Not-So-Mid-Week Memo

Hi Five Oakers,

I'm a little late this week, but there are still some things I want to share with you.

#1 - My message last week was about the continuation of Jesus' warnings about greed in Luke 12:22-34. Jesus tells us how to fight greed and not end up like the rich fool: look at our money and possessions through the lens of eternity and reflect deeply on our worth to God. God treasures us. We are his treasured possession. Justin and the worship team led us in a quiet reprise of "Furious" as we reflected on our worth to God and prepared for Communion. Here are the lyrics:

Nothing can tear us from
The grip of His mighty love
We’ve only glimpsed, His vast affection
Heard whispers of, His heart and passion
It’s pouring out…

His love is deep, His love is wide
And it covers us
His love is fierce, His love is strong
It is furious
His love is sweet, His love is wild
And it's waking hearts to life

The Father loves and sends His son
The Son lays down His life for all
He lavishes His love upon us
He calls us now, His sons and daughters
He’s reaching out…

#2 - Here are you comments from the Communication Cards:

• Timely (for me!) topic and great sermon today!
• Thanks for the great worship set. Liked the new opening song. Tim I love the stuff you say (great word huh?) in the middle of the opening set. Nice stage – setting contemplative words. Henry, love how you slowed down to let the words sink in. you’ve been doing that consistently for some time now. Another great convicting/inspiring message Henry. [I too love what Tim says and how he says it. All of that is planned as we seek to have every moment count and Tim throws his heart and soul into leading us in worship. Lots of thanks also for Dan Lukas who works behind the scenes planning our prayers, Scripture readings and other elements so critical to our worship each week.]
• Henry, thanks for all that you do. Keep up the good work. Aloha!!  Steve Chorpening [Steve, you will be missed. Thanks for serving faithfully all your years with us. Enjoy Hawaii and God bless you in the time you are stationed there!]
• The lengthier quiet time for reflection/confession at beginning so good. Good that it was longer than a few seconds. Also, great analogy with meals = quiet time daily. [It was good to have two of those kinds of times in our worship this week. Tim's time leading us in quiet confession and Justin's playing softly, leading us in quiet reflection.]
• Love the benedictions at the end of the service – such a blessing as we leave. Thanks!
• Thank you Pastor Henry! Your sermon today, as usual, was timed perfectly with something we have been struggling with personally. It brought perspective insight and most importantly God’s purpose for our lives through His words. You affirm that we need to trust God and I am grateful that you so eloquently say this to us. It is a verbal “slap” that I occasionally need! [Just heeding your comment from a few weeks ago to keep challenging you more. :-)]
• Thank you, Henry, for the very impactful sermon.
• Henry, great sermon today. A topic we all can relate to at varying levels. I noticed you also used lots of “we” statements today. “We struggle with this…” “We all need help with…” etc. this is a great way to level the playing field from the pulpit. Helps folks remember that you are working on these things, too. Thanks for keeping it real, Henry! God bless you.  [Best way to give feedback: Catch someone doing something right and underscore it. Love it. Thank you and a great reminder.]
• Amazing message today!
• Henry, thank you for this message. It’s more than money and more than possessions. God is in control and the more we give complete control, the greatest result is growth in our walk. It’s a life long goal to remember this no matter the anxieties on this earth.
• Love the worship last week and this week. Thanks Justin! 
• God’s got us. We are humbled, grateful, all He has shown us in these horrible times for our family. I will be scared, but I will keep moving because He’s got us, and we will do our part. [Well said, especially with all you are going through. God bless you and keep you strong.] 
• Furious. Like the analogy of “little flock”.  [Yes, that really stood out to me as I reflected on the passage. He does treasure us!]
• Good to be back, sitting under Pastor Henry’s teaching. Thank you Pastor.
• Your message last week may have changed my life. God is working in my life as I act out what I learned through your message. Thank you!  [This is what it's about. God's transformation as we hear his Word, trust him and act on it. Thanks for letting me know.]
• Furious – awesome! [Like I said, my new favorite song, although there are several close seconds.]
• Very passionate! Such an important and powerful reminder for all of us. Thank you, Henry!
• Pastor Henry talked about books on Easter for “skeptics”. Could he recommend one? [It depends how deeply someone is willing to go and what is the nature of the skepticism. But we send out A Search for the Spiritual by James Emery White to anyone who wants to know more. Shorter book, very well written, comprehensive. One of my favorite books of all time is Tim Keller's A Reason for God. But it's much more challenging. And if someone is struggling with anger toward God, The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel is great (this is also available as a documentary on DVD). Another small but powerful book is How Good is Good Enough? by Andy Stanley. His sermon by the same title is powerful. Bill Wilson gives the CD out to folks, and I think I'm going to start doing the same thing. You can download the mp3 here for $1.]
• No lesson outline available on way in! Song words late coming on. [Maybe more people are taking outlines and we need to do more!!! That's good news. Yeah, on the words coming in late, we had an amateur at the wheel this week...sorry to throw you under the bus Dan.]

