H. Henry Williams

Camp Getaway

Here's a fun video shot at Camp Getaway. I love seeing all these students having a great time, learning about Jesus and deepening their friendships. If you're reading this in an email, you'll need to go the blog site to watch. Simply click on the title.

The Vital Importance of Advance Commitments

Hi Five Oakers,

One crucial feature of the FOR [   ] campaign is the collection of Advance Commitments. These are not advance gifts but the earliest commitments letting us know what someone hopes to give toward the campaign over the next three years. 

There's a biblical precedent for this and you find it 1 Chronicles 29. David collected first from the leaders when he raised funds for the temple, then he announced their gifts to the rest of the people. The lead gifts encouraged the rest of the people.

Would you be willing to encourage others by making an advance commitment? (The total from the advance commitments will be shared on the day we hand out commitment cards to the entire congregation.)

Here's how you can make an advance commitment. Let me know you would like to, and someone will sit down with you, explain the details of the campaign and leave a commitment card with you. That's it. They will not collect the card or sell you anything. Information and some inspiration. That's it. You will send in the card. You can make a big difference by making an advance commitment.

Some of you have been invited to attend home visit training. I hope this helps you understand why it's important. Will you please RSVP and attend the training on Sunday? If you choose to do some home visits, you will simply sit with someone you know, share information and leave a commitment card. That's it.

Some of you wll be contacted for a home visit by someone you know to share information about the campaign and leave a card. That's it. When asked, please say yes. We're asking to meet with you because you are already invested in this ministry.

The FOR [    ] campaign starts this weekend! I really can't wait. See you on the weekend.

Blessings,

Pastor Henry

 

Have you checked out our new Five Oaks website?

If not, go and do a little exploring here. While you're there, "like" us on Facebook if you haven't already. 

13-year Old Girls, Bass Guitarists and the Lonely Instrument

That’s a picture of Legend Rutledge playing and singing with the Worship Team this last weekend. It was her first weekend on the worship team. Here’s what I love about it, and so will you: she just turned 13! She basically taught herself to play guitar. She served with excellence, and we’ll be seeing more of her on the team.

Now look to the right of Legend, the space usually occupied by one of our bass guitarists. Yeah, it’s empty. The ones who serve us faithfully, week in and week out, weren’t able to play this weekend. The guy Dan called from outside the church to fill in dropped out at the last minute. Apparently something better came along. No buy-in like our Five Oaks’ regulars. Dan made up for it, sort of, with his Mac.

This last picture represents that instrument you use to play that is stored down in your basement or  deep in one of your closets. You took lessons and played that for more years than Legend has been alive. You’ve been thinking about dusting if off and giving it a try again. You were once good enough at it to contribute to a band. You’re thinking right now you might be able to help us fill that space (or others like it) and touch someone’s heart by serving on the worship team.

Think you're off the hook because you don't play anything? Think again. I could also show you pictures of thirteen-year-olds that help in our Children's Minsitry and do a great job week in and week out. You can make a contribution in almost any area of our ministry. So check out the opportunities this weekend.

Batman

Something we learned at the Summit this year...

Put a bowl of apple slices and a bowl of candy bars out for Halloween and about 9% of the kids will choose the apples slices. How do you get about half to choose the apples? A social scientist made one change: A picture of Batman over the two bowls with the caption, "What would Batman eat?"

So Dan Lukas got this idea for our next invite card.

The Meal

Five Oakers, if you missed this last weekend’s message, I’d love for you to listen online. If you were there, here’s a quick hit list of some of the items I mentioned under the meal, the presentation and the invitation.

