Meet the Banker

Meet the banker... identity yet unknown.

One last week in our Deal or No Deal series. This weekend is going to be the most challenging weekend yet!

If you are a part of the Orchard church community, you won't want to miss it.

Not only are we finishing the series with one more round of our Deal or No Deal game - with double the chances to win an iPod - but we're also going to be taking a trial run with God.

Find out more this weekend. See you there.
Peace.

A Fresh View

Had a great second week in our series Deal or No Deal! I'll catch you up on the Orchard Rewind tomorrow.

Several cool things happened this weekend including getting to meet Jon and Dori French, some friends of Scott's. Jon and Dori hung out with us and got a behind the scenes view of a weekend at The Orchard.

I'm always curious to hear what people think about our gatherings. Jon wrote a great post about their experience this last weekend. You can check it out here.

Fresh eyes on a process as simple as our production reviews or on different elements within our leadership gatherings helps keep the right perspective. Not a bad idea to have someone you trust do this on a regular basis. I say someone you trust because not everyone is looking out for your best interest (or the church community's best interest) when they give you a critique.

Anyway, check out what Jon had to say about his experience. If you've been to the Orchard, we'd love to hear your story too.
Peace.

What a weekend!

Wow!

Still processing the whole thing. Had a great crowd at The Orchard, an awesome concluding message to our series I Am Spirit, and fantastic music set! Combined with some well done technical arts on Sunday, it was an incredible combination. Some great feedback already from people who connected with God in a way they never have, or hadn't in a long time.

I love that about my church... people are excited by what God is doing among us. They aren't content with just kicking back and soaking it in. They are inviting their friends and family to experience it as well. There is a combination of passion from our staff and volunteers mixed with God's spirit that is unmistakable. You can't help but be excited!

What's really cool is that God does the same thing on topics that are really tough... the ones that people sometimes don't like to talk about. I know we are going to be hitting some of these this year. It's ok though. This is a safe place to take steps on your journey and I think people realize that fairly early on at The Orchard.

More on this last weekend coming up in the Orchard Rewind.
Peace.

Post Christmas Eve - Part 3

Last one... here are some of the photos that Dan grabbed from Christmas Eve (thanks Dan - can't wait to see video).

Peace.

Post Christmas Eve - Part 2

There's a lot of things that I could think back to about Christmas Eve this year at The Orchard.

I could tell you about all the people who brought family and friends (more than 1200 people attended). I could celebrate the generosity of those who gave toward Advent Conspiracy (clean water wells in Liberia and local food pantry's) and I do... I was blown away by the response (more than $21,000 donated toward Advent Conspiracy).

I could share with you about the candlelights - how the entire auditorium was filled with them at one point. I could go on and on about the videos we showed... those that were funny, those that were tearful and all that showed lives impacted by the coming of Jesus into this world. I could rattle off all the lighting equipment we used this year and how the moving lights, Christmas lights and hazer really rocked!

I could recall and tell you about all of those things, but the part I will never forget is my team.

The Orchard is home to some of the most talented vocalists and musicians I've ever worked with. We have a pretty high bar set for excellence on the team and yet the team continues to grow toward the next level. Every one of them gave their very best and I am proud of each of them.

Are there things we could have improved or done better? Of course... there always will be. We sing, play, mix, and present for the Creator of the universe and He deserves the very best.

Our lighting console tripped out the day before Christmas Eve and we lost 10 hours worth of programming. Our lighting tech spent another 8-hours reprogramming the board so that the lights would be ready for Christmas Eve. I had three vocalists who worked for several hours over a couple of weeks to prepare for their lead and support roles on 7 different songs. Nine musicians spent countless hours preparing and rehearsing arrangements to 8 songs that moved those who were there, including me (TSO has nothing on you guys)! I had 5 audio, multimedia and stage techs that helped create an amazing canvas of sound and visual art.

Not to mention the staff I work with, our video guru, our welcome teams, our parking teams and Pam (our volunteer 'green room' was fabulous - thank you)!

I hope you were there and got to appreciate the environment that was created for you to experience God. You may never know how big that night really was, nor the amount of time, talent, energy and effort that went in to planning that one experience. Every single bit of it was worth it.