#3 - In my personal opinion, the addition of prayer stations before Encounter, the addition the prayer times at three points in the evening and the reduction of volume (although still strong) made Encounter a quite powerful experience for Lois and me this week. Justin and some others from the worship team wrote a song that they debuted at Encounter that I think will become a Five Oaks favorite. Loved it!!! And one of the elements I most love about Encounter is how inter-generational it is. Seeing those pre-school kids loving the music and dancing all evening alongside youth and adults...precious! Thanks to all who made the evening of worship and connecting with God so powerful.

#4 - When people write books about the Hard Sayings of Jesus, this week's passage is usually listed. Come ready to be challenged, to learn more about our God and to worship.

That's it for this week. I love you. I pray for you (by name if you give us a request on the Com Cards). See you on the weekend.

Pastor Henry

Mid-Week Memo

Hi Five Oakers,

I have a few things I want to share with you today.

#1 - I loved the third service last weekend. The other two didn't impact me as much. Seemed a little disjointed and irrelevant. But the third service engaged my heart and helped me focus on God. I connected with God in that service.

#2 - Oh yeah, maybe I should tell you why the third service connected with me? It's the only one I attended from start to finish. It's the only one where I heard the call to worship, prayed a Scriptural prayer of confession, sang all the songs and participated in the response stations with my heart engaged and seeking God. It's the one Lois attends (she teaches 5th-6th graders on Saturday nights), so it's the service I attend from start to finish. I was in and out of the other two at various points (mostly in the back of the worship center), and I could hear most of what was happening in the green room, but there's nothing like being in there from start to finish. And, for me, it's important to sit toward the front where there are less distractions. Do I need to spell out the moral of this story? I think you get the point.

#3 - Here are some of the comments on the Com Cards from this last weekend:

• Female vocalist that led song has a beautiful voice. Thanks for sharing your gift and obvious heart for worship. 
• Thank you for telling us what we need to hear. Not what we want to hear. Pastor Henry called out the “ritual” followers – awesome! Do you mean it, when you invite Jesus? Loved it! 
• Great drum work this a.m.! 
• I liked that prayer, the corporate prayer. 
• Thank you for the worship set. Really great message Henry – very well constructed. Great closing song. Cool video Tim! [I love the video. Tim made it in one piece and from what I hear, the conference was quite impacting on the students.]
• Pastor Henry, thank you for your love of God’s word and your desire to share that with all of us. You and your family are in our prayers for wisdom, protection and the daily filling of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for all you do! 
• Thank you Henry, for the “picture” reminder of putting/letting Jesus get in the driver’s seat.[You'll be hearing that one more and more. It's a great illustration of spiritual maturity I picked up from the REVEAL team when I went down to Chicago a few weeks ago. We'll be unpacking that one for some time to come.]
  
• Thank you for your excellent teaching on this passage.
• Excellent illustration of Jesus in the car!
• Henry, your lesson today came at the perfect time for me. It’s so amazing how God continues to work in my personal life. I will be sharing your lesson with a young man [from Africa] that my husband and I have been mentoring. It will be a good spiritual lesson that I hope helps in an area our friend has been struggling in. Thank you. [The more spiritually mature you are in your faith, the more sharing what you've learned with someone else (to help and mentor them) will impact you more than learning it.]
  
• Thank you Worship Band! Henry, thank you for exposing my gods and revealing God’s desire more fully in my life. Thank you. 
• Henry, powerful sermon. Thanks for speaking into our lives.
• Henry, one of your best sermons ever. Thanks! Jon – great to see you on the bass again.
• We enjoyed the dinner at church last week. Any way to make it a regular event! [Maybe. It's something we have begun to consider, but I have no idea if we will.]
• What version was being used today? Didn’t seem to be ESV. [I double checked and it was. Let me know if you notice it again. I wonder if there are differences in the edition I'm using and the one you had.]
• Flickering lights during response too much.

