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.

Found, Etc.

I've been pretty quiet on the blog lately, and a lot has happened this last couple of weeks - a very full couple of weeks.

For one, Kylee was able to recover the missing slipper for her mom. This has been a good thing and was found near the end of Kristen's stint of being sick. I fear I take too much that Kristen does for granted, which was very apparent during her illness.

Myself and a few of the musicians on my team played a party for one of our long time teammates. A lot involved with this but it was totally worth it... the whole thing had been organized as a complete surprise for his 50th birthday! Always proud to have my team rock the house!

Preparing for Christmas at The Orchard. Lots of prep and a lot of things that need to take place over the last week or so before the 24th. It's going to be amazing!

More later.
Peace.

* * WANTED * *

One pink, fuzzy slipper. It's owner has located the left but has been unable to find it's match.

Weight: nearly nothing.
Height: a couple of inches.

Distinguishing marks: let's just say well worn over the last 11 months. It also has (or perhaps now it's only had) white fuzzy trim and pom-poms.

The owner is in dire need of the second slipper due to the recent inclement weather conditions.

It's last known whereabouts include the hall and the local dog's layer. No sign of fowl (or canine) play has been discovered as yet, but nothing has yet been ruled out.

Last seen approximately 11/20/07.

If you have seen said matching slipper, please notify the owner immediately. No reward is currently being offered.

Peace.

Mac Addicts: Command+Y

I have learned to LOVE the Command+Y feature in the new Mac OS (Leopard).

This simple shortcut allows you to view any document without opening it's associated application. I mean, you get to see a complete view of the entire document!

This has been a huge time saving feature for me! Instead of leaving apps open or loading several or waiting for one to load (which is still remarkably faster on the Mac, even the office products), I can view entire documents using Command+Y. I look through documents of notes, team schedules, production schedules, etc without ever opening them in their apps. Allows me to move a lot faster.

What keystrokes or shortcuts have you found useful on the Mac?
Try the Command+Y function in any of your finder views.
Peace.

Weekend Setlists

It's been a couple weeks since I've been back - thanks for hangin' with me! I think I'm going to stick with the changes for now. BTW, if you link here and your not listed here, let me know.

Thought I'd get things going again by letting you know some of the tunes we've done over the last two weekends...

11/24 and 11/25 (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):

* Who Knew - Pink
* Lord We Praise You - Todd Fields
* King of Majesty - Hillsong United
* Unchanging - Chris Tomlin


11/17 and 11/18 (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):

* Why Georgia - John Mayer (walk-in song)
* Not To Us - Chris Tomlin
* It's All About You - Big Daddy Weave
* Meant To Live - Switchfoot
* Take All Of Me - Hillsong United

More on the way as get ready to begin our last series of 2007 - Advent Conspiracy.

Peace.

Changes Are Coming...

Saw a banner that said the same thing in my local Walmart Store as it transitions to a 'Supercenter'. OK....

As you can tell, I'm working on the layout of this blog and trying to decide if I can customize it the way I want to using Blogger or if I need to go with another host (or my own). Let me know what you think about it along the way, but I should have the same features or better back up and running soon (one way or another).

One thing that YOU can do that would help out - if you link to this blog (make sure you let me know that you do so I can link you back, if I don't already), PLEASE make sure your link points to http://mikejonesblog.com as this allows me to move my blog and keep your links to me intact.

BTW, the wind and cold have finally arrived in the Chicago area - like the cold, hate the wind.
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

Morphed from Tiger to Leopard

Friday I switched over from Tiger to Leopard! If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to get a mac!

Leopard has a lot of cool features and I've not had enough time to explore them all yet. Some great new productivity tools, which I have already put to use.

I'll post a few of the commands and shortcuts that I find as I explore. If you find any you'd like to pass along, feel free to let me know.

I can't honestly remember what it was like to use a Windows machine and how I survived when I did.
Peace.

Weekend Setlist (11/3 and 11/4)

Life impacting weekend for parents and Grandparents! I hope it was powerful for you. Scott shared with us about our children's ministry and some important parenting tools. We are blessed with the opportunity to love our kids and to teach them to leave well.

Here's the music setlist from this weekend:

* (walk-in song) From God Above - Hillsong United
* Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
* Jesus Paid It All - Kristian Stanfill
* There Goes My Life - Kenny Chesney (course we rocked it a bit more)

Knowledge that is grounded,
Intimacy that is intentional,
Discipline that is consistent,
Structure that is strategic.

Peace.

An Orchard Weekend

I'm sitting here in our tech booth during our 9am service on Sunday. Scott is speaking right now and is really connecting with our crowd on the topic of parenting.

Some very funny stuff.
Some very hard hitting stuff.

It has been an incredible weekend so far. God did some great things with my artists this week during our rehearsals and warm ups. I think that translated into some very powerful moments not only from the platform this weekend but also on the platform.

Hard to describe except that it was powerful and moving.

To my teams, great job! Musically, vocally, and technically you all did a great job! Thanks for following and allowing me to be a part of a fantastic team!

Peace.