One More Thing

Hi Five Oakers, The weekend's coming and I have a few things I want to share with you.

The Weekend

It's Father's Day this Sunday so I'll be continuing the "To Raise a Family" series. Here are some highlights from past sermons in this series. Invite someone to come who could benefit from more of these kinds of thoughts.

• Raising a family is something we can’t do alone. We need God and we need each other. Especially since we’re preparing our kids to launch into eternity.
• You love your kids best when you love God most. But not by loving them less, but by growing deeper love for God.
• You lead best when your heart burns brightest for God.
• Your faith will be more compelling when your home is marked by fun and laughter.
• God’s loving parental leadership took him all the way to the cross. We reflect that love to our kids the more we reflect on his love for us.
• A heart for God must be trained by the grace of God.
• I don't have to be the expert on what I teach my kids. God's power is made perfect in my weakness.
• Pray for what you most want for your kids.
• As a follower of Christ, sometimes it’s easy to forget what it is that produces all those good things that we want for them. We become focused on those things themselves. But eternal life, true joy, true fulfillment, a moral life are all produced by living in a faith-based relationship with God. God produces those things for us and in us through an on-going relationship with us.

By the way, this weekend's sermon will be based on what we can learn about God and us when Jesus reveals God's Fatherhood to us in the Lord's Prayer.

And guys, don't forget to wear an ugly tie.

FYI

D. L. Mayfield on "Why I Gave Up Alcohol: In a rush to shed our separatist past, have young evangelicals forgotten to love their neighbors?"

In the past few years, though, my beliefs have changed—or been changed. My husband and I joined a Christian order among the poor, inspired by the likes of Shane Claiborne, who seek the face of Christ among the most marginalized of society. Our first shock when we moved into our low-income apartment in a Midwestern inner city was the amount of substance abuse that surrounded us.

Rachel Marie Stone on "Richard Dawkins Has Reason to Fear the Fairy Tale"

Frankly, it's hard for me to think of a fairy tale, or a canonical work of children's literature that doesn't in some way touch on "deep questions." A professor friend who teaches a course on theological themes in children's literature at a Christian university told me that it's "really a class about the meaning of life."

Kelli B. Trujillo on "Kick Your Husband Out of the House: Trust me, it’s good for your marriage"

I know I'm a better me when I'm connected with friends. But when I'm lonely or isolated or disconnected from community? Let me be honest: In those seasons, I'm more stressed, I'm crabbier, I'm impatient, I'm critical, I'm less happy. And I'm less me. While friendships enrich, loneliness depletes. And this is why I, every so often, kick my husband out of the house: because he, too, has a deeply-ingrained, God-given need for friendship—a need that isn't suddenly erased by marriage.

One More Thing

I'll be in Cuba next week with Lois and Dave Baar. Dave is leading our Global Leadership Summit international initiative. This will be the first ever Summit in Cuba and it will take place in Havana.

I haven't been there since I was a toddler, my second trip and last trip to Cuba. I was there with my grandmother and she was there for surgery. About that time the country was closing to travel and my mom was concerned about having trouble getting me back to our home in Miami. My grandmother was still recovering, so she asked a flight attendant friend for help, and she brought me home on her very next trip to Cuba. Hoping for lot less drama this time around.

Please pray for us. Next year we plan to be the primary church working with Willow and the churches in Santiago, Cuba. The plan for this trip is that we will meet some of the key leaders for that Summit as they attend this year in Havana. Pray for those meetings. Pray also for the effectiveness of the Summit (it will be last summer's dubbed into Spanish). And pray as we begin to discern what kind of ongoing role Five Oaks can have in Cuba.

One More Thing

Hi Five Oakers, The weekend's coming and I have a few things I want to share with you:

The Weekend

When Bob Goff began his talk at the Summit last summer I never would have imagined we'd be featuring him this year at one of our weekend services. He was simply and profoundly awkward in his presentation. By the time he was done, I was simply and profoundly amazed by the greatness and goodness of God. You will not want to miss it.

FYI

Michael Warden on "Why I Stopped Doing Quiet Times"

To be a leader for the Kingdom of Heaven, you need your daily time with God to amount to more than a warm fuzzy or a list of Scriptures to memorize. You need to actually meet with the real Jesus. You need to reconnect to what is most deeply true about Him, about you and about the life you’re living. You need to receive power. You need be refreshed. You need to get strategic direction for the day ahead. And you need all of it to be real.

Jeremy Treat on "Grace is Not a Thing"

I used to think of grace as a spiritual substance that God stores in piles behind his heavenly throne and dispenses to his people below. In other words, grace is stuff that God gives apart from himself. How wrong I was! Grace is not a thing. Grace is not stuff that God gives us apart from himself. He doesn’t run out of it. God gives us himself when we don’t deserve it; that is grace. The oft-repeated definition of grace as an undeserved gift is right but does not go far enough when referring to the grace of God. Grace is a gift, but God is not only the giver, he himself is the gift. God graces us with himself.

One More Thing

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36; ESV)

Maybe you've heard me talk about the importance of scheduling your compassion. Here's what I mean by that.

As the school year comes to an end, two activities Lois and I do weekly also come to an end. Every Friday I go to Woodbury Elementary and meet for one hour with a second grade student through our Kid's Hope program. He and I have been meeting since he was in kindergarten. Lois is finishing up her second year tutoring Hmong elementary students on Wednesday afternoons through a program with the Union Gospel Mission.

We will back at it in the fall. Both of us can tell you stories of the difference longevity makes in those relationships and the impact we can have on the kids.

I'm also amazed how well known our church is in those two organizations because so many of our members are making an impact at Woodbury Elementary and the Union Gospel Mission. As pastor of Five Oaks I'm sometimes treated like a celebrity in those places!

But Lois and I could also tell you about the power of making a commitment and then showing up. I'm not tooting our own horns, I'm simply saying that scheduling time each week to impact the world for Christ (outside of my church or my normal sphere of influence) is essential for us. And that's what I mean by scheduling compassion. It doesn't preclude everyday acts of kindness God calls us to do. It's simply a way of making sure my life is not all about me and mine and about getting me out of my comfort zone.

One of the most important things a mature Christian can do to grow spiritually is to give of themselves through ministry in the church and in the world. It stretches them, causing them to depend even more on God, and it puts their biblical knowledge to work. Of course, everyone grows through this, but the impact increases the more you mature.

My thanks go out to all of you who serve at Five Oaks and who are Five Oaks out in the world. Thanks also to the Women's Ministry for all the toys they donated to kids at Woodbury Elementary through our Kid's Hope U.S.A. ministry.