The Latest and Greatest

Been trying to catch my breath a bit lately - so much going on seemingly at the same time.

I did want to share some of the great things that God has been doing lately in my life and in the Creative Arts at The Orchard:

1. Video Upgrades - Part of our Makin' Noise 2007 vision initiative this year was to do an overhaul on our video systems in our auditorium. We decided to change our two side screens to widescreen format to go along with our videos. We are also making them larger (they will be 12' wide by 7' high). That will be awesome, but on top of that we are adding something even bigger - a center screen that will also be in widescreen format. This screen will be almost 24' wide by nearly 14' tall! It will be spectacular!
   



2. Lighting Upgrades - Another part of our upgrades to the auditorium is our lighting. We are reconfiguring our house lighting to give us control of the environment through our lighting console. We also want to make sure that the house lights have better coverage than the setup we are currently using. We are also planning an upgrade to our stage lighting. Between the ability to put controllable lights nearly anywhere we want in the auditorium and some intelligent lights - the upgrade is going to be a huge improvement!


3. Saturday Nights - There are several studies out there that say that when a facility is 80% full, that growth starts to be hindered. Some studies are now saying that once you reach 70% capacity that people will no longer come because it feels too full. We have reached or gone beyond both of these percentages in several areas of our current facility at the Orchard. We also know that our 10:45am service on Sunday usually has the most first time guests - that when most people will check out a church. Evaluating all of these things along with the idea that we could reach a whole new crowd of people, we are launching a Saturday night service on October 20th! It exciting for all of us as a staff and a church. We will be beginning a new series that weekend and we have an awesome mailer designed to be going out the week before. Lots of volunteers involved in this and a great opportunity to get more people involved. Can't wait!

Lot's of things happening and this is just the tip of the iceberg! Thanks for your patience and sticking with me here at mikejonesblog.com - more posts on the way.

Peace.