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Magic of The Swell Season

Had the wonderful privilege of seeing The Swell Season in concert with Amanda a few days ago at the  Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.  In case you’re not familiar with TSS, they are made up of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Film, Once) along with Hansard’s longtime band, The Frames. 

I could go on and on about the show, but let me just sum it up by saying that it was one of the best live  performances I have ever been to.  Seriously.  It was amazing.  In a way....almost magical.

Why?  Well here's a few things I was reminded of during the performance that may answer that.

People don’t want to simply hear the music; they want to feel it too.

I don’t even know why, but there was something really amazing about experiencing Glen Hansard standing at the edge of the stage, off-mic, singing....screaming....almost crying....from the depths of his soul. It was.....just wow.  You felt his journey.  His pain.  His joy.  His struggle.  And....his redemption.  It was beautiful. 

People love the unexpected.

Loved how Glen (in his “Where’s Waldo?” hat) and Marketa opened the show by sitting on the floor with an acoustic guitar and a cheap Casio keyboard performing the song, “Fallen From The Sky.”  Totally unexpected.  And everyone loved it.

Everybody loves a good story.

Glen is a great story teller.  He includes details that seem unnecessary until you realize that you've fallen in love with the character because of those details.  I’m 100% convinced that people love a good story.  Partly because we see ourselves in most of them. 

People want to participate. 

But you have to ask them to.  Bottom line is that people need to be led.  I think every church worship leader needs to see Glen Hansard perform.  He leads people well by performing with a ton of authenticity and by bringing depth to his audience. 

 Ireland has brought some pretty good stuff to our world.

Guinness, The Swell Season, The Commitments, The Cranberries, The Frames, Snow Patrol, Damien Rice, and of course....U2.

Go listen to The Swell Season.  See them in concert if you can.  I know I will.  Again.  And again.

The Orchard's Art Initiative!

“Art...can be a doxology in itself.” Francis Schaeffer

This coming weekend is the grand opening of The Orchard’s Community Art Initiative! 

Here’s the deal...  From now through January 2010, we are featuring over 60 paintings, original prints, and mixed media works by five local international and nationally acclaimed artists.  (Their work is already on display throughout The Orchard’s campus and let me tell you....it looks AMAZING! Will post photos after this weekend...)

This is a dream come true for us on so many levels.

For one, we believe that we must be people who recognize, create, and release beauty in our city and world.  And since we value the artful expression of people from all different backgrounds and who are at all different places in their spiritual journey, we believe that partnering with local artists is essential in seeing this happen.

We’re also joining together with these artists to create tangible expressions of love through existing partnerships both locally in Aurora and globally in Uganda, El Salvador, and Thailand. 

(And here’s the really cool part...  Not only are these works available for purchase, but all of the artists have agreed to donate a percentage of their proceeds back into one of our Glocal Partnerships.  How amazing is that?!)

Best of all, this is just the beginning.  We want to keep finding new and creative ways to be a supportive and empowering voice to our local artists as they continue to bring beauty to our world through their unique expressions of truth.

Can’t wait to see where this journey leads us in the weeks and months ahead!

Here are the details for this weekend:

Opening Reception & Food Drive
Sunday, November 15th, 2009 from 12:30pm - 2:00pm
The Orchard Community | 101 S. Barnes Rd., Aurora, IL 60506 | 630.897.8888

We're also encouraging everyone to bring non-perishable food items to benefit the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry.

Here’s a link to a few of the artists:

Dorothea Bilder
Tim Burns
Maureen Gasek
Cheryl Holz

P.S. Attention Artists! Continuing Art Exhibitions are scheduled for 2010 and 2011. We are currently looking for artists to submit their work starting fall 2010 and continuing through 2011.  For more information on future exhibits or for information on how artists can submit work, please contact: Maureen Gasek, Maureen@epsilondesign.net or 630-898-3859.

Sand Animation by Kseniya Simonova

This is just simply beautiful.  It's a sand animation by Kseniya Simonova from the Ukraine.  This is a clip of her portraying life during USSR's Great Patriotic War against the Third Reich in World War II. Worth watching the entire thing.

love.serve.give.

We've got some great opportunities to love.serve.give between now and Christmas at The Orchard.  Check them out:

More details here.

This is the kind of church...

"This is the kind of church and kingdom I want to be a part of - a band of people who are messy, have addictions and shortcomings, make mistakes, get rejected, and are screwed up, but are so fully aware of the Master's grace and love for them in spite of who they are or will be someday; people who embrace discomfort knowing there is so much to be gained for all of us and for all of our churches."

Dave Gibbons, The Monkey and the Fish

I'm calling it SHOCKTOBER.

Ok, so there are around 2.4 billion things that I'm excited about right now.  And I seriously feel like I need to pinch myself just to make sure this is all real.  Here's a taste.

