Recovery and Service in Branson

Friday was set up to be like a regular Monday schedule day. So we had worship, class, lunch, class and then dinner. We had our first out of town speaker and it was phenomenal! The speaker was John Elmore from Watermark church of Dallas Texas. He came to speak with us about recovery. He heads up the recovery program at Watermark church. This subject was an intense subject but a fun one to dig deep into. We walked through his 12 step process to bring recovery. 

1. Nature of man

2. Nature of God

3. Salvation

4. Old self

5. Confession

6. Turning from/to

7. Follow Christ

8. Forgive

9. Amends

10. Short accounts

11. Intimacy with God

12. Great commission

The first 3 steps talk about salvation

4-9 talk about repentance

10-12 talk about abiding and walking with God. 

We proceeded to go through all of the steps in-depth and talk about scripture that correlates to them. Steps 1-3 were easy to talk about. They were things that we've all heard about growing up in church about our sinful nature and God and His salvation for us. Step 4 is where it got interesting. We were given a huge Excel sheet document, and it was to be our inventory of all past. We were asked to start filling it out by remembering sins we had committed. There were six categories to fill out were these Resentment, Fear, Harm to Me, Harm by Me, Sexual, and Recovery Issue.

 Here is an example. 

After spending some class time on filling parts of this inventory out we proceeded to step 5. Before starting step five we took our break for lunch. So when we return from lunch to start step five we broke up into boy and girl groups. This was a good thing because what we're about to do was confess our students to our peers. This was such an incredible time. I say incredible not that it was easy but that was very hard there were intense sins that needed to be confessed and also the need to be prayed over for each group. This made our community so much closer. That we could confess sin and be forgiven and be held accountable to continue to stay away from such sins. Step 6 turning from/to is what John Elmore like to call repentance. This step also had an Excel worksheet to fill out.

This worksheet was to help us see the sins that we do over and over again. After completing the worksheet we could see why we fell into the same sins continually. I have not finished this worksheet yet but I do believe that once I do I will be able to see the sins I fall into over and over again. Not only does this worksheet show you the sins you continually falling too but it gives you a way to stop and repent from then to no longer do them again. It does this by showing you what allows you to fall into that soon. The areas that are sinful nature over turns for spiritual walk, and once you recognize this you're able to battle our flesh and live in the spirit. Steps 7 and 8 where are self explanatory. When we got to step 9 he gave us an anagram to be able to remember how to seek amends. The anagram is RUT-ABC. R-recognize the wrong, U-understand the hurt, T-take responsibility, A-ask for their forgiveness, B-behavior, C-change. The last 3 steps he had to go through quickly because he was running out of time but he gave an amazing scripture if you're wanting to know more just let me know. That concluded our time with John Elmore and we were all very grateful for it. The evening was ours to do whatever we wanted to do with. Dan and I decided to clean up our room and get everything put into its rightful place.

The Institute staff had planned our first Saturday of being here at the Institute. We were to help with the FBC Branson church in their service project for the year. We all got up and went to the church at 8 AM in the morning. We were given teams and we went out to different houses and helped paint. My team got the privilege to paint the whole outside of this widows home. Her colors were a grayish blue for the wood and white for the accents. We had lunch in between working and we finished around 3PM. After that the evening ours to do whatever. Dan and I decided to do dinner here at the Institute with leftovers.

Sunday, I got to do something I have never done before. I got to volunteer at a triathlon. All Institute students were to volunteer on Sunday. There were different time slots and I got the amazing time of 5 AM to 9 AM. It was freezing. I had on three layers for my whole body. I had gloves and a hat and my big winter jacket. I felt like I was going snow skiing. It was 46°F outside when we woke up and didn't get above 50°F by the time we left so therefore it was cold. Like I said this is something I've never done before, volunteer at a triathlon. So I had no idea what I was doing. This was contrary to what my personality wants me to do, know everything that was going on. Dan was very eager to get started when we showed up so he volunteered for the first placement of volunteers. Guess what that was, parking cars. We had no direction and we had no idea where the parking lot was. So with that said, it was quite an adventure. The task ended up being quite fun we got to meet athletes and encouragement them and then meet the fans as well. We were stationed at T1which means transition one. This area is where they swam and then got on their bikes. So we watched them from the parking lot swim across to the other side of the lake and back and get on their bike and take off. Once they got on their bikes I had my next job. It was to tell the bikers which lane they were supposed to use for the rest of the bike portion of the triathlon. I am not for sure if this is for every triathlon but for this triathlon the bikers were riding into the oncoming traffic however traffic was stop so no worry of collision. As I was facing the bikers as they were passing me. I was pointing with my right arm for them to go into the left lane. Therefore the next day my right arm was quite sore. By 9 o'clock all the athletes had done the swim portion and were on their bikes. After our eventful morning Dan I decided to go to FBC Branson and attend there 9:35 worship time. After main worship we found the young marrieds Sunday school class and decided to join in. The only problem was neither one of us and had breakfast and we were starving. Luckily there was zucchini bread provided by one of that wife's and it was delicious. Sunday school was quite fun and we look forward to going while were here in Branson. For lunch Dan and I decided to eat pizza. We had a Domino's Pizza gift card that given to us as wedding gift and we hadn't gotten to use yet. So we found a Domino's and used it. Thank you very much Sharon Boydston. After lunch I took a nap and then woke up and continue to work on the recovery inventory Excel worksheet that John Elmore had given us. For dinner we had Domino's as leftovers, it was still so good. After dinner it was uneventful I continue to work on the recovery inventory Excel worksheet. It was nice to have a more relaxing day and be able to get the inventory worksheet done.

That concludes our first full week at the Kanakuk Institute. Wow, we have learned so much already. The community is growing and we are excited to see what God does. We have learned about vision, purpose, expectations are while were here, confession, how to write an effective testimony, how to recover from sin, about truth, about discipleship, and character.

Hope you enjoyed and be encouraged to reflect on your sin nature and seek God to reveal ways to turn away from and go to Him more.
Romans 8:5 "For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit."