A drink from the Oasis – week of 3 Dec 08
Saints,
Below you will find this week’s Inspirational E-mail. I pray you will enjoy it and forward this thought on to your friends as well as offer them an invitation to church this weekend. Remember we are celebrating communion over Bob Sommer’s house. Coordination and setup will be needed (feel free to contact Connie or Kia for details). Also, remember to continue to be praying of the many areas we have outlined.
1. A Drink from the Oasis… ———————- “The Plague of Mediocrity” ——————-
Miss Jones, an elderly spinster, lived in a small Midwestern community. She had the distinction of being the oldest resident of the town. One day she died, and the editor of the local newspaper wanted to print a little caption commemorating Miss Jones’s death.
However, the more he thought about it, the more he became aware that while Miss Jones had never done anything terribly wrong (she had never spent a night in jail or been drunk), yet she had never actually done anything noteworthy. While musing over this, the editor went down to have his morning coffee and met the owner of the tombstone establishment in the little community. The tombstone proprietor stated that he had been having the same problem. He wanted to put something on Miss Jones’s tombstone besides just her birthday and death date, but he couldn’t think of anything of significance that she had ever done.
The editor decided to go back to his office and assign to the first reporter he came across the task of writing up a small article suitable for both the paper and the tombstone. Upon returning to the office, the only fellow around was the sports editor, so he gave him the assignment.
They tell me if you pass through that little community you will find the following statement on her tombstone:
Here lies the bones of Nancy Jones,
For her life held no terrors.
She lived an old maid.
She died an old maid.
No hits, no runs, no errors.
–James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 58-59.
Messy Questions:
a) What are you asking God to give you a vision of that you can do for Him that will require your complete reliance upon His enabling power to accomplish it well?
b) When was the last time you prayed that the brothers and sisters in Christ in your congregation would abound in love more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that they might discern the best things and prove them out in their own experience, being filled with the fruit of righteousness, to the glory and praise of God?
c) Does God accept us on the basis of whether or not we feel like praying? If not, on what basis does he accept us? How should this affect the priority we assign to prayer?
2. Admin Stuff:
a) Anyone notice the website changes? Tells us what you think!
b) Saturday Night we continue at care group with our Josh Hunt study session #9 (yes, we will get to it this week, I promise). Please read through page 167 for this week. Josh has asked us for a video clip (samples here) on how we have doubled. Does someone have the capability to take some video for us to send to Josh? How exciting!!! We should be finished with our reading by now too.
c) We will be participating in the Lord’s Table. George Conklin will be facilitating this for us at Bob Sommers’ house. In preparing your heart for communion, I highly recommend this: Heart Preparation Guide for Communion. Some great audios on this topic can be found here.
a. Men’s tribe meets this week at the Barnes & Noble in N.Charleston at 6:30pm. The tribe has decided this format for our time (it has been growing and changing each week…which is a good thing… 1)get something to drink 2) laugh, 3) opening prayer, 4) Whoever got asked a ‘warm and fuzzy question’ last week, gets immunity this week, but is able to ask a W&FQ this week, but must… 5) pray for the brother who was asked the W&FQ specifically, 6) what is said in the group, stays in the group. It is updated on FB as well. We will continue to share THIS with you this week in our time as we continue in the book of Hebrews with Chapter 9. We normally meet in a coffee shop. Why? That is a really a good question. If you’re interested in why, we have 10 Reasons Why Men’s Tribe Meets In Coffee Shops. If you’re wondering where they are meeting next and when, contact Michael Richter.
d) Please continue to review, research, and pray about our “Relational Commitments” which we are evaluating as Core/Launch/New Member material. This week we will be covering the topic of Our Commitment to Protecting Our Children. Remember, that as we EDITING this document/class and at the end of the process we will be covenanting together regarding these relational commitments and it will be the orientation for all visitors who are interested in becoming members of Oasis. Please come prepared (meaning reading the section we are covering beforehand) to include looking up the scriptures (or even adding some of your own…).
e) Our scripture reading for this week is Luke 16.
f) Advent started on the 30th of November. What is Advent?
3. Prayer Requests (PR) and Community Needs (CN):
a) Updated prayer requests can be found at: http://oasisgc.wordpress.com/prayer-board-facts/ A humbling gift to intercede for so many… many visitors in the digital world leave requests here. If you have a prayer request make sure to get it to Kia or Christine (thank you so much for praying for us!!!). If you are looking for some handy guides for prayer, check out these Prayer Cards. You can click on the “Prayer Cards” link and select which ever prayer card your interested in, and a sample of it can be seen with adobe reader (www.adobe.com).
b) How is your intercession going for the requests we handed out 2 weeks ago?
c) Remember to continue also to be praying for those who have lost jobs, those who have unresolved conflicts, those who far from God, for the churches in Berkeley county, and our city.
See you at care group on Saturday and remember to always be…
stunned by the gospel of Jesus Christ,
Derek R. Iannelli-Smith
Oasis Website – Oasis Facebook Group
Oasis…where relationships are a mess worth making
