Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me, save that thou art. Thou my best thought by day or by night; waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor earth's empty praise; thou mine inheritance, now and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart; high King of heaven, my treasure thou art.


Dear NEO family,

Almost 300 of the NEO family are at youth camp this week. I was with them Monday thru Wednesday morning. Camp Director, Jason Isaacs, has put together an outstanding camp. You would be proud of your sponsors and campers. Camp WOW is incredible, especially its recreation facilities! That made my conversation with a young lady on Tuesday evening even more special. When I ask her about her favorite activity that day, she told me it was the worship service. She said she could really relate to the message on the broken places of our lives. Let’s pray that the closing services tonight and tomorrow morning will be powerfully used by God in the lives of our students!

The pictures are now available from HOMECOING 2010. Thanks again to all who made our annual gathering such a rewarding time.

District Assembly/Ordination, 2010
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTO9A

Homecoming 2010: Closing Service/Commuinion
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTO1g

NYI Convention 2010
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTOsA

NMI Convention 2010
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0Abt2TZizYsWTOkg

There are many transitions on the NEO District:

I just received notice from Bartlesville – “our precious, beloved Jennie has gone to be with Jesus. She passed away about 3:50 this afternoon.” Please keep the Schuneman family and the Bartlesville church in your prayers during this time of loss.

Gary Reynolds has accepted a call to be the lead pastor for the Yukon OK Church of the Nazarene. Gary and Jennie’s last official Sunday as Worship/Admin Pastor for Regency Park will be July 11.

Levi Lunsford, youth pastor at Tulsa Family, has accepted a call to Detroit First Church.

Jason Powers has accepted a call to be the pastor of our church in Tahlequah. Jason and three of the kids (Hudson Taylor, Hope and Halee) plan to get to Tahlequah on July 2 with his wife, Kim, and daughter, Hannah, coming later in July.

Steve Davis has been nominated by the Church Board to the Sapulpa Church to be their next lead pastor. Steve has been Associate Pastor/Music Director at Sapulpa for 20 years but has recently sensed God redirecting him toward a preaching ministry. The Sapulpa Congregation will vote on June 27.

Lowell Clark is now serving as interim pastor at Davenport.

Tulsa Southwest is beginning the process of finding a new pastor.

A big THANK YOU to Ed Phillips, our web master. Our web site was recently hacked and Ed quickly worked to get it repaired and back up and running. Ed is Church Board secretary at Collinsville.

Speaking of the website, the 2010 journal is already completed and available on the website: (http://www.neonaz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=39 ). Thanks to Jim Thornton, our District Secretary, and his lovely bride, Christy, for getting this done so quickly. (This involves an incredible amount of work, detailed work!)

In the past two weeks I have conducted very positive pastoral reviews for Pastor Nate Burns at Owasso Silver Creek, Pastor Tim Odom at Collinsville and Pastor Rodney Amos at Tulsa First. Congratulations to these pastors and churches.

A couple of pastors turned in “I want to celebrate” comments after the last publication.

Rodney Durr, Muskogee First…the cooperative let’s-do-what-it-takes-to-make-it-happen attitude when we recently needed to make some adjustments in classrooms and age groupings in the children’s department.

Cole Weston, Okmulgee…We held my first membership class and SEVEN people became members! How wonderful! We also had a new family with three teens come, who are now part of the youth group. Very excited about how nice the Youth Center is coming together

Have you ever had a student come up to you and tell you that God was calling him or her into full time ministry? Helping a student sort out that call can be a challenge. Six years ago the South Central Regional NYI council had a dream to put together a conference designed specifically for students in high school that felt a call to full time ministry. We call it the YES conference. YES stands for Youth Equipped to Serve. This year's YES conference is July 6-9, 2010 on the campus of Southern Nazarene University. The YES conference is a four day conference that is designed to help students understand what it means to be called, understand the preparation that is inherent in that calling, and explore possible areas of ministry. There are general sessions each day when we all meet together to learn about what it means to be called. This year's speaker is Kendall Franklin who is a SNU alumnus and currently pastor's College Church in Bourbonnais, IL. Throughout the week, we also have breakout sessions in several ministry areas: senior pastor, youth, children, music, urban, and missions. We also have a special session for women in ministry that deals with specific challenges our young ladies may face. Registration is already available online at www.nyi-snu.org.
The early registration deadline is June 17th, so be sure to register as soon as possible.

You are loved!
Dave McKellips