This past Sunday our shepherds announced that our Jo Morris, after serving as our South Fork church secretary for 37 years, will move into a different role.  She will become even more involved (and she’s already been super involved!) in our special events, dinners, and other big activities and programs.

Jo will no longer be keeping regular office hours, so if you need to reach her you will likely have to get her on her cell or home phones.  Nancy Russell, who has been working for the past few months part-time, will transition to full-time next week and will be in the office Monday through Friday.

We simply cannot adequately express the appreciation we feel and the debt we owe to Jo and Grady for these years of service they’ve spent serving in our church life and ministry in so many ways.  We love them and are thankful for them and the work they continue to do as such an integral part of our South Fork family.

We will honor Jo at a special time that will be announced soon, and keep them always in our hearts and prayers.

If you have not been a part of our adult Bible classes lately, now is a great time to start or restart!!  Beginning this Sunday all three of our new classes will be going on, offering great opportunities for you to be involved with your brothers and sisters in Bible study and fellowship.  All three are using some very practical and relevant resource books as the starting point in these classes that will bring to life the call of God to live faithful lives that honor him and love and serve others.

Charlie Branch and David Geary are leading a class in the auditorium that is taken from the book, God’s Mystery, by Dr. Stafford North of Oklahoma Christian University.  This is a great study that will remind you of the mystery of God’s plan and your place in that great story.  Dr. North writes, “God’s plan was kept secret for centuries as He carefully unfolded it in His perfect timing.  God wove His mystery into the fabric of history so that it could be available to you today.  God’s deepest desire is that your life will intersect with His mystery and allow him to pour rich blessings into your life.”

Shaun Sidden will lead our Millennials/College/Young Professionals class in their classroom upstairs starting this Sunday.  The study is taken from the book Love Does by Bob Goff.  Bestselling author Donald Miller writes this in the Forward: “We don’t like to put hands and feet on love.  When love is a theory, it’s safe, it’s free of risk.  But love in the brain changes nothing.  Bob believes that love is too beautiful a concept to keep locked up behind a forehead like a prisoner…The title of this book says it all.  Where you and I may want love and feel love and say love, Bob reminds us that love does things.  It writes a letter and gets on a plane.  It orders pizza and jumps in a lake.  It hugs and prays and cries and sings.”

This Sunday I will begin a study in the New Classroom from the book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin.  The first two on Amy’s list are these: Mentally strong people don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves, and they don’t give away their power.  Each of these first two encourages us to steer away from the “victim mentality” that is based on situations in our lives that we can’t control or the way others treat us and how they’ve wronged us.  Without denying the difficulties and hurts, Amy calls on us to count our blessings, take responsibility and initiative ourselves, and work on behavior that will improve our situation.  Instead of letting others manipulate us and take away our joy, we can instead be confident in who we are and the choices we make.

See you in Bible class on Sunday!