The Meal

Most of these are items we've already completed:

• More Bible teaching in the sermons.
• Preaching through books of the Bible.
• Daily version of Group Life.
• 8-week spiritual boot camp: Story of God
• Story of God themed series each year
• Tru curriculum for kids
• Prayer and Scripture saturated services
• Worship structured around the gospel story
• Stations that provide a variety of ways to worship
• Clear path for discipleship: Connect, Deepen, Impact
• Clear path for connection: 10-Minute Connect, Discovery, Story of God

The Presentation

• 10-Minute Connect
• Worship Guide
• New FYI Sheets (coming this month)
• Children’s Wing Tree House theme and paint face lift (coming this month)
• New concrete entrance and parking lot resurfacing
• CLC changes for learning environment (Campaign)
• Commons kiosks (Campaign)
• Walls that tell our Impact story (Campaign)

The Invitation

• New website (coming this month)
• New road sign (by October)
• Long-term connection strategy for new move-ins (by January)
• Story of God as outreach tool (September)
• “To Raise a Family” Series (September)
• Praying Colossians 4:4 for Henry (August, September)
• Inviting someone to the series or the Story of God (August, September)

"The Meal" This Weekend

This weekend may be the most important vision sermon I've given in two or three years. No, it's not about the fall campaign. It's about "the meal." The meal is my way of talking about all that we do as a church to make new and better disciples.

If I could wave a magic wand to get all Five Oakers there, I would. I've been looking for one of those wands on eBay and Amazon, but no luck yet. So the next best thing is to ask you to be there if you can and to listen online if you can't. It's that important.

P.S. Here's a preview of tomorrow's post with more pictures from the baptism service last weekend!

You May be Wondering (Part 2)

If you are a Five Oaker that’s new to the blog, I would love it if you would check out the last two posts.

I’m going to answer a few more questions you may have about the proposed land purchase, but first a note I received from Steve Thomas. Steve was Board Chair during the search for Five Oaks’ second pastor and now lives in the Kansas City area.

“This is very exciting. …The pictures of the old farmhouse brought back a lot of wonderful memories.  We are praying for you.”

Here’s a note I received from a new member after my “Location” post:

“Just vision!  Refreshing.  No pleading.  No guilt.”

I wrote back:

“Thanks, Jim. The pleading and guilt will start later! :-) “

How are we going to pay for this purchase?

We are going to raise all the money through a capital campaign this fall. We have enough equity and our debt load is small enough to finance most or all of this purchase, but we want to raise every penny to buy it without adding to our long-term debt. I believe we can do it. That’s our goal and our prayer.

Will this project take money away from missions or compassion ministries, locally and globally?

This question arises with every capital campaign I’ve been a part of. When I hear it, I both applaud and cringe. I love it because it is so outwardly focused. What’s there not to love in this kind of default response that puts others first, especially Christ’s mission to proclaim the gospel and demonstrate the Kingdom of God?

I cringe because I've known too many churches that were great at sending money to missionaries but neglected the mission in their own backyard. Our mission begins in our “Jerusalem”--Woodbury, Cottage Grove and other neighboring communities (Acts 1:8).

If this is your concern, I want you to know that we will not stop being outwardly focused. We will continue to serve in our communities as a church and with our global and local partners, personally and finacially. We will continue to give away 12% of our general fund no matter what. And as our church has grown, that amount has grown with it! 

Additionally, we’re cheap. Oops, I mean, we're good stewards. Really, I do mean that. We’re still using the same used furniture Kevin Haley donated about 15 years ago, and it was already about 20 years old when we got it! I could give you dozens of other examples of how we have lived with less to maximize money for ministry and for ministry square footage.

Aren't capital campaigns a distraction from making disciples?

The way we do capital campaigns is not a distraction. It grows disciples.

A couple of years ago I had coffee or supper with over a dozen Five Oaks couples who are lead givers and asked them what motivated their giving. More than half of them mentioned a past capital campaign at Five Oaks or elsewhere as the primary catalyst in learning to trust God with their money. The stories were incredible and inspired my faith. I’m sure we’ll share some of them with you in the fall.

You are in for a spiritual treat if you pay attention and pray and participate over the coming months.

I’ve saved the best for last. It’s a question I received in response to my previous post. "What if 9.5 acres aren’t enough?  What if we need to double our current building size to accommodate God’s blessing?  Do we have plans to be able to do that?"

