Monday Memo

Hi Five Oakers, I have a few things I want share with you today:

Here’s the video from the weekend. Thank you, Lehns, for sharing your story.

[FOR] - Lehn Family from Five Oaks on Vimeo.

Here’s a selection from your comments, observations and questions from the weekend Communication Cards.

• So fun to be back.  Scott & Kate Teece [Great to see you guys!]

• Thank you for putting outline for notes in bulletin. Saves me from running to get one! [Just one more week of that. Sorry.]

• Thank you for the daily text message – great reminder.

• Love you Lord, Love this church! The worship is fantastic, the messages always outstanding and the spirit of God is here! I love the “For” series and campaign. It has really challenged me to live with my hands open to give freely, because I don’t own it anyway and I trust God and know he will give back in ways unknown. How can we not love a God who has given so much including His son? Henry, loved the analogy to your neighborhood gang. It made the story come alive.

• Enjoyed the service so much today. Thank you for bringing me back to my neighborhood, anytime something can stir up memories of my childhood neighborhood brings me pure joy. Thank you for your message.

• I am so grateful to the rag team group of people for Five Oaks because of them MY LIFE has been changed forever! Thank you, Henry, for speaking to our hearts and for challenging us. I commit: wherever I am whenever I am able, I will reach out to whoever I can, however possible!

• I really like the ragtag insight and am pleased to be a part of it. Thank you for pushing us to grow spiritually with the “whoever” and “however” commitment.

• Great message, thank you for so clearly sharing God’s word to us Henry! Great worship experience, thank you team!

• “Always” was exceptional.

• Song – Jesus your name is power..was moving. Well done worship team!

• Thank you for the gluten free communion! I’ve just had to give up gluten.

• As part of our capital campaign (For) have we considered increasing our outreach? Seems like a great opportunity to make this aspect of Five Oaks even more powerful. Expanding His reach. [Yes. Part of the campaign money goes to staffing that will help us become more effective at outreach. In addition to that, after having spent the last three years or so working on what we call the “meal” we serve at Five Oaks (that is, our discipleship plan/process) and, more recently, working on the “presentation of the meal,” our number one priority is to become better at inviting people to the meal. If you missed my sermon from August 10 on the “Meal”, I encourage you to check it out: audio or video. And the next series and our Christmas services are perfect to invite someone to come and “eat.”]

Thanks for all your comments and questions.

Blessings,

Pastor Henry

Thursday Memo

Hi Five Oakers, The weekend’s coming and there are a few things I don’t want you to miss:

The Weekend

We recently saw the movie Captain Phillips. It’s based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of a U.S. cargo ship. There are several scenes featuring Navy SEAL’s. Everything about them screams “elite”—elite force, elite team, elite soldiers.

Most of us don’t feel like “elite” anything. We’ll never be a part of anything like a SEAL team. Yet God has chosen us to be part of his team. Look at the disciples or the early church and “ragtag” comes more to mind than “elite.” Jesus said “whoever believes” and the whoevers who believed were anything but elite.

If you feel more “ragtag” than “elite,” my sermon this weekend will show you, from Scripture, that God uses ragtag communities of people and individuals to change the world. And you can change the world. You probably already are making an impact, in often imperceptible ways, if you’re simply seeking Christ daily. Come this weekend for week six of the our FOR [  ] series—“FOR [ Whoever ].”

If you want to really show up ready, then go to Show up Ready.

Helpful Links

It’s Halloween and I love to scare people and I have this strange theory that God loves to scare people. So I found this article very interesting: Ghost Stories for the Christian Soul.

One More Thing

This week was Kings and Prophets in our Story of God study. We had some interesting discussion in my small group around the depth of David’s sins of adultery and then murder. David paid a great personal price for his sins even though he was forgiven, but God didn’t reject him as he did Saul. Why?

You may not only feel more ragtag than elite, you may also feel useless or discarded because of sin. If you are God's child by faith, you need to know God will never reject you. There is no condemnation for you and nothing can separate you from God’s love. Reread Romans 8 if you need to be reminded.

But becoming useful again does require repentance. That was one of the differences between Saul and David. Saul spiraled into despair because of unresolved sin and David repented. Repentance isn’t just a thing we do once when we come to Christ. Repentance is a change of mind and sorrow of heart that leads to fruitfulness for God.

You may not be elite, but you are never discarded or useless in Christ. Be encouraged by that. Let that lead you to repentance and usefulness in God's kingdom.

Blessings to you all, Pastor Henry