Dear NEO family,

This is a week we have been anticipating for weeks and months. And not just because of the incredible inauguration events yesterday. We have been looking expectantly toward this week because of our longing for Spiritual Renewal. Through insightful and penetrating devotional thoughts in the Devotional Guide we began using January 1, Nathan Covington has reminded us of the basics of spiritual intimacy with Christ. As we have prayed individually, corporately and at our Zone Clusters, our hunger for God and his righteousness has grown. And now we anticipate more times of refreshing as we gather together from across this District for Spiritual Renewal Weekend.

I have been hearing reports of how God is already at work in our lives. Pastor Angie Bentley sent me this note a couple of days ago: We having been praying and fasting here in Bristow for individual, local, and district renewal. God is already doing great things here - we had 52 in church Sunday - 25 of which were youth! Two of our young people, recent converts, came to the altar asking God to help them quit drinking and smoking. We believe we are about to see the power and blessings of God blow this place wide open!

Let me remind you of the details for this weekend:

Spiritual Renewal Weekend, January 23 - 25.

• We will gather at Tulsa Central Church seeking a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in our midst.
  
• Services will be Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 6pm and Sunday at 5pm.
  
• Our guest speaker will be Evangelist Nathan Covington
  
• Worship led by “Leaving 99” from Southern Nazarene University.
  
• 1st – 6th graders will have their own services led by Ken Wheeler;
  
• 3 year olds – Kindergarten will be led by Rachel Bess
  
• Nursery will be provided for those 2 and under.
  
• Youth lock-in after Friday evening service with games, worship and food. Registration is at 9pm at Regency Park Church. Breaking fast of 30 hour famine at midnight. Cost is only $5 and a 16 oz jar of grape jelly, bag of spaghetti noodles or beans. Students are to be picked up no later than 6am Saturday at Soccer City.
  
• Primetimer’s gathering on Saturday, 4:30pm; $5 at the door for good food and fellowship: Registering in advance helps us plan, but whether you register or not, we welcome all senior adults to come.

Let me tell the Senior Adults how excited I am about our dinner on Saturday. Yesterday President Obama challenged all of us to look for ways to make a difference in our communities. Some churches have neglected to see their older adults as valuable resources full of life experience and wisdom. I sense that is changing. Across the nation, both secular organizations and churches are recognizing the invaluable resource resident in older adults. Many older people are looking for significance and purpose and are finding it through service. Saturday, as we eat we will talk about ways our churches are involving seniors in the life and mission of the church. How are we enabling fellowship, spiritual growth, service and fun?

Saturday, Jan. 17, NEO hosted our 2nd Area Children's Bible Quiz at Central Church. There were 35 quizzers from seven churches (Bartlesville, Broken Arrow, Central, Family, Owasso Silver Creek, Pryor and South County). The children quizzed over Dig Sites #8-13 from the Book of Exodus. There were four Red Level quizzers who had three perfect rounds. They were Austin Ogden (Central), Nora Nelson (Central), Levi Ewton (Family), and Sierra Busking (Owasso). Out 3rd Area Quiz will be on Feb. 28 over Dig Sites #14-20. Please remember to pray for our quizzers, parents, coaches and directors as they Journey Through Exodus.

Pastor Brett Rickey, founding pastor of Tulsa Family Church, is moving to Lakeland Florida to pastor Highland Park Church. We are so appreciate of the courageous, faith-filled leadership of Pastor Brett. We are a better District family because of his example and leadership in our midst. We pray God’s blessings on Brett, Mindy and their three precious girls as they embark on this new journey. Brett’s final Sunday at Family Church is January 25.

A major part of the outreach of Family Church has come through the Celebrate Recovery ministry which meets every Saturday evening at Faith Church. Pastor Buddy Davis reports that they have a big 6th anniversary celebration planned for CR on Saturday, Feb. 7. Feel free to drop in to check out this ministry God is using to bring life-transformation.