Love it! My answer, "It depends." The window of opportunity to buy more land around us will continue to be open for a while. The challenge is it will become increasingly expensive. We did consider going for more right now, but, like I said in an earlier answer, we’re cheap (there I go again). Actually, I believe we have honored God by how careful we’ve been with his money over the years. The last thing we want to do is become land poor. It’s a fine balancing act that requires spiritual discernment and listening to the Spirit.

You May be Wondering

Here are some questions you may be asking about the land purchase. But first, take a look at this comment to my last post from a long-term member who recently moved to Madison, WI.

How exciting! I remember sitting in the old farm house during a prayer vigil (by myself at 5 am) as the church was planning on growing into it's own building! God is so great!

Don't we have enough land already?

No, we are convinced we don't yet have enough land for what God wants to do through Five Oaks.

Currently, we have just enough land to run two concurrent services, one in the Worship Center and one in the Community Life Center. The land supports just enough space to build the additional children’s space and parking we will need for those two services.

Only eleven or so of our nineteen acres are usable. We have wetlands behind our building and another acre or so will go to the widening of Radio Drive. Our space for expansion is severely limited.

We want to be ready to grow. We are confident that God wants us to reach more people through us than our current land allows. More land gives us the ability to build a larger worship center before we go to concurrent services.

Why not just plant churches when we reach our space limits?

Church planting is one of the best ways of reaching new people for Christ, but it is not a method for making room for growth. And remember, this growth is on our doorstep! Church planting doesn’t leverage this strategic, God-given opportunity.

Why not grow to a certain size and hold there?

All churches have a life span and they all reach a size limit at some point. Every church without exception. God is in charge of that. But if a church loses its vision for reaching more people for Christ or loses its ability to bring more people in because of lack of space (due to lack of foresight or faith), it begins to die a thousand deaths. I suppose, under those conditions, we’ll be able to use the land for a cemetery!

What if we end up not needing the land?

We can sell it. Most of the land we're buying can be used for parking but not for building. But a housing development can count it toward their required green space. 

More questions and answers coming next week.

• How are we going to pay for this purchase?
• Will this project take money away from missions or compassion ministries, locally and globally?
• Aren't capital campaigns a distraction from making disciples?

Do you have any questions I can add to this list?

 

Location, Location, Location

“Someday the city will grow in our direction.” That’s what Five Oaks member Tom Berg told me back in 1996 as we walked the 19 acres of the newly acquired church property. Tom was leading the search team for a new pastor. I had come up from Kansas for an interview.

Two barns and a farmhouse were all that remained of what had been known as the Five Oaks Ranch. Surrounded by farmland and not a housing development in sight, I was thinking, ‘If the first rule for buying real estate is location, location, location, this is not the place to build.’ It seemed out of the way and far from all the new development in Woodbury. But at least 19 acres seemed like more than we would ever need.

That was almost 17 years ago and Woodbury was poised to grow eastward. And boy did it grow! It added 20,000 new residents to the east. Even so, as the population was growing away from us, we grew too, from a congregation of about 175 to a congregation of over 1600 who are active today. 

Those 19 acres have served us well all these years. And they will serve us well for several more.

But Woodbury will now expand to the south. It’s all coming toward us! And, get this, 20,000 more people are moving to within a five-minute driving radius of our property within the next ten years! We simply will need more land to meet our missional potential.

What was once a fledgling church wondering if it would survive the departure of its founding pastor is now an established, innovative and vibrant, disciple-making community, mobilized and impacting the world for Christ. 

What was once farmhouse and barns is now a church building where thousands of people from the community come to worship or simply to play basketball, hold recitals or feed thousands of hungry children.

It’s a place where, a couple of years ago, more people made first-time decisions to follow Christ than we had in average attendance when I came almost 17 years ago. 

And it’s a place where Tom Berg’s words will come true and this pastor can finally start singing, “Location, location, location.”