Dear Extended Oasis Family:
This is the weekly email I sent to our local Oasis Family. Its been a while since Ive sent the email.
Hope you have a great July 4th , Weekend.
"Today I shared some thoughts on this weekend's July 4th, Independence Day holiday with our Pastor's Inner Circle Prayer partners as part of my weekly Prayer newsletter. I thought some of it might be of interest to our Oasis family globally. So, below along with some of the other things going on around Oasis Church I wanted to share it with you.
"This being the 4th of July holiday weekend approaching, I thought I would mention something that has been on my heart lately and also very much in the news. While we celebrate our freedom in so many areas of life along with the freedom to worship as we please, there are so many around the world that have none of the basic freedoms we take for granted each day. While thousands have given their lives over the last 200 years so that we could have the enormous freedoms we enjoy as Americans, there are thousands giving their lives today around the world trying to fight for the freedom we hardly even acknowledge. That is why I feel July 4th is so important to remember.
For the many, and I mean hundreds, in our church who were not born here in the USA, you might not really take July 4th the same way someone born here does. You might take it more serious since many come from countries that do not have the freedoms many of us were born into and inherited. So many of you chose to come here; you wanted to enjoy what a blessed land we have. At the same time, some might think it's only for native Americans to celebrate. I'll leave it to you as to how you celebrate, but one thing we can all do is to pray for those around the world that do not yet enjoy and may never experience the Freedom we have.
This week we have seen the realities of oppression, dictatorial regimes and evil leaders. From Honduras to Venezuela to Iran, where the people are crying out for individual freedoms. The human heart cries out to be free. Please pray for those in countries around the world this Independence Day weekend that are being oppressed, jailed and martyred for their faith. We can't even imagine what it would be like to have no freedoms as a woman. It is unimaginable what is going on in the Muslim world today to women. Please pray that God will release the oppressed and persecuted around the world. In China the Christian church has to worship underground, in homes, and wherever else they can find to meet. In places like Vietnam and North Korea, Christians can be jailed for their faith, beaten and even killed.
Are you starting to get the picture of how great it is to live in a free country? We have missionaries that minister under these conditions around the world. Please remember them also. We will also have a young lady here this weekend, (Pines Campus) who will sing with our Praise team, who is going to China this year to teach as an underground missionary. You'll hear Jen Brown sing this weekend."
Summer of Love continues this weekend and all week at our 7 Nights of Worship. The title is FREE LOVE and the LAW of LIBERTY. Please take the time to read I Corinthians 8-10 before coming to church this week. We won't be able to read the entire passage during the service, so if you do it now, it will help prepare you for the message this week. Appropriately, on July 4th Weekend, we will discuss the Liberty we have as a Christian and the Freedom we have in Christ. I hope you will be here. The first two messages, "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "Making Love", are on our website. You can listen to them, or watch the video podcast here.
Truth Trek is coming to our Oasis North Miami Campus on July 19. If you are a parent of a preschool or elementary child at our NoMi campus, you will want to get your children signed up for our annual Vacation Bible School. If you desire more info and need to sign them up, go HERE. Get them signed up now while there are still spaces.
Community Group Leader training. If you would like to check out the possibility of becoming a Community Group Leader, you need to come to our next training. For more info go here.
Two Incredibly Awesome People You Need to Meet!!! You really need to go HERE and meet them.
Have a wonderful and safe Independence Day. I am looking forward to seeing you this weekend. I am also looking forward to speaking at our North Miami Campus this Sunday at 11 a.m. If you go to Pines, I invite you to come down. Same great worship in music, same message in the Summer of Love series. I'VE GOT ANOTHER NEW T-SHIRT FOR THE SUMMER OF LOVE. BUT YOU GOTTA COME SUNDAY TO SEE WHAT IT IS!!!
God bless you and thanks for being such a wonderful church family. It's a privilege to serve you and this church family.
Guy Melton
Pastor
Oasis Church
http://www.guymelton.com
http://www.visitoasis.org
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