Monday Memo

Hi Five Oakers, Here are the comments from Communication Cards this past weekend:

• Beautiful, truth-filled sermon.

• Loved the music, loved the sermon, loved the message. Well done!

• Packed with scripture this week, love it.

• Henry, thanks for helping us see our “responsibility” to other believers and for the world thru worship. If Christ cares to call us to worship, how can we refuse? Music was rocking. Lifting up our Lord!

• I just want to say that I can’t remember a time I did not benefit from attending a church service at Five Oaks (and many other churches). There have been a few times I’ve considered not going, then attended anyway and thought of what I would have missed had I stayed away.

• Resolution 6/52. Yes! Praise God.

• Connected families conference this weekend was an awesome experience!

• I don’t want to lose Tim Bubar to GQ magazine. I think he deserves a raise.  [I'm still trying to figure this one out.]

• Along with salting the sidewalk, the handicapped parking spaces should get cleaned/salted. Today I picked up an elderly man that slipped getting out of his car, on ice, and couldn’t get up.  [Noted. Thanks.]

• Can we give a reminder for people to go lighter on their perfumes? I’m all for people smelling nice, but it’s difficult for others to focus on worship with so many different strong perfumes around me causing my eyes to water and my nose to itch.

• Loved the transition from song to Tim’s wording/reading back to song – beautiful crescendo.  Tim you always strike the proper mood and balance with your remarks whether serious or humorous.  Henry ditto on my comment for Tim.  You are both so inviting, warm and appropriately humorous.  Jeremy, you provide a strength to musical leadership , thanks for your service.  You anchor it and lead.  Wonderful, wonderful message.

And here are some of the key takeaways from attenders to the Connected Families Conference:

• "I want to take this and lay a strong foundation."

• "The world needs our kids, we have a calling to lead them."

• "Be filled with courage and pursue the vision God has, inviting kids along."

• "I want to be mindful of God in every interaction with my kids and my spouse."

• "We will write a family vision and post it in our home."

• "This event changed the way I look at being the spiritual leader of my family."

• "received a lot of great framework and excited to see the future."

• "great insight on how to coach and to connect!"

It was a great weekend all around. Thank you to the High Impact team for encouraging connections in the Commons this weekend, too.

Blessings, Pastor Henry

Thursday Memo

Hi Five Oakers, The weekend’s coming and there are a few things I don’t want you to miss:

The Weekend

Whenever I’m in CA one thing I do before leaving, every time, is eat a burger, fries and shake from In-N-Out Burger. If you’ve never been, you should know that’s all there is on the menu, except for soft drinks. Aside from the freshness of the ingredients, a big part of the franchise’s success is the lack of choices. Yes, a lack of choices leads to more choosing. (And, yes, I do know about the secret menu and sometimes get my fries “animal style,” but there’s a whole psychology of buying behind so-called “secret menus,” too.)

This weekend we start a brand new 7-week series called “The Choice.” It’s what I call a Story of God series because we’ll be tracing one theme through the whole story. The theme is worship.

Joshua challenges the Israelites to choose whom they will worship in Joshua 24:15. (The Hebrew term he uses for “serve” is the same term for “worship.”)

“…choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Like In-N-Out, he offers limited choices. Unlike In-N-Out, you can’t choose “all the above.” Can you truly understand why not?

If you’re on a strict diet and join me on my trip to In-N-Out, you’ll choose “none of the above.” But Joshua doesn’t offer that option because you can’t not worship. Do you know why?

The Story of God, the sweep of it, offers answers to those questions and many more we have concerning worship. I hope you can make this series because this choice determines everything.

Links You Might Like

// “Where Are the Men? A Feminist Defends Masculinity”

One More Thing

“If we haven't learned to be worshipers, it doesn't really matter how well we do anything else.” (Erwin Lutzer)

Blessings to you all, Pastor Henry