Want to Win as a Family This Year?

By John Eiselt

In the book based movie, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, we are caught up in the journey of a family as they encounter the daily challenge and chaos that is life as a family. As they journey together through this “very bad day”, we see the heart of their family through their struggles, and successes. It is story that has so many pieces to it, we can’t help but laugh, cry, and identify with their journey.

Families come in all shapes, and sizes and each is unique in many ways. Your family is on a journey and we want to help you to thrive together spiritually. 

God has uniquely equipped the family to be the primary influence for faith development. Along the way, there are many different essential steps to bringing the story of God into the lives of our kids. 

In the midst of our busy lives, it’s hard to know which steps to take, when to take them, and how to take them together as a family. What you need is a guide to meet your family wherever you are on your journey.

With all of that in mind, we are very excited to introduce the Family Discipleship Journey this fall at Five Oaks. 

The Five Oaks Family Discipleship Journey is the a comprehensive approach to how the church and the family partner together for greater influence in the lives of kids and families. 

This comprehensive approach is an effort that is three years in the making and is the mobilization of the core ministries at Five Oaks to better partner with every family at every phase.

Among the many questions we’ve asked during this process, at the core we’ve been on a journey to discover:

• What do families need?

• What do families want?

• How can we better mobilize our ministries to meet families where they are at on their journey?

• Ultimately, how can we better partner with the family to bring the story of God to life in the next generation?

Our Family & Discipleship Ministry Team is ready to come along side of your family to guide you and equip you wherever you are on your journey as a family. 

Join us Wednesday, August 14th from 6:30-8:00 pm for the Five Oaks Family Ministry Kickoff as we launch this new family initiative to help your family journey better together! You will leave this gathering informed about what is coming, inspired about how the church and the family will partner together this year, and excited about the experiences that await you and your family!

How Our Preaching Plan Will Impact Your Life (Part 5)

This is a five-part series on our preaching plan for the next ministry year. These are longer posts, so read the bold highlights only for a quicker review of the content.

We’ll close the fall out with a series on joy. The working title is “Finding Joy and Satisfaction in Shifting Circumstances.” 

This series focuses on how to find our deepest satisfaction and joy in God in all circumstances. Who’s not looking for joy? And who’s not susceptible to looking in all the wrong places or consistently missing the joy set before us? I pretty sure we all struggle with this one.

Our Advent series—“Holy Night”—will focus on the holiness of God as revealed in the birth narratives of the gospels. Sermons include “A Pining World,” “The Soul Finds Its Worth,” “Fall On Your Knees,” and “A Thrill of Hope.”

A series on the counter-cultural message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount will kick off the new year in January. 

After Easter, we’re planning a series on family and related issues. As of now, the four sermons in the series will look at the church as a family, marriage and the mystery of Christ, reclaiming sexuality, and parenting with the end in view. Russell Moore’s book The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home will serve as a great jumping off point and recommended resource. 

Following that series, later in the spring, we’ll spend about five weeks in the book of Jonah. Jonah is a book seeking to increase our passion for introducing people to God, and that’s my hope for that series…in my life and yours. 

Then we’ll spend most of the summer in a series on on getting to know God better. We’ll take our cue from the subjects covered in Jen Wilkin’s None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (And Why That's a Good Thing). 

I hope this helps build your anticipation for what’s coming. It’s going to be a great journey!

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash