see the emotional cancer in our angry faces, they can hear it in our angry voices and they experience it in our angry gestures and actions.  It literally oozes like poison from the inside of our souls.  When we have this kind of problem, we are often the last to know, but there are some clues that we can recognize if we really pay attention to our behaviors and the actions of others around us.

If we have significant periods of feeling depression, it could be emotional cancer.  If people do their best to avoid us, it could be emotional cancer.  If we are constantly discontent and whiney, it could be emotional cancer.  If we get angry for almost no reason, it could be emotional cancer.  If we blow up in rages frequently, it could be emotional cancer.  Do any of these things sound familiar?  If they do, seek godly counsel, because it won’t get better by itself, and you may be out of control to the point that you can’t stop being resentful.

Doing nothing is foolish, and our Scripture says it very clearly:

Resentment kills a fool!

So, the question is, “Do you have emotional cancer”?