Five Oaks Survival Manual - Introduction

It doesn't take long after starting to attend Five Oaks before you realize we have our own language and way of doing things. All churches, organizations, groups and families do. At Five Oaks, if you call it a "bulletin," someone will quickly correct you. "It's a 'worship program.'" We don't have a lobby or foyer at the Woodbury campus. It's the "commons." And don't call the gym a gym. It's the CLC or Community Life Center.

And that's the easy part to get. The harder things to understand have to do with the culture: response time, small groups, daily Group Life, the meaning of membership at Five Oaks, why we fill out Communication Cards every week (and ask everyone to fill one out).

The reality is that over time many long-time members forget the why behind the what. As one of our Elders said at one of our meetings, "Someone asked me to convince him that membership was important, and I'm not sure I gave him a good answer. What should I tell him when I call him back?"

So consider this a "survival" manual if you're new and a refresher course if you've been around for a while. The subjects may seem mundane, but what I'm going to cover in this series of posts is actually quite important to our mission. It's not the only way to do things, but it is the way we do some very important things. Hope this Survival Manual helps.