Thursday Memo

Hi Five Oakers

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

#1 – Here’s the video Alex Hovda wrote, starred in, filmed and edited. Dan Lukas asked him to do a video about his baptism and this is what came out. Loved it! Alex was an intern this past summer and he now works for us part-time on our social media communications.

#2 – Beginning November 4, we will be moving our 9:30am service to 9:15am. The extra 15 minutes between services will be used to alleviate the congestion between services (especially in Children’s Ministry check-in areas). We are not adding more time to our services.

#3 – Here’s a comment we received from the cards we send first-time guests:

• 9/16 We were confused about the different stations but there was a brief explanation at the next church service we went to.  We did grab an information sheet that explained it now. [We’ve got a plan to address this in a better way. Should be coming pretty soon. Should also help our members better understand how our entire service fits together and flows. All killer; no filler.]

#4 – We’re changing how we do our yearly audit. Starting next year we will be hiring a firm to do a professional audit. It’s long overdue. Ask anyone who has served on this committee. But this also means we need people on the Audit Committee who can take the professional report and advise our Board. Could you help us in this way? Let me know. Membership is required for this committee.

#5 – Almost all the copies of the Story of God book were sold last week. We ordered more. This copy of the book, like the previous edition, is still in beta. I’m hoping soon to get a thorough professional edit done, so if you see some glaring grammatical issues or typos, please let me know. I know they are there, especially in the closing chapters, which are new. When I received the hard copy last week, I opened to one of the new chapters and within one minute found an omitted word, so I know they are probably legion! At least the cover is flawless!

#6 – I love it when our small group leaders offer the communion elements like this last weekend. I love that our church sees our key front-line pastors on those weekends and that we get to “preach the gospel” when you take the elements.

#7 – As we start of our new ministry year, we launch our new ministry plan. The plan is developed by the Staff Leadership Team and approved by the Governing Board. We have five initiatives this year and I’ll share one per week over the next few weeks. Just remember, these are initiatives, they do not include all the priorities we have in our on-going ministry of making disciples of kids, students and adults.

Initiative 2: Leaders will take next steps to deepen their passion for and surrender to Christ and to model it for others.

You’ll notice that our first two of the five initiatives are addressed to leaders (see the first initiative here). "Leaders" includes staff, Board, Elders, small group leaders, teachers, directors, etc. Evidence suggests next steps will have a personal risk elements so that we are stretched and moved to depend more on Christ. It goes without saying that as our leaders go, so goes our church.

#8 – This weekend's message is an extended illustration of how knowing the Story of God impacts our ability to eat the Book well. Hope to see you there.

#9 – I’m speaking at our Men’s Retreat Saturday morning on “7 Dumb Things Men Do to Sabotage Their Spiritual Growth.” The first one might be "they don't read The Story of God book." Then again, maybe not.

That’s all for today. God bless you all, Pastor Henry

Wednesday Memo

Hi Five Oakers,

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

#1 - Get a recap of the service with highlights of our prayers, readings and songs here.

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

• Great message today – liked the description of purity laws (Jesus fulfilled) and the moral laws (still for today)! 
• Would it be possible to get a bulletin board put up? I have a friend who called me to put up a flyer about a fund raiser, but there was no where to put it. [Not sure if we will, but it’s not on our radar. Thanks.]
• Awesome explanation regarding the purity laws versus the moral laws!
• Fantastic, beautiful worship set. I think “Praise Him”. Hillsong is one of my favorites. And the last song of the opening set was absolutely moving. Thanks for the message!
• I love this series! I am learning so many new ways to think about the word of God. Thank you Henry! Awesome message.
• Justin rocks!
• Henry, great sermon! Love your enthusiasm and passion for God’s word!
• Awesome message and delivery.
• Great message, Henry. Time to put away the ketchup! (and feast on the Word).
• Book of John (life giving Spirit). Epistles of Paul (Fifth Gospel).
• Thank you, Henry, for challenging us, for motivating us and for your directness.
• Thanks for another great message, Henry!
• Henry, thank you for helping me love the Bible and God’s word even more!
• Again lovely analogies Henry. Looking forward to this wonderful breakdown into scripture.
• BSF/Bible Study Fellowship – expository teaching, reading and discussion is this burning/changing in our hearts.- an eight year training course. God’s word is the only thing that can change lives. Thank you for this teaching also at Five Oaks. 
• Been using text giving for past few months. It is slick! Very easy and makes it easy for church to process! [Did Brian Burquest put you up to saying this? Just kidding. Yeah, there are many ways to give and text giving is one of them. Contact the church office if you’d like to know about how to give electronically through withdrawals, by texting or in other ways: office@fiveoakschurch.org.]
• How is it that I can come here upset or angry and always leave at peace and changed? Thank you.
• Prayer for service attendance between services 1-4 graders this week in the CLC: 7 at 4:30, 71 at 9:30 and 19 at 11. [Yes, this is a problem. We are going to change service times on Sunday to accommodate more time between services, but it also might help with this a little.]
• Marriage conference during hunting season? Want to attend, but doesn’t work. [Yeah, bummer. I’m not sure if we could have gotten another date for Rob Rinow to come and do his seminar. We booked him last year and his schedule was already pretty much full. But I do admit, we don’t have any hunters on staff so it’s easy to miss. I’m thinking most non-hunters may not get how important this is to hunters, but I just think of a church scheduling a marriage conference during the Super Bowl since I’m a big NFL fan.]

#3 - Here’s a recap of the message in 10 tweets:

1. Week 2 of “Eat This Book” series based on Luke 18:31-34.
2. If u put ketchup on expensive steak I'll attack you ruthlessly even tho it's unimportant. But how you eat this Book is vitally important.
3. When u read the Bible without carefully listening carefully to what Gos is actually saying you are slathering it in ketchup.
4. Where is this passage located within the unfolding story of God?
5. Most of the Bible story is told w/out clearly revealing the climax in the cross & resurrection. Suffering & glory, yes, but not the details
6. You can't watch the 6th Sense the same the 2nd time. The end reinterprets everything. U see what was really happening all along.
7. I would be inconsistent if I had to keep purity laws & sacrifices of the OT be/ I'm now made pure & right thru Christ's purity & sacrifice
8. Purity laws tied to OT worship. Moral laws based on unchanging character of God. They still reveal how to live reflecting God's image.
9. Tim Keller: “The coming of Christ changed how we worship but it didn't change how we live."
10. Lk 24:32 -"Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

#4 - Off the Cutting Room Floor (good stuff that got cut from the message):

You have a basic choice when it comes to the authority of the Bible. You can accept what Jesus and the apostles said about it and therefore let it have authority in your life—shaping what you believe and how you think and how you live. Or you can decide YOU are a higher authority and know best how to sort out truth from fiction in this book. You can pick and choose what you want to believe and what you think is right. But what you can’t do—and really make any sense at all in doing it—is say you believe in Jesus (you follow him as his disciple), but you don’t believe what he believed about the Bible.

If you’re not convinced in the accuracy and authority of the Bible I urge you to explore this question some more and test your assumptions. There are a lot of great resources for this. But it’s from this book that you learn about Jesus and the resurrection. Jesus came from a people of the Book. You really can’t have Jesus without the Book. The Book is part of the package. You take it out and the whole thing falls apart.

Talk to you tomorrow, Pastor Henry