Monday Memo

Hi Five Oakers, Here are the comments from Communication Cards this past weekend:

• Beautiful, truth-filled sermon.

• Loved the music, loved the sermon, loved the message. Well done!

• Packed with scripture this week, love it.

• Henry, thanks for helping us see our “responsibility” to other believers and for the world thru worship. If Christ cares to call us to worship, how can we refuse? Music was rocking. Lifting up our Lord!

• I just want to say that I can’t remember a time I did not benefit from attending a church service at Five Oaks (and many other churches). There have been a few times I’ve considered not going, then attended anyway and thought of what I would have missed had I stayed away.

• Resolution 6/52. Yes! Praise God.

• Connected families conference this weekend was an awesome experience!

• I don’t want to lose Tim Bubar to GQ magazine. I think he deserves a raise.  [I'm still trying to figure this one out.]

• Along with salting the sidewalk, the handicapped parking spaces should get cleaned/salted. Today I picked up an elderly man that slipped getting out of his car, on ice, and couldn’t get up.  [Noted. Thanks.]

• Can we give a reminder for people to go lighter on their perfumes? I’m all for people smelling nice, but it’s difficult for others to focus on worship with so many different strong perfumes around me causing my eyes to water and my nose to itch.

• Loved the transition from song to Tim’s wording/reading back to song – beautiful crescendo.  Tim you always strike the proper mood and balance with your remarks whether serious or humorous.  Henry ditto on my comment for Tim.  You are both so inviting, warm and appropriately humorous.  Jeremy, you provide a strength to musical leadership , thanks for your service.  You anchor it and lead.  Wonderful, wonderful message.

And here are some of the key takeaways from attenders to the Connected Families Conference:

• "I want to take this and lay a strong foundation."

• "The world needs our kids, we have a calling to lead them."

• "Be filled with courage and pursue the vision God has, inviting kids along."

• "I want to be mindful of God in every interaction with my kids and my spouse."

• "We will write a family vision and post it in our home."

• "This event changed the way I look at being the spiritual leader of my family."

• "received a lot of great framework and excited to see the future."

• "great insight on how to coach and to connect!"

It was a great weekend all around. Thank you to the High Impact team for encouraging connections in the Commons this weekend, too.

Blessings, Pastor Henry

One More Thing

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

The Weekend

Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors, kicked up a bit of a blog storm by saying he doesn't attend church services much anymore. He explains that he's not an audible learner and he doesn't connect with God through singing, so why go. I may or may not talk about this in my sermon this weekend, but I will speak to the idea that gathering for worship with a local expression of the body of Christ (his bride) is a low priority for followers of Christ.

Links You Might Like

// Here's the post by Donald Miller (who, incidentally, I will still love to read): "I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere." And here's a response to the comments on his blog: "Why I Don’t Go to Church Very Often, a Follow Up Blog."

// "5 Ways People Pleasing Can Undercut Your Parenting"

One More Thing

We have two more weeks in the Worship series. Next week is about worship and our spiritual formation. The last week of the series will explore the four movements of our worship service and how they reflect important elements of worship.

What's next? A four-week series on Elijah and then a 13-week series on Galatians. What's exciting is that our Group Life team has been writing all the studies ahead of time and we will publish the Group Life Galatians' study as a book.