Dates for your calendar:
Saturday, February 21 – Pastor’s (and spouses) Breakaway. Objectives: Discover, Affirm and Apply Something About You!
March 6 -7 – NEO Women’s Retreat; Cyndi Lamb Curry speaker
Saturday, April 25 – Huge NEO Training Day!
Sunday, May 31, 3pm – NYI Convention
July 13 – 17 NEO Youth Camp
July 20 – 25 NEO Kid’s Camps

Registration is now open for the Feb. 7, 2009, “Forever. For Real.” programs in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Please visit our Web site at ForeverForReal.com or contact Kristin at 877-435-8033 for more information and to register.

See you this weekend!

Dave

Dear NEO family,

Greetings in the strong name of Jesus. What a treat it has been this past week to be on four of our Zones (This coming Sunday evening the fifth zone, Tulsa, will gather at Regency Park at 6pm). The Pastors reports have been inspiring and the times of corporate prayer have helped all of us connect to our source of power, purity and all spiritual blessings. It is such a privilege to serve alongside the wonderful believers who make up our NEO family.

At the Zone gatherings, many have told me you enjoy the pictures from churches across the District. Here are a few pictures from recent visits:

Cleveland, January 4, 2009:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTHZA

Southwest Zone Cluster Prayer Meeting, January 3, 2009: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTHig

Sapulpa, December 21, pm service http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTHRg

Many of our churches are experiencing exciting days of as they call people to Christ and His rule and reign. Below are a few of the items they wrote about in their monthly reports:

I want to celebrate…

Rodney Amos, Tulsa First I want to celebrate an awesome young people’s lock-in with over 20 participating. I want to celebrate the salvation and baptism of a 19 year old young man. I want to celebrate the “coming home” of a precious young woman in our congregation who has renewed her commitment to the Lord and her church. I want to celebrate an astounding children’s production with the participation of 20+ kids, an increase of double digits over last year. I want to celebrate a fresh new movement of the Holy Spirit breathing across our congregation; a new energy, enthusiasm and sense of expectation is beginning to arise among our people. I want to celebrate that ALL this happened just in December 2008!

Don Nichols, Tahlequah We will begin a season of fasting and prayer after the first of the Year. The Fasting and Prayer is for Block Parties, Native American Camp Meeting and Veterans Appreciation Day.

Harold Johnson, Cushing For Christmas we did a “Christmas Tapestry” with contributions from our church family. The service went well with a large number of people contributing a song, poem, reading or testimony.

Jim Wilson, Pawhuska We had a productive month in Pawhuska with all the holiday celebrations. We adopted four families for Christmas and the donations from the congregation were enormous. In addition to this the Church Board continued its annual tradition of putting together treat bags for the congregation, but this year we added a twist to it by assembling over 100 more bags as usual. 50 bags went to the congregation and an additional 125 bags went out to our neighbors and our community businesses. The gratitude from the community has been a real blessing. This is phase one of an effort on Pawhuska Nazarene's goal to reach out to the business' and their owners in our community. We have an annual planning meeting scheduled for January to plan for the coming year.

Jim Wilson, Barnsdall We enjoyed a holiday dinner together and a Christmas Eve service this month. We are forging ahead, and plans are being made for a large push into the community.

Claude Guy, Sand Springs December was a great month of "firsts" here in Sand Springs. It started with our Holiday Dinner the first Sunday of the month. Although this wasn't the first time to have a church holiday dinner, it provided a "first" time connection with parents and families to our children that come in through our van ministry. The second Sunday was our Christmas program which combined our adult choir and for the first time at Sand Springs, a children's bell choir of over 20 kids! The third Sunday was another first as we introduced a combined orchestra of string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments to play a Christmas special. This orchestra combined the talents of first year band members, to high school band members, to adults bringing out their instruments from their earlier years to our regular praise and worship instrumentalists. God certainly blessed us this Christmas season with His presence and His presents!

