Wednesday Memo: Exciting News!

Hi Five Oakers, I have a couple of things I want to share with you:

// Five Oaks is now a Global Leadership Summit site for the August 14 & 15 Summit! The cost for Five Oakers will be $79. No better time to attend than this summer. No better time to invite people from work. We'll share all kinds of ways of doing this and stories from members who have done this with great results. Start praying now about who you can invite. And get it in your calendar so you can plan around it if possible. This is in addition to the site we will help sponsor internationally. We’re still working on the location for that one.

// Here's Tim Bubar’s sermon from last weekend in 10 tweets: “Signing Up for Being Stuck” (Exodus 32)

1. My kids hate to put on their coats. It's like they want to be miserable....like they're signing up for being stuck.
2. The Israelites probably didn't feel like they were replacing God - just adding a more tangible, manageable option.
3. "An idol is anything you seek to give you what only God can give you." - Tim Keller
4. We sign up for being stuck when we get impatient with God and take a short cut to feeling like everything is going to be ok.
5. “O Israel, stay away from idols! I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you. I am like a tree that is always green; all your fruit comes from me.” (Hos. 14:8)
6. Our impulses, our intuition, can lead us to astray. "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." (Prov. 14:12)
7. Repentance is about turning around.  Its a heart turning back to God.
8. "My turning around was what kept my daughter safe, but of course it was the only thing I would do when I realized I was going the wrong direction."
9. God is constantly telling his people to remember who he is, what he has done, and how things have gone when they followed him and when they went their own way.
10. We remember through scripture, songs, the Lord's Supper.

Blessings, Pastor Henry

Lightning Round

Tuesday is the all-staff lunch day and we do a lightning round on what’s happening in different ministries. Here are some highlights:

• The campaign total will be announced this weekend.
• The Five Oaks Christmas CD is just about done.

• Jeni Carlson has a new blog for Family Ministries. Check it out here.

• This weekend worship will be an acoustic weekend.
• We’ve got a new post card invite strategy for Christmas.
• 12 kids made first time decisions a week ago during Cross the Line of Faith weekend!!!
• The fall session of Village Schools of the Bible is complete. On to the New Testament for the Winter/Spring session.
• The Thanksgiving bag total is went up to 586.
• We now have 15 matched Kids Hope mentors at Woodbury Elementary.
• The Peru mission trip is full.
• Haiti has about 10 so far.
• One of Impact team leaders is working on a scholarship for one of the orphans from our orphanage in Haiti in conjunction with Teen Challenge Haiti.
• Brian Burquest met with reps from the assisted living development which is breaking ground in the spring and will go in behind the new grocery store that’s going in at Radio and Bailey.
• The Communications team is working on a long-term plan to reach out to everyone within a five-mile radius of our campus.
• As many as 6 new people are joining the worship team in various capacities.
• The youth winter all-nighter is coming between Christmas and Easter. They spend the evening in the building and do projects for the church as part of the evening.