Dear NEO family,

There are always pastors and laypersons on our District in need of your prayers. I don't often try to forward these requests on to the whole district, but today I am asking you to join in prayer for our Hispanic Coordinator and his wife, Otoniel and Gloria Dannemann. Gloria was detained in Argentina as she tried to leave the country a few weeks ago. The legal procedures have dragged on and the matter is now being referred to a provincial court. This has already been very costly financially and I am not sure the impact his is having on Gloria's job with the Jenks school system. As you can imagine, it is also very taxing emotionally on Gloria and Oto. Also, last Sunday Oto's father, a distinguished Nazarene educator and leader in Guatemala, died. Oto just returned from the funeral and is grieving the loss of his father. Join me in prayer for protection, deliverance, provision and comfort for this wonderful couple.

Each blog I send has a link to pictures from churches or events in NEO. If there are pictures from the shutterfly albums that you want to save, you should be able to go to the album and click on the picture you want. After it is enlarged, right click on the picture, scroll up to "save picture as" and save it to the file you choose on your computer. Let me know if you have any problems with this. We will be deleting some of the old pictures files in September, so save anything you need this week.

Below are pictures from our visit to Dewey last Sunday, August 17:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTDyg

Youth leaders may want to check out the following: http://www.acquirethefire.com/ Tulsa, March 27-28, 2009 “Here Comes Trouble”

Tharon Daniels is retiring this month as DS of the Northwest Oklahoma District. He will certainly be missed by not only his District, but by all who serve in Oklahoma. Recently Tharon sent the following article to his district:

The Starbucks Experience
I have been reading a book called The Starbucks Experience: 5 principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary. It is not a book about church growth, but it’s a business book with some simple principles that could apply to the church. In the first chapter, which is a discussion of Starbuck’s first basic principle, “Make it your own,” they emphasize “Five Ways of Being”. Their leaders allow a lot of freedom to their employees, as long as they stick to these five ways of being. These will apply to any business and especially to any church:
• Be welcoming: offer everyone a sense of belonging.
• Be genuine: at Starbucks, being genuine means to connect, discover and respond.
• Be considerate: For Starbucks that means looking out for the environment and for their suppliers, most of whom come from third world countries. Whose needs can you and your church consider?
• Be knowledgeable: When Starbucks leaders ask their partners to “be knowledgeable,” they are encouraging employees to “love what they do and share it with others”
• Be involved: being involved means active participation in the church, in your community and in the world.
There are four other major principles in the book: Everything matters; surprise and delight; embrace resistance; and leave your mark. Those are great principles for any pastor and any church.
By the way, Barbara and I were traveling through Albuquerque, NM a couple weeks ago and stopped at a Starbucks. We ordered our coffees, Barbara got hers but they forgot mine and I had to wait a couple of minutes while they fixed me another drink . . . to make sure that I was satisfied with my experience and to apologize for the oversight, they gave me a coupon for a free coffee drink the next time I am in a store. Instead of feeling slighted, I felt honored.
Blessings, Tharon.

Thanks for being committed to making your church the best it can be ... being a High-Impact Church! You are loved!

Dave McKellips