Thank you team! You guys inspire me and I can't wait to see what God does through you and in you this next year!

Peace.

Post Christmas Eve - Part 1

I've had a few days to decompress. Christmas Day, my wife and I took the kids up north to hang out together. We had a great time and it was a very memorable Christmas.

I didn't want to let Christmas Eve get too far away before I shared a few reflections.

First of all, it was an amazing experience! At The Orchard this year, we hosted 4 candlelight services at 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm. At last count we had more than 1200 people show up to take part in the celebration. Yet another memorable experience!

The whole service was centered on the 'Colors of a Savior'. The idea was that the world was without color before Jesus came into the world. We told the Christmas story of the birth of Christ and then shared about how Jesus' story continues today in the lives of others. It's a story of hope when there seems to be none. A story of redemption. The story of peace, freedom, grace and mercy. A story that is alive in each of us.

God has done amazing things in the lives of this church community and that life change is incredible to see.

Here’s the music setlist from that evening:

• Wizards in Winter - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
  
• Salvation is Here - Hillsong United
• Angels We Have Heard on High - 722
• O Holy Night - Point of Grace
  
• What Child is This - MercyMe
  
• Beautiful Jesus - Kristian Stanfill
  
• Silent Night - Traditional (candlelight)
  
• Glorious One - Steve Fee
  

Pictures and more on the way.

Peace.

This Is It!

This is the week where we put together everything we've been planning for our Christmas Eve celebrations at The Orchard! We've spent a significant amount of time praying, planning, dreaming, and preparing for this event.

This Christmas Eve will be the biggest we've ever seen here at The Orchard.

We planned three services, and had to add a fourth because 2 of our services had 'sold out'. We used a ticketing system (free tickets) to help determine capacity at each service and allow us to be able to accommodate as many people as possible. We have a finite number of parking spaces and seating available.

As of yesterday we had nearly 1200 tickets out! Four services, 1200 people, 8 songs and 6 video segments - wow! We're also working on spectacular lighting using some of our new lights along with some additional lights from K B Productions. It's going to be good.

We have a great team of people putting this together and I love seeing all of them putting so much into this opportunity. That's what this is... one of our biggest opportunities to lead people to Jesus. This is one of those times when people will check out the local church when they may not visit any other time. We are ready to make it the best experience we can for them while celebrating the birth of Christ.

You won't want to miss this! By The way, if you don't already have a ticket, stop by anyway. We have saved some room for you!

Peace.

Weekend Setlist (11/10 and 11/11)

We continued our series Suburban Myths this week by talking contentment - being happy with what you've got. The myth we tend to believe is that 'more is better'.

Three things that Scott shared with us to help learn to be content: remember whose stuff it is, be generous with the stuff, and ask WHY before we BUY.

Here's the music setlist from this weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):

* All To You - Lincoln Brewster
* King of Majesty - Hillsong United
* Enough - Jeremy Camp
* (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones

See you next Sunday as we wrap up with one of the biggest myths of the series.

Posted by Mike Jones

There HERE Too!!!

So, some of you are wondering,

"what happened?"

"did the big screen get installed yet?"

"where's the picture of the massive center screen?"

... OR maybe that's just me and a few of you who have emailed me :)

The screens are all up! I thought the side screens were huge, ha! The center screen is like being at a movie theater! Ok maybe not quite that big, but it feels like it.

The projector for the center one is going up today, though we're having a few difficulties. Rest assured it will be up for this weekend and it's going to be spectacular!

Pictures?
You'll have to see it in person first or wait until after services on Sunday!
Peace.

12 Months Ago...

Hard to believe that it was only 12 months ago I joined the Orchard team. So much has happened in the last year it seems almost unreal.

I am proud to be part of a healthy, growing staff that strives to hear God's voice and then obey Him. I don't think I have grown more in my life than in the last year on this team.

It has also been awesome to be part of a healthy, growing, and loving church family! You guys are great and I never tire of telling others about you. God continues to do amazing things in your lives and the stories you've shared with me over this last year have been incredible! Never give up your boldness. Never stop being excited about being a part of this community. Allow the passion you have for leading others to Jesus to keep burning within you - may that fire never be quenched!

