Mid-Week Memo

Hi Five Oakers,

I have NINE things I want to share with you today.

#1 - Warren Coe was our teacher over the weekend. Great message illustrating how the Bible tells one story. By the way, Warren will be teaching the Cover to Cover class at Five Oaks that starts this January. Three semesters of the Story of God on steroids (that’s how I describe it). We’ll get more info out on this in the coming months.

#2 - Get a recap of the service with highlights of our prayers, readings and songs at http://5oaks.info/.

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

• Praise God for this church. May He always be the main focus!
• Very interested in the marriage conference. Can’t wait to hear more. [I’m also starting a short, three-week marriage series in two weekends.]
• Thank you – great message, especially during a time of such uncertainty in the world.
• The acoustic guitar player is really good. [I agree, but in the interest of full disclosure, I know she would say, “Thanks, Mom and Dad.”]
• Tim, you look good in glasses. 
• Still having trouble finding a small group that fits into my life/schedule. [I hope you find one. If it’s just not possible, I suggest you do the Story of God book on your own or with one other person.]
• Thank you Warren! Learned a ton! Yay Justin on the Holy Spirit moment leading us.
• Thank you for the worship set! Loved it guys. Fantastic message and closing set. Loved the Challenge Justin and raise your hands! 
• How Great Thou Art. Scarlett thread of redemption in my live. Love the Hymn!
• Thanks for offering Cover to Cover – great idea! I’m looking forward to it – right up my alley. Praying that I can get my husband to join me! Great worship Justin!
• Thank you for bringing Warren to Five Oaks. Great message. Praise God for His blessings and protection in my life! 

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

• 9/24 I visited with my fiancé – I am new to the area.  I really enjoyed the biblical foundation of the message and the stations during the worship service.  I’ve never seen that before!

#5 - I think most of your small groups will be kicking off the Story of God study this week. I want to strongly encourage you to stay current, use the two open days each week to catch up if you do fall behind and by all means, finish.

#6 - Parents, take your family through the Story of God using the “Do You Devo?” Resource. You can pick it up each week or download it here.

#7 - On a personal note, my oldest son got engaged to a wonderful young woman last weekend. They’re visiting this coming weekend and so are our youngest and his wife, so Lois and I are pretty stoked about this weekend.

#8 - I’ll be wrapping up the Eat This Book series on the weekend. We’re looking at the last three of five questions we need ask when we read the Bible in order to read it well. No more ketchup on God’s Word. The following week I’m launching a three-week series on marriage. We’ll get back to Luke after that.

#9 - Kent and I are in CA first half of this week for a Small Groups Ministry workshop at North Coast Church. Very valuable time here. Small groups are so central to our ministry discipleship strategy that we're always trying to learn how to do it better. Kent is the best guy we could ever have leading this ministry. We are blessed.

Blessing to you, Pastor Henry

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