Oasis Parent Update by Chad Johnson
March 1, 2010
Greetings from Oasis! We hope that you and your family have had a good start to 2010. As you hopefully know, we are in an exciting time in the history of Peoples Church as we will be welcoming our new Senior Pastor, Dale Oquist, in the next few weeks. Michelle and I had a great time connecting with him and his family, and we look forward to their arrival as they will bring new vision and excitement to our church.
Oasis, kicked off the year with United Winter Camp. Over 16 churches and 400 students and leaders bonded together for this powerful weekend. The theme text for the camp was the book of Jonah- little did we know that we were going to live it! As you probably heard, due to weather conditions, two of the charter buses got stuck in the snow, which led to more than half of the students arriving 17 hours after departure from Peoples Church! In what could have been a very negative experience, our pastors, leaders, and students showed incredible poise and teamwork by working together to help in any way possible. After everyone arrived safely, the rest of the weekend went off without a hitch as students gathered for inspiring worship and powerful messages, culminating with a United communion service on Sunday morning. We all came home physically tired but spiritually recharged!
Since camp, we have been focusing on building relationships through our Tuesday night small groups and our Sunday morning Deep End classes. We are now gearing up for a Spring Break mission trip that will serve in two needy communities in the valley. Each year, we have seen tremendous fruit and growth through our Spring Break outreaches, and we are confident that this year will be no different. Please read the back of this sheet for more information, and encourage your student to attend!
To close, I wanted to encourage you in the role the Lord has given you. This last Sunday during my Deep End class on “Relationships”, I spoke about the parent-child relationship. I first talked about the role of children to ‘honor their father and mother’, and then I spoke on the role of parents. In the Bible, you see that parents have been given the role to train, to encourage, and especially to bless their children. In Genesis 49, before Jacob died he individually blessed his 12 sons. As you continue to read the story, you can see that these blessings (positive or negative) lasted throughout the lineage of Jacob’s sons. In Gen 49:26 Jacob says, “Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills.” I pray that the Lord will give you wisdom in how to bless your children through your words and actions.