link Love Update

Hey bloggers! I'm trying my best to get back in the game here and have just been in a busy season. Rest assured though, I'm committed :)

I noticed I had some new links (thanks to the wonders of Technorati). If you link back to me and I haven't shared the love, let me know and I'll be glad to add you to the link love list.

PLEASE use my domain name http://mikejonesblog.com as I'm thinking of moving my blog over to wordpress.

The latest additions are:
Brandon Shanks - The Revolutionary Blog
Paul Haugen - Jacob's Well
Bekah Gustin - Caffeinated Ragamuffin (she's back!)
Ted Egly... of Ted Egly (congrats on George!)

Make sure you stop by for a visit.
Peace.

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.

Fighting

It's been a beautiful day in the Chicagoland area - I love this time of year! It's cooling down and we get to have the windows open and enjoy the weather. My wife is not thrilled about the change in temps though.

So I'm sitting here in my upstairs room with the windows open, listening to my neighbors fight. They have been arguing for a while - cussing and screaming at each other. I guess I never grew up around that so it seems almost movie-esque to me. I'm praying for their kids. I don't know them very well, but the few times we've talked they seemed friendly.

The one thing that is totally jumping out to me is the yelling.... they're yelling at each other at the same time. Neither is listening to the other. Very sad.

I'm sure they didn't plan the whole neighborhood to hear them. Though their windows sound like they are closed, everyone else's are open. I'm praying for the two of them as well.

Now, please keep in mind that I am not one to eaves drop. This is nothing like that... I am on the verge of closing my window.

But have you ever thought about how your conversations sound to others?
Would others hear you screaming or yelling at your spouse? At your kids? At your pets?

Have things ever been so bad that you couldn't solve a problem through discussion rather than through screaming? Do things ever get solved that way?

I hate fighting.
Peace.

Guys vs Girls: Box Score

Well there have been a few games since I last posted the scores... let me see if I can catch you up :)

Guys - 14
Girls - 8

This is the most recent tally and the girls seem pretty ecstatic to be making a change toward a positive in their favor... we'll see how long that lasts :)

To keep things on the good side with my beautiful wife, I have to say that her and her entourage whooped us 3 games to nothing while my family was in town. We just couldn't catch a break.

Hope your games have been going well - their good for the mind and fun in their own right.

Peace.

Long Time No Blog

Can't believe how time just slips away from you. It's been over two weeks since I've blogged and a LOT has happened since then!

Thanks for hanging in there with me... some big things coming up that have been on the horizon for a long time.

This week we just started a new series called OPEN HOUSE and each week we are changing our stage setup to reflect one of the three environments we are focusing on (the foyer, the living room, and the kitchen). These environments make up everything we do at the Orchard so we are spending some time reminding ourselves why we do what we do at the Orchard and how everything we do is strategic.

I hope to throw some updates on the things that are happening this week.
Until then...
Peace.

Guys vs Girls: Box Score

What would camping be without some card games (friendly competition, of course)!

We had several different games that were had during our time at the campground. The team games included Skipbo and Euchre. The guys prevailed as normal, though I'll admit we did get whooped pretty good during one game of Euchre.

Here's the up tally to date:

Guys - 12
Girls - 6

Peace.

Take All Of Me

I'm sitting here late tonight listening to songs in my iTunes library while watching some goofy movie on tv. I'm not really following either but my mind seems to be resting not being able to focus but drowning everything else out. My mind goes crazy, especially in the silence and I find myself trying to get my brain to slow down and chill out.

Anyway, I hit some Hillsong United tracks in my iTunes library and don't really notice much until I get to a song that seems to grab my attention and bring me to a time of deep reflection.

