H. Henry Williams

The Weekend

- Started "First Things First" series last weekend with a message on five mistakes disciples make based on Luke 9:27-56). I said the last point was going to be powerful: What you think God thinks of you will determine almost everything in your life. Do you see disappointment on God's face or adoration? After the service someone told me that one hit him right between the eyes. 

- Some Com Card comments on the service: "[Replacing] faith w/formulas and fighting the wrong enemy points really hit home with me" - "Thank you for the [point] about loving people who might hold other political views than our own. As a pro-life democrat, I always feel like fellow church members are not welcoming of democrats." - "Thanks for awesome worship Justin..."

- Handed out 3x5 cards and asked everyone to write down any ministry they've done in the last couple of months for people outside of Five Oaks. Just wait until you see the size of the stack in two weekends!

- People really hung around in the Commons after services this weekend. That's normal, but it seemed like more than usual. A lot of buzz in the building.

- The Christmas CD has gone to the guy who will mix it all (he's the drummer from the Crowder Band).

- I'm very excited about a new Five Oaks Christmas tradition starting in December: "One Starry Night: A Family Christmas Experience." It will be very good this year, but I think this is going to grow in intensity and quality each year. Music by the Fusion Band, live animals, drama...all throughout our Commons. More info coming soon.

- This weekend's message is on Luke 9:57-10:24. Lots of ground to cover. I recently read the book on Starbucks' comeback by its founder. He talked about trying to regain Starbucks' coffee authority. Come find out three ways to lose your missional authority. One of them is to proclaim an optional Jesus. Who would do that? Some of you who are reading this right now! Come and see.

- Met a young family from Madison during 10-Minute Connect. Went to Blackhawk there (love that church). They miss the town and the church. I wanted to tell them about how great the Twin Cities are and the fun places they will get to discover...but I didn't get a chance. I hope they end up at Five Oaks so I can finish the conversation.

- Next Monday and Tuesday our Staff Leadership Team is going to go write a script in a two-day off-site meeting. I'll tell you more about that next week.

The Weekend (and some other stuff)

- Amazing anyone was around last weekend since no one in my small group, including Lois, had been able to make it to the service. I gave them a 5-minute version of my message.

- Someone wrote on the Communication Card: "Henry, I love to see you all nerd-excited about the story of God." I was. Doing the set up to the Transfiguration by tracing its themes through the Story of God made it come alive for me.

- Response time was awesome! Several of the themes in the songs tied so closely with the message in ways we didn't plan. And my favorite Communion weekends are the ones where our small group leaders hold the elements and preach the gospel to everyone as they receive them. It doesn't get old.

- Given the subject of the message, I spent some extra time reviewing why we do Response worship and stations. I've never experienced worship in a way that called for more participation and engagement. Prayer is at the center of our services like never before.

- This weekend we start a new series called "First Things First," continuing in Luke. The hodgepodge of stories told at the end of Luke 9 come together beautifully under the theme "mistakes disciples are prone to make." We'll look at five. The fifth one is POWERFUL. Learn from the disciples' mistakes. Better yet, learn from your own mistakes as you reflect on your mistakes in light of their mistakes.

- New small group Bible study is being started at Park High School by some Five Oaks students. Check it out here. Did you know some of our students have also started Bible studies at East Ridge and Math & Science Academy? I didn't until yesterday. I love it!

- Also on the Student Ministries front: We have 90 active high schoolers in small groups! And did you know that many of the leaders in our weekend Sunday school class for kids with disabilities (the Retreat) are youth? Did you know we had the Retreat ministry going? Just met two families over the last two weeks in 10-Minute Connect that have come because of the Retreat.

- This weekend is week 6 in our Story of God small group for the fall. We'll do it again come January. Is there someone you could invite to get the bigger picture, to learn how to better understand the Bible, to hear the message of our rescue and redemption?

- The Five Oaks Christmas album is coming together well. Five songs. Great invitiation tool. You'll here more later.

"Off the Hook" Services Past Weekend

Here is most of the written feedback on this weekend's services. Got a lot verbally too that was very similar. I'd been looking forward to this for weeks, so it was very exciting to see it come together.

• ...I could FEEL God at work in the sanctuary and it was somewhat overwhelming (in a very good way). ...In my opinion it allowed people to reflect at their own pace and the opportunity to really breakthrough in personal decisions or recommitments. Awesome!
• As an usher for the 11am service, I was standing at the door collecting the offering. I overheard one gentleman say: "I think we found our new church." Awesome service!!
• Visiting as a worship leader from a “megachurch” in CA. It’s so awesome to see the pure love this church community has for God. ...By the way, worship was off the hook!
• Haven't had an "experience" like that in a long time.. maybe never... it was amazing! Convicting! I was exhausted after the service. Incredible!
• Thanks for doing communion late in the service. What an incredible and meaningful time of communion. 
• Thank you for the wonderful worship, message, and stations! 
• God is working here!
• I enjoyed today’s communion. It really helped me take a new look at my worship. 
• Thank you...for the stations. It was very powerful for me. 
• That was worship. 
• Thank you for a powerful ending to worship. God’s Spirit was present in a BIG way. 
• Thanks Henry and all for leading us in worship. For allowing for and teaching of the many ways to worship our Lord.
• Thank you for a deeply meaningful communion service. 
• I absolutely loved today’s worship service. I hope we’ll incorporate the stations again. It was so awesome to have the other options of worship. There was a freedom present that I hadn’t experienced at a church before. Maybe on Communion Sundays?
• Awesome time of worship! Thank you! 
• Between the images of the Haitian orphanage and the powerful message on worship, all I can say is WOW! That was quite a service....Thank you!!
• Loved this weekend's service! We should do that at least once a month. Very powerful!
• All of the stations at todays service is a good idea. Suggest keep doing that.
• I was very blessed by the service this weekend. I loved the way all of the stations were set up. It was amazing to see so many come for prayer because that is a need that we all have at times.

Making Room for God

Not sure what to say about this weekend's services except we made more room for God to work and boy did he work. It was so great to have Yves there and the opportunity to pray for GVCM and celebrate the orphanage opening. I'll post the video on Tuesday. But also the response time and worship after the message was simply incredible. Lots of lives touched in prayer and worship. Love to hear your stories and reflections.

Children's Choir Video

Jeremy LaCroix taped it and posted it on YouTube. Here it is, but remember, the sound was mixed for the room, not the video. Still, you can hear the kids really well. You can see Saturday's service first, then Sunday's at 9:30 a.m. follows. To watch this at it's highest quality, go to YouTube and click on the higher quality link at the bottom right of the video.

All Kinds of Stuff

I need to get to bed. I'm tired. But I feel the urge to jot down a bunch of stuff before I do. It's been a great day. Lois and I must have said that about three times this evening. What a great day.

• It's my oldest son's birthday today and he turned 21. Happy birthday Henry Michael. He's working as a counselor at Kamp Kanakuk near Branson, so he won't be reading this, but I just want to say that I miss him today.
• We had our annual small group trip to Selma's for ice cream in Afton. I love Afton. I hope it never changes. Quiet little town on the river, big hills, forests...and bordering Woodbury. For several years now we include a crochet tournament. More in another post. But so much fun.
• Beth Dalton is home from Japan for part of the summer and we and the Sharpes swung by their house on the way back from Afton. I've always loved Beth and Hector, but our time with them in Japan really bonded my heart to them in a special way.
• We saw some old college friends at a graduation party in Lino Lakes this afternoon. We're all getting old! But what a life.
• I got a chance to talk to Dana's son Josh who is in seminary out east at Casey's grad party. (By the way, Casey was chosen to give the senior speech at gradution at Park. Congratulations Casey!) Very unique seminary that Josh is attending. Talking to him ook me back to those days: no money, very old cars, making so many great and lifelong friends...and all of it a blast! Next time he's in town I'd like to take him to some of my favorite bookstores in the area. He'll love it. I offered and hope he takes me up on it.
• Cut my overly long sermon even more this morning and I loved the results. Last night was the prophetic version and it'll be on the video podcast. This morning was the pastoral version and I think we'll be able to use that one for the audio podcast. Talking to some of the worship arts folks it hit me that I said "vomit" about five times in the prophetic version and "puke" about once in the pastoral version.
• Loved the faith story and the ministry moment today. We had no choice but to do both on the same weekend, even though it gave us some timing fits. We wanted Cindy to talk about the benefit Thursday before it actually happened and we had Steve in for this weekend only. Sorry to all the children's workers. I was able, though, to give Jeni a heads up before the service.
• Was able to pray on more than one occasion with some folks who are really hurting but who are relying on God and experiencing his ministry in incredible ways (directly in their spirits and through the body of Christ at Five Oaks). Our church is making a difference in our world and right here at home.

Lois and I really needed a day like today. It felt good. Still feels good. So with that I'll say "goodnight."

Tell Me Your Favorites

Just decided to look back over a year of message series. Here's where we've been since last Easter.

• Lost: A look at four of Christ's post-resurrection appearances to his "lost" disciples and the direction Jesus gave them and us. The real plane on stage and the island theme set the stage really well.
• What Would Jesus Say to Dan Brown: That was our Da Vinci Code series. Basically an opportunity to do an apologetics series. We suggested he would say, "Got Truth?," "There is Something about Mary," "Sex is a Sacred Union," and "Who Do You Say that I am."
• Superheroes: Biblical character trait studies.
• Prayer-Can You Hear Me Now?: A study of the Lord's Prayer.
• Family Channel: Four messages on family related issues.
• Go: Messages on passages where Jesus sends out his disciples. Jesus is on the go and he wants us to go with him.
• Old Testament Rewind: An overview of the Old Testament message and how it points to Christ.
• No Perfect People Allowed: A study of three Bible heroes and one church showing that God takes us as we are...but God doesn’t want us to stay as we are...we’ll always be a work in progress...So let’s not pretend.
• U2CanRocktheWorld: All about the local and global PEACE Plan.
• The Office: Taking Jesus into your work world.
• Epic: The Larger Story and our crucial role in it.

Which were your favorites? "Go" is number one for me, but "U2CanRocktheWorld" and "No Perfect People Allowed" are close behind it. One of my biggest highlights was the week Dana preached on helping the hurting in the U2 series, the Karen refugees sang, shared and cooked for us. and Yves shared about Haiti. It was awesome! Honorable mention goes to Tim and Kara singing Vertigo.

Craig Groeschel

It was fun sharing the Craig Groeschel DVD with the rest of the congregation and watch them laugh and participate even though it was on screen. Our Staff Leadership Team watched it at our staff retreat and decided on the spot that we needed to show it in our services first chance we get. Two more services tomorrow.

I'll be leaving early, before the end of the last service, to head out to Oshkosh to see a band concert Aaron's in at UW Oshkosh.

Epic Book

I guess I kind of jumped the gun regarding the sale of Epic book this weekend, so no display was prepared. Still, 64 copies were sold without any display reminder. We'll have them on sale again this weekend. It's a small, short book, but it's packed. I think it will add to your experience of the series by reading the book. It's $2.

Creativity and Passion

I wish we could include the movie clip montage where heroes make a choice in our podcast. We pay a service for copyright permission, but it doesn't include posting it online as far as we know.

As I explained in some of the services, it was easy to come up with those key moments because they stick in your mind (just like those moments in our own lives stick in our minds). After identifying the individual scenes and marking their length and location, I passed them on to Paul Johnson to collect into one running narrative. But Paul has a passion for this series subject and for what we're doing, and he took it to the next level, breaking up the scenes in interesting ways that carried out certain themes and built the suspense. And he was able to add a bit more without going too long by finely editing what I had provided. It was masterful! I got chills almost every service.