#4 - I received this message from a Five Oaker on Facebook: "My 'Timehop Abe' service that tells me what I was doing a year ago today informs me that last year on this date I was in church, and we were just starting into the book of Luke! I think the last year has been awesome, btw." I had no idea. Looks like it will be a two-year journey since we're about halfway through it.

#5 - My nickle collection is growing! Thank you all who are praying for me and letting me know by giving me a nickle. I want you all to know that I pray for you too. I pray through the prayer requests with the Elders, but then I take it home and continue praying for you every day. If you let me know how to pray for you, you can be assured I will.

#6 - The nickle and prayer idea came from Stephen Kendrick. I love seeing people applying what they learned when he was here. I'd like to know if some of you have started using his family devotions idea. The Elders and I were talking this morning about prayer and Kendrick's sermon and it got me thinking about all the ways we pray as a congregation:

• We pray for people far from God at the Light station.
• Our prayer team and Elders keep busy praying for people who come for prayer during the response time.
• Several other stations focus on prayers of one kind or another.
• We often pray Scripture together in the call to worship, confession and assurance times at the outset of our worship services.
• The worship team prays over every chair every week (representing the people who will sit there) before the Saturday service, and they have several other prayer times each week during rehearsal and during the services.
• We have prayer partners for all of our Kid's Hope mentors. My prayer partner is in regular contact with me. When she drops her daughter off at school on Mondays (the day I mentor), they pray together for the kindergarten boy I'm mentoring at Woodbury Elementary. On Sunday the prayer partners went out to lunch, shared ideas and then went to the school for a "prayer walk."
• The Student Ministry is doing one of the twice a year prayer nights tonight. Justin will lead on acoustic, candles will line the worship area, the kids will have an open mic for sharing requests, and a lot of praying will be happening.
• The Prayer team also prays through the Communication Card prayer requests and sends notes out to the people they prayed for.
• Our daily Group Life integrates prayer into the Bible reflection time for each day.
• All of our small groups spend time praying for each other.

That is just scratching the surface. God invites you to pray. He calls you to prayer. I wish there was a way to pray in your place, reflect on Scripture for you daily and provide substitutionary prayer on your behalf, but there isn't. Only you can do it. And only commitment to it daily will help you grow spiritually. Praying once a week in corporate worship won't cut it (even if you add a second time at your small group meeting.) You simply won't grow into deeper love with God that way. Offering more prayer ministries in our church won't cut it. You have to pray...daily! At some point you need to grow up enough to pray without a pastor leading  you or a program at church facilitating your prayer time. You don't know how? Well Paul Miller gives very practical advice on how to develop a daily prayer habit toward the end of A Praying Life. Get the book. Or meet with someone who knows how to pray and ask them to teach you.

#7 - Here's the only comment we received back this week from the cards we send first time attenders:

• My first impression of Five Oaks was extremely positive.  After one service, I felt I had found a new church home.

#8 - I just downloaded a book from one of the Summit speakers from last year: Humilitas. It cost me $2.99 and I will read it on my Kindle app on my iPad or iPhone. I knew it was on sale because I subscribe to a daily email that announces special deals (I have already downloaded a couple of other books for free this week). Go to Gospel eBooks and get on their mailing list right here. Most deals disappear after 24 hours!

#9 - See if you can detect the order in our worship this coming week. I've been hinting at changes we've been incorporating for weeks now. Nothing different this week from the previous weeks. But when we plan, there is a general movement to the service. Below is what guides our decisions on what to do for each element of the service. All killer; no filler. (At some point in the not-to-distant-future we will begin to offer a worship guide that spells this out, but we're going to keep on just doing it before we start showing it.)

There are basically four movements. There are also movements within movements. But the basic pattern is Revelation and Response. We hear from God through his Word and we respond to his revelation.

So our worship begins with prayers and songs inspired from the Scripture to PREPARE our hearts to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed from the Bible (this includes hearing God's call to gather and worship, confession and assurance of God's forgiveness). As we hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we experience his REVELATION through his Word and the inner, mysterious working of the Holy Spirit. Our RESPONSE to this revelation (and it is crucial that we response) is accomplished through songs, prayers, and practices facilitated through our stations. We close by celebrating the witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that is, God's church at Five Oaks through stories, testimonies and announcements about our church family life; SENDING us off with a benediction reminding us of how we can live in the blessing of God's grace.

Come ready to worship this weekend and God bless you.

In God's love and grace, Pastor Henry