STORY - It happens next week!  Can't wait.  Around 1,700 pastors, communicators, church leaders, writers, speakers, etc will converge for two days to learn and be inspired by an amazing line up of storytellers -   people like Dave Gibbons, Ed Young, Donald Miller, Nancy Beach, Mike Foster, Stacy Spencer, Chris Seay, and others.  The first day happens on Wednesday, October 28th at the beautiful Paramount Theater in downtown Aurora.  The next day will be workshops (sold out!) happening at The Orchard.  Honored to host and be a part of STORY!

CULTIVATE - Seriously, Chicagoland is the place to be in October.  Cultivate is a highly interactive, conversational, collaborative un-conference that's all about church communication.  It's happening the day before STORY.  And the lineup of facilitators is just sick.  Wow.

DAVE GIBBONS - We are honored to have Dave speak at The Orchard's gatherings the weekend following STORY.  Not only is Dave a good friend, but he's someone God has used to impact my life in some pretty significant ways.  I'm thrilled that our church community gets to hear and learn from him!

THE NEW & IMPROVED....ORCHARD - The Orchard has had an extreme makeover!  Through the amazing "pro bono" generosity of fellow Orchard tribal members, Dawn & Keith Baldwin (Aspire One), we have a new logo and amazzzing new website that will go live later THIS WEEK.  I'll talk more about this in a later post...  STAY TUNED!

LOVE.SERVE.GIVE. - It's The Orchard's GLOCAL outreach opportunities this winter.  More about this later as well... But just know that we are going to have some amazing opportunities to bring beauty and hope to people locally in our city and globally in places like Uganda, Thailand, and El Salvador.  

ORCHARD ART INITIATIVE - Too much to type, but The Orchard is turning into an art gallery starting this month.  Our campus will be filled with art from local artists.  Huge dream come true, but only the beginning...

Ok, there's more, but I my fingers hurt and I need to study.  OUT.

Hope.

 

This past Monday marked five years since my dad passed away.  It was a good day actually.  Spent it with my mom, sister, and our families. It's always good to be together on "the day." 

What a five years it's been.  On one hand, there's been a lot of mixed emotions as I've tried to journey past the loss of my father.  Grief is a crazy thing.  Just when you think you've conquered it, you realize you've been duped. 

At the same time, however, my life has also been full of overwhelming joy as I've watched God pour his blessing upon my family and church community.  And so of course, I'm extremely thankful.

But the thing that I'm becoming more and more thankful for as times goes by, is this thing called hope.  For the first time in my life, I think I'm finally starting to "get it".  In fact, I'm not even sure I was able to truly grasp the depth or idea of hope until I found myself in desperate need of it.  And now, I find myself becoming more and more dependent upon it as each day passes. 

From my journal (8/09):

Hope tells me that...

The future will be better than today.
What's broken will one day be fixed.
What hurts will one day be healed.
What is wrong will one day be made right.
What has been missed, will one day be compensated for.

I'm choosing to embrace this with both hands.  

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

Sometimes....Beauty Finds Us

Beauty.  Sometimes it's obvious, isn't it?

   
   

Other times...it's not.

This photo was taken a few months ago while on a visit to Uganda.  It's the home of a man named Moses.  He's the father of a young boy sponsored through Compassion.

Even looking back now, as I type this, it's hard to put into words what we saw and experienced that day as we walked through this urban neighborhood of Kampala.  Poverty, disease, suffering, unclean water....you name it.  I've spent time in other poverty stricken areas around the world, but on this day in particular, I realized that I had forgotten just how bad it really is. 

Which is why I think my mind struggled to make sense of what happened next.

As we were standing in the middle of this "mess" saying our goodbyes, my focus was immediately interrupted by the sound of a little girl giggling, laughing, and trying really hard to get our attention.  And as I turned around to see who the culprit was, I was completely taken back by the presence of this beautiful little girl.

 

It's hard to explain what I felt at that moment, but it was as though my mind immediately went TILT.  Not just because she looked like she had just walked out of a suburban mall somewhere in middle America. No, it was everything!  Her smile.  Her laughter.  Her silliness.  Her life!

It was almost like looking at a puzzle piece that had been placed on the wrong puzzle.  This piece didn't fit!

It was beauty...in the midst of utter brokenness. 

For the rest of the trip, I referred to this little girl as "Julia" in my conversations with people.  I called her that because she reminded me so much of my five year old daughter by the same name.  The way she made me smile and laugh was just like my little "Juju" makes me smile and laugh at home. 

I was reminded of something in regards to beauty that day. Something that I think is important as we become people who not only recognize obvious beauty, but who also learn to seek out beauty in this broken world.

Sometimes we find beauty.  And other times.....beauty finds us.  But either way, our eyes have to be open. 

Open our eyes Lord.  May we be more aware of Your beauty - even in the midst of brokenness.  Amen.