Thank you for sharing your lives and this past 12 months with my family and me!
Here's to the next 12!
Peace.

Baptism Video

Just saw an article someone sent me that was written up in a 'Christian' magazine. The article ridiculed us for our Baptism Instructional video we posted earlier this summer. They never said our name (at least in the snippet of the article I saw), but they had a picture in the article of the ending shot of the video.

Hilarious.

We've taken the heat over it and yet it continues to be checked out. We've had the video watched on google video almost 13 thousand times!! Who's watching it?

Amazing how things can be taken out of context in such an.... wait what was the word that was used.... egregious (yeah that's it) way.

The video was funny.
We had fun making it.
I think people were put at ease about what to expect when being baptized.
100 people committed their lives to Christ in baptism just a few weeks later.

Great how God moves.

OK... I'm done with it. Just had to get it out of my system and this is my blog, after all.
Peace.

Set Pics for RTO2

Here's a couple of pics of the set we have up for our summer series Rockin' The Orchard 2.

























What kind of cool set stuff are you all doing where you lead?

Peace.

Church in McD's

A few weeks ago, I shared with my musicians that I had eaten at Taco Bell that afternoon before rehearsal. I wasn't in there for a very long time but of the 5 songs that played over the loudspeakers in the restaurant, 4 were songs we had used in our weekend services with in the last few months.

I thought that was awesome.

My wife mentioned to me this week that she had taken the kids out to lunch to McDonald's and a song came on the loudspeakers that was a 'secular' tune (you might remember how I feel about using that term from this earlier post). My kids remarked, "hey that's a church song!"

I find that very cool! My kids are growing up learning that God can use anything to bring people to himself. Even more that we can have church anywhere we go - we are the church.

Peace.

Jesus vs. Christians

We showed this video last weekend during our services at The Orchard.
We were continuing our series, Confessions of a blue jean wearin', Starbucks addicted pastor.
Scott's talk was titled, "I Don't like [MOST] Christians."
That was his confession.
There was a lot of tension in the room for a while.
We had a HUGE response.
More people have responded positively to this message than any other during this series.

We have had several churches and leaders ask if they can use the video, which is good and bad.
Good in that we have been able to take something simple like this video and impact lives all over the country. Bad in that it takes something like this video to educate us to this fact. Bad in that followers of Christ are viewed this way.

This video was shot with one camera, our in-house video guru, and our lead pastor on the north side of Chicago.



What do you think? What are you going to do about this?
Peace.

First Wednesday: RE-charge

At the Orchard, we have what we call First Wednesday. The first Wednesday of each month (except for maybe a couple of months during the summer to give our teams a break), we gather together to just take a breather. It's a time when our church community gets together to keep first things first and to remind ourselves of why we are Christ followers. It's a time of music (usually all acoustic/unplugged), communion, and especially community.

It's a time to re-focus, re-energize and re-fresh.

This Wednesday we had, in my opinion, ONE of the best gatherings I've ever been a part of. There were people of all ages, various backgrounds and different stages of there journey. My family got to come for the first time in a while, which was cool to see too.

We actually change our auditorium so that it is a unique and different experience than on the weekends. It's a very spiritual experience. Not that our weekends are not, but it's different.

This month, Scott talked about the Eucharist. You can read more about it on his blog post, but the main idea was that we have been called to be a living Eucharist. It's not just a one time act, but a pouring into us that we then pour into others lives. He talked about how some have poured out so much to others but don't always take the time to be re-plenished.

The music was great - just a couple of acoustics (Ken still threw some cool licks on the electric which gave it a nice touch), a djembe (awesome Matt!) and some fantastic vocals (Amanda - wow!). Great community time together - the sound of people meeting or re-meeting and re-connecting was almost deafening. A great time of just re-centering on what it's all about. A great time of the church truly being the church - the body of the living Christ.

Thanks for all of you who were there - I pray you were touched.
I pray that you were re-filled.

If you weren't there, you got to check it out sometime - you won't be disappointed!

Peace.