I have grown to love Hillsong United's music and style over the past few years. They have some incredible songs. But this song, which I love anyway, is Take All Of Me, off their 2004 CD, "More Than Life". This song hit and I ended up going back and listening to it over and over and over, weeping all the while. The melody of the song is so simple. Here are the lyrics:

I love You
All of my hope is in You
Jesus Christ take my life
Take all of me

You broke the night like the sun
And healed my heart with Your great love
Any trouble I couldn't bear
You lifted me upon Your shoulders
Love that's stronger
Love that covers sin
And takes the weight of the world

I love You
All of my hope is in You
Jesus Christ take my life
Take all of me

You stand on mountain tops with me
With You I walk through the valleys
Your grace is all I rely on
Love that's stronger
Love that covers sin
And takes the weight of the world

I love You
All of my hope is in You
Jesus Christ take my life
Take all of me

I love You so, and I give up my heart to say
I need You so, my everything

God I love you so. I have no hope but you. Forgive me for not always giving you all of my life. Forgive me for trying to hold on to those areas I think I can control, yet fail miserably at. You have given me life and I ask you to take all of me, with no reservations. You are my everything.

I haven't wept like that because of a song in quite some time.
There is a lot of power in these words, and in the music of this song.

Thanks for letting me bear some of myself.

Peace.

The Fridge

Upon our return from our camping trip (check out my previous post), we were greeted by a nasty odor and a bunch of water all over our kitchen floor... our fridge had decided to die on us during our time away.

Maybe it was lonely.
Maybe it felt neglected, not being opened a trillion times a day.
Maybe it just figured that 6 years was long enough to be a fridge.

Whatever the reason, the thing must have literally ceased to cool or keep things cold the moment we closed the garage door on our way out of town to go camping. Everything inside was a total loss.

There is nothing like losing your fridge... almost makes you feel, oh how did the department store salesman put it - like being naked. OK... But it does make you feel kind of stranded for some reason.

The only thing worse than losing your fridge is finding it coming home from vacation that got rained out.

Actually, the worst part about it was the smell... don't know what to say about that or even how to describe it. Wow!

So, a journey with yet another appliance ends and another begins (and so does the payments :)

Is your refrigerator running? :))
Peace.

I'm Back

Wow!! Finally back to the blog world on my Mac... I took a week-long vacation with my family. I, of course, had a lot of grand plans of books I was going to read, songs I was going to write and things I was going to get done, but time flies faster than I could have imagined.

I spent the first part of the week just chillin' with my wife and kids - watching cheap movies, cleaning out our basement and getting ready for our camping trip. We then spent the second half of of the week camping - tents and sleeping bags (though we were at a KOA so we had showers and indoor plumbing). We had a great time! Some good friends of ours joined us for part of our camping time and we had a blast. Rained a bit but not bad... until....

Torrential downpour on the morning we were breaking camp. Soaked to the bone and most of our camping gear drenched, we left for home, cutting our last day activities short. I would still count it as a great trip.

I actually had planned to do some serious blogging the first part of the week, but with my kids in shock that I was actually on vacation I decided to hold off until we went camping. The comment that got me was, "you mean you're really taking a vacation - from the Mac too?!?!"

Yeah.
Enough said.
I have a problem.

So needless to say, when we got to the KOA with the supposed wifi hotspot, I was disappointed to find the 'wifi' link was a plug in for a modem connection to your own dial-up service... who has dial-up anymore :) So, no blogging. Great time with my wife and kids though.

I love camping... the tents, the campfires, the s'mores, the marshmallow doughboys (if you've never had these, you have to try them), the fishing, the games... lots of good childhood memories. I am finding though as I get older that it would be much easier to go camping in an RV or something of the sort to eliminate the set up and break down time (not to mention give you some protection against the elements) but for now...

How about you? Anyone else like to go camping?
Good camping antidotes?

Have you taken a break lately just to spend undivided time with your family?
Peace.

Jones' Simpsonized

I jumped on the bandwagon here, but added a twist....

Here's my family simpsonized. It was the closest we could get at least (sorry Seth, they didn't have Mohawks available for kids).

Wanna try? Go here and check it out!
Let me know what YOU come up with.

Peace.






:))