That’s What…….MOM Said!
Wow, what a weekend! We LITERALLY rolled out the red carpet for all the moms who showed up Saturday and Sunday at The Orchard. We also had a live video feed from the red carpet where our friend, Jason Hartong, was interviewing moms and warming up the crowd before each service. It was a blast!
My FAVORITE part of the weekend was the exciting opportunity that I had to interview four amazing mothers who shared tons of insight, wisdom and some of the real life challenges that they have faced through their journeys of motherhood.
This was all a part of our “That’s What She Said” series. And I just have to say…….these moms did an AWESOME job of communicating from their hearts in an authentic, yet impacting way! There’s NO DOUBT in my mind that God used each of them to speak to the hearts of EVERY person there. Great job Kristen, Connie, Jenny and………MY MOM, Loudene! I’m so proud of each of you!
Here are some sights… (Click for larger images)
To love the Lord…
Missionary evangelist Stanley Jones writes
The Christian position is “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy mind” - the intellectual nature; “with all thy heart” - the emotional nature; “with all thy soul” - the willing nature; and “with all thy strength” - the physical nature. The total person is to love him - mind, emotion, will, strength. But the “strength” might mean the strength of all three. Some love him with the strength of the mind and the weakness of the emotion - the intellectualist in religion; some love him with the strength of emotion and the weakness of mind - the sentimentalist in religion; some love him with the strength of the will and the weakness of emotion - the man of iron who is not very approachable. But loving God with the strength of the mind, the strength of the emotion, and the strength of the will - that makes the truly Christian and the truly balanced and the truly strong character.
From Ordering your private world by Gordon MacDonald
Posted by Kathryn Egly
Mother’s Day at The Orchard!
I’m really excited about this weekend as we celebrate Mother’s Day at The Orchard! We have some great things planned that you won’t want to miss. Hopefully you’ll be bringing your mother or A MOM with you. I promise that you’ll be glad you did!
Speaking of mom’s… Here’s a photo of me and my sister (Kellie) with our mom, Loudene Hodge. We love you mom!
Posted by Scott Hodge
Parenting Podcast
Wow…I just finished listening to the podcast “Smudged: My Children” from April 19/20th. Scott did a tremendous job communicating words of encouragement and direction to help us navigate the parenting journey! I would encourage EVERY PARENT to click here and listen to it!!!!!
Also - if you are parent who wants to pray for your children but aren’t sure how, a book I love is called Power of a Praying Parent. (Click here to purchase a copy) This book gives you specific prayers for your children.
I hope that you will use the podcast and book as tools to help you on your parenting journey!
Posted by Kathryn Egly
05.03.08 and 05.04.08 - Setlist
We began a new series this week called That’s What She Said. We will be taking the next three weeks to celebrate women by looking at things said by great women in the bible.
This week we focused primarily on Esther. She has a great story! Here’s this woman who had nothing going for her yet God uses her to save an entire nation of people. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they recognize God’s call and respond with courage. The courage to follow through with what God has called you to is not something you wait for - it’s what God gives you in the moment. Courage is not waiting until you are no longer afraid of whatever it is your afraid of… it’s action in spite of that fear.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
Posted by Mike Jones
*****(Please use discretion when previewing or purchasing other songs by this artist as other songs on this album may contain inappropriate lyrical content.)
Disney characters - what’s their background story?
I had the privilege of attending a great children’s ministry conference last week. One of the speakers was Glen Keane - an artist and writer for Disney. He created some of Disney’s great characters - Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Pocahantas, Tarzan, and The Beast (From Beauty and the Beast). (Side note - Glen’s dad is Bill Keane - the creator and writer of “THE FAMILY CIRCUS” cartoon.)
What I did not realize and what Glen shared was that he wrote about these characters as he was journeying through his faith.
For example, as he began observing Christ followers (before he decided to become a Christ follower), he wrote about Ariel. Ariel was a character who wanted to enter into a world she was not yet a part of. She observed people in this other world and wanted to be like them - to become one of them. Soon after Glen wrote this story, he became a Christ follower!
The Beast represented Glen as he began his journey. He felt that he had all these feelings and emotions inside he did not know how to adequately and/or appropriately express. He talked about about The Beast’s “transformation” at the end of the movie is a reflection of how we are transformed into the likeness of Christ.
Interesting stuff…I thought you’d want to know!
Posted by Kathryn
04.26.08 and 04.27.08 - Setlist
This weekend we concluded our series Smudged. Chris Bell brought us a great teaching on spirituality vs. religion. We’re on a spiritual journey that is about a way of life.
Turn from believing rightly to living rightly.
Turn from following rules to building relationships.
Turn from the destination to the journey.
Turn from religious rituals to spiritual practices.
We ended the weekend by taking communion together - a spiritual practice to remember what a friend did for us. It’s all about cleaning the lenses of our life so that we can see things how they really are - unsmudged.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
Posted by Mike Jones
*****(Please use discretion when previewing or purchasing other songs by this artist as other songs on this album may contain inappropriate lyrical content.)
04.19.08 and 04.20.08 - Setlist
Our Smudged series continued as we talked about our children. Scott talked about how we can build scaffolding in our kids lives so that their lives and leadership would exceed our own. Very powerful and healing message in looking at how we see our parents and our children with an unsmudged perspective. We concluded each service with an opportunity for parents to dedicate their kids to God - asking God and our church community to help them build scaffolding in their kids’ lives.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
Posted by Mike Jones
*****(Please use discretion when previewing or purchasing other songs by this artist as other songs on this album may contain inappropriate lyrical content.)
04.12.08 and 04.13.08 - Setlist
This weekend in our series Smudged, Chris Bell talked about our health and how we view our bodies. He talked about not comparing ourselves to others but treating our body as the temple of God. He also gave some very practical things for us to check out to improve our health.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
Posted by Mike Jones
04.05.08 and 04.06.08 - Setlist
The third week in our series Smudged was about how we see and deal with conflict. Scott talked about our some very practical ways to effectively and biblically resolve conflict in our lives. Check out the podcast here.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
Posted by Mike Jones
