Behind the Scenes at Five Oaks - May 17, 2017

I want to call your attention to three recent posts from our Five Oaks staff team. I hope they encourage you and give you a peak behind the scenes.

Do you know about our new Concierge ministry?  It's incredible. Check it out here.

Children's Ministry Co-Director Rhiannon Rutledge and the Family & Discipleship Team traveled to Atlanta for the Orange conference on family ministry. Here she reflects on one way it impacted her.

You see Aimee Thornton leading worship regularly, but did you know she also writes our weekend liturgies? (Yes, we have weekend liturgies...all killer no filler in our services...every element intentional and purposeful, proclaiming the gospel...). Here Aimee writes about purpose in our desert experiences. 

Crucial Mistakes We Make When Assessing Our Circumstances

A few years ago, when I went through my toughest season in ministry and experienced some of the deepest sense of failure as a leader, right in the middle of it, I was in a meeting with the Governing Board, talking about some of the challenges of that season. We were going to spend some time praying for our church. But one of our Board members, hearing me assess the situation, bluntly said, “Henry, first thing you’ve got to do is get over your anger.”

One of those crucial mistakes is arrogance born in success.

And he was right. I was angry, and it wasn’t helping anything. In fact, it was hurting everything. 

And my anger was based on my assessment of the situation. My assessment was off because I couldn’t see how my anger was contributing to the problems and I couldn’t see my contribution to the problems I was facing. 

When we face a challenging situation, there are lots of mistakes we can make that, at best, don't do anything to help the situation, and, at worse, will make things worse. 

We’re looking at three of those mistakes this week, illustrated in the story of Gideon found in Judges 6 and 7. 

Avoiding these mistakes when we’re facing challenging situations will get us part of the way to courageously and graciously enduring the situation or correcting the situation in a healthy way.