Brad Farnsworth, BA Connection During a recent message series we featured a Wall of Prayer. Over 200 names were submitted. These names represented family and friends that are far from God. Many prayers were answered as husbands, children, and neighbors attended church for the first time! In November we held a Starting Point Class where we shared the vision and values of Connection Church. Several people, who attended, indicated that they do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Gordon Smith, Dewey A lady who accepted the Lord shortly following our Sunday morning service. Her children have been coming with their grandma for a couple of years now, and her little girl kept asking her to pray with her in the evenings before bed, and finally on December 7th this lady accepted Jesus into her heart. Children still lead today (Isa. 11:6)! Our Medical Lodge outreach: We raised money to bring gifts to those at the Medical Lodge nursing home, we also brought with us candy goodies, we sang songs bringing Christmas cheer, but most of all we prayed and showed the love of Christ! This was the second year we did a one night Christmas VBS outreach to our community and we doubled from last year, and had 53 children! We spoke about the best gift of Jesus Christ and the kids just had a lot of fun, the church family really stepped up and made it a wonderful experience!

Wayde Normandin, Chelsea The completion of the Quest, which was one of our spiritual goals. Each person grew in their own way spiritually which in turn allowed us to grow together as a church family. Giving has continued to be consistence in this time of economic uncertainty. On a personal note, Jena and I were blessed by the Collinsville Church with a very generous money gift and food pounding as well as the Chelsea Church. We were overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of both churches.

Dwain Young, Horton Chapel The highlight for December was the Children's Christmas program which we do on a Wednesday night. We had a good number of the parents attend the program and to stay for fellowship afterwards.

Nathan Burns, Owasso Silver Creek We had our first Christmas Compassion Project and adopted a Parsonage Family from the District and a local family from Owasso. Our people gave both families a tremendous Christmas. We survived our flood and had over 40 different people help with cleaning up in some way. Praise God! We had a fantastic children's musical on December 14th. They did a great job! We are starting a Biggest Loser Campaign to get our bodies in shape this year...our goal for the men of our church this year is to lose 2000 lbs. It is a blessing to serve this wonderful Church Family called Silver Creek.

Don Cowan, Sapulpa The giving of $20,000+ to our NewStart South County Community in Glenpool. Our giving to others which God has given back to us in substantially increased offerings. Our giving to the Angel Tree Project, the African Well Project, Community Care and Freedom House – Praise the Lord for His provision.

Angela Bentley, Bristow God’s overwhelming faithfulness to us in a difficult year! He has not only sustained us but has birthed a vital new ministry in the midst of several losses. We have completed the first year of our new children’s and youth ministry strong! Our Wednesday night numbers are often almost double our Sunday morning attendance and we anticipate that God will do great things in our students and in our servants this next year!

John Whitsett, Tulsa Central A really great Advent emphasis with over $22K raised as part of the Advent Conspiracy emphasis. According to our treasurer, no real big checks, so it indicates a broad base of participation from the church family. That is exciting!


Alan McBroom, Davenport For Sunday, 21st, instead of the traditional children's play of Christ's birth, we had a "Christmas Talent Show" where everyone was invited to participate. We had special songs, poems read, drama, and even an imitation of Paul Harvey by your's truly. It was a refreshing participation celebrating Christmas

David Stevens, Vinita We actually increased the monthly average SS and AM for December over last year. Our Wednesday night average is 37 for the last 2 months. On Wednesday we have Caravans and our new youth group has had attendance as high as 12. Vinita Church has a passion for Others in Compassionate Ministry and in outreach locally and around the world. As we prepare for the pastoral review next month we have much to thank God for.

NEO Leaders in Average attendance gain in Dec., 2008 over Dec., 2007

Sunday School/Discipleship
Regency Park +50
Claremore +36
Broken Arrow +35
Sand Springs +34
Sapulpa +27
Owasso +18
Drumright +16
Tulsa First +12
Dewey +9
Hominy +9

AM Worship
BA Connection +84
Glenpool SoCo Community +68
Claremore +54
Regency Park +36
Owasso Silver Creek +33
Sand Springs +30
Dewey +26
Fuente de Vida +20
Tulsa First +17
Tahlequah +14
Hominy +10

The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative (OMI) is celebrating ten years of serving Oklahomans by offering more exciting workshops with new skills and activities for couples at all stages of their relationships. This year, the annual Forever. For Real. program will be held in Oklahoma City and Tulsa on the same day! Join us at whichever venue is closest to you!

Anticipating renewal,

Dave