Mother's Day Photo Bloopers

Here are some the "bloopers" and fun shots we showed in our services last week from the Mother's Day photos. These pictures were really awesome. I hope to create a sense of regret in anyone that missed out so that you don't make the same mistake twice.

Thank you to all the volunteers who devoted hours to this, especially Davin Dong who trained our photographers and did most of the editing. Thanks also go out to David Gafford who organized the whole event and did a lot of the heavy lifting to pull it off. 

The "Witness Protection Family" Portrait

The "Sorry Girls He's Taken" Portrait

The "I've been taking so many pictures I've gone wacky" Portrait

The "Perpetual Motion" Portrait

The "We're sick and tired of him ruining every family portrait" Portrait

The "Empty Nesters In Love" Portrait

Five Oaks Survival Manual - Introduction

It doesn't take long after starting to attend Five Oaks before you realize we have our own language and way of doing things. All churches, organizations, groups and families do. At Five Oaks, if you call it a "bulletin," someone will quickly correct you. "It's a 'worship program.'" We don't have a lobby or foyer at the Woodbury campus. It's the "commons." And don't call the gym a gym. It's the CLC or Community Life Center.

And that's the easy part to get. The harder things to understand have to do with the culture: response time, small groups, daily Group Life, the meaning of membership at Five Oaks, why we fill out Communication Cards every week (and ask everyone to fill one out).

The reality is that over time many long-time members forget the why behind the what. As one of our Elders said at one of our meetings, "Someone asked me to convince him that membership was important, and I'm not sure I gave him a good answer. What should I tell him when I call him back?"

So consider this a "survival" manual if you're new and a refresher course if you've been around for a while. The subjects may seem mundane, but what I'm going to cover in this series of posts is actually quite important to our mission. It's not the only way to do things, but it is the way we do some very important things. Hope this Survival Manual helps.