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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.

The Nines - SCHEDULE

Just noticed that Leadership Network released a preliminary schedule for tomorrow's Nine's Conference. 

Love that I get to share the first 9AM slot with four friends - Troy Gramling, Mark Beeson, Anne Jackson, and Dave Ferguson! 

So far, there are over 9,000 people registered.  If you haven't registered, you still can here.

It's going to be quite a day.  Over 70 speakers scheduled.  Can you say FIREHOSE!?!?

Here's the schedule (all times CST):

9AM — Troy Gramling, Mark Beeson, Anne Jackson, Dave Ferguson, Scott Hodge

10AM — Perry Noble, Stacy Spencer

11AM — Dino Rizzo, Nancy Beach, Steven Furtick, Reggie McNeal

12PM — Craig Groeschel, Leonard Sweet, Greg Surratt, Jon Tyson

1PM — Margaret Feinberg, Larry Osborne, Matt Carter, Pete Wilson

2PM — Neil Cole, Reggie Joiner, JD Greear

3PM — Mark Batterson, Dan Kimball, Mark DeYmaz

4PM — Jud Wilhite, Brian McLaren, Bob Roberts, Rick McKinley, John Ortberg

5PM — Alan Hirsch, John Bishop, Toby Slough, Ed Stetzer

6PM — Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, Brad Powell

7PM — Darrin Whitehead, Brian Bloye

8PM — Eric Bryant, Nancy Ortberg, Rick Warren

09.09.09

September 9th, 2009 at 9AM (CST)

Almost 9,000 Registered. 

Are you?

Driving Discussion About Story

Driving. Story Chicago from scotthodge on Vimeo.

StoryChicago.com

a short story about story

Story Chicago - Paramount Theater, Aurora from scotthodge on Vimeo.

Story Conference

August!

What the heck happened to summer!?  Holy smokes...  It's August.  But that's ok because this is going to be a great month!  Here's a few things coming up that I'm very, very excited about!

First....there's the Echo Conference.  It's this week in Dallas.  Mike Jones and I are headed there tomorrow.  And not only am I excited to be a part of the media/church/tech panel with my friends Bobby Gruenewald, Carlos Whittaker, and Cynthia Ware but I'm also look forward to hearing & learning from people like Phil Visher, Mark Steele, Phil Cooke, and Ben Arment! 

 

Then next week, I'll be heading to Orlando where I'll be helping host the Influence Conference!  Speakers will include: Mark Batterson, Reggie Joiner, Beth Moore, Keith Craft, and Ed Young.  We are also going to be having post-session Q&A's that you can be a part of.  More on that later...

After Influence, a couple days with the family at Disney World....and then........the thing that I'm MOST EXCITED ABOUT.........

The Orchard's annual BBQ & BAPTISM happening on Sunday, August 9th!

And here's a taste of what that's all about in case you missed it a couple weeks ago...

2008 Orchard Baptism Video from The Orchard on Vimeo.

Want to sign up to be baptized?  Go here!

It's going to be a great August! 

Francis Chan and My Mom....

This is the intro we played before Francis Chan's One Prayer talk last weekend at The Orchard.  Pretty funny story about Francis Chan and my mom about half way through. 

Scott Hodge Intro for Francis Chan OP Video from The Orchard on Vimeo.

Story

A few months ago, my friend Ben Arment called me with an idea about creating a first-of-its-kind experience for writers, communicators, artists, pastors, and church leaders.  The idea was to design a conference where people could learn from some of the most effective communicators of the Gospel today. 

But the best part was that Ben wanted the conference to happen in or around Chicago.  So we started talking venues...and one thing led to another.....which eventually landed the project called "Story" at two incredible venues in the Chicago area:

The Paramount Theatre and The Orchard - both in Aurora!  (For those of you who don't know, The Orchard is the church community where I serve as Lead Pastor.)

So of course, I'm excited!  But the thing that I'm most excited about is the idea and heart behind this 2 day event.  I believe that the greatest story - the story of the Gospel - is a story that deserves to be communicated in the most creative, engaging, and beautiful way possible.  And that's what Story is going to be all about.

Enough rambling...  Let me give you a few details:

Dates: October 28th & 29th

Where: Paramount Theatre (28th) and The Orchard (29th) - both in Aurora (40 miles west of Chicago).

Main Speakers (28th): Dave Gibbons, Don Miller, Ed Young, Nancy Beach, Stacy Spencer, Chris Seay, and Mike Foster

How's that for diversity!?  WOW.

That's a lot to digest and this post is getting too be long, so I'm going to save the workshop speakers for another post.  But it is definitely going to be an amazing group of people who are coming together in October. 

Go to the Story website now. 

And oh yeah - they are also giving away a trip to C.S. Lewis' home in Oxford, England!

Orlando...Austin...Atlanta.....and next, Uganda.

Ok, I'm diving back in to the blog.  It's been way too long.  My lame excuse: I've been running 200MPH since a few weeks before Easter with writing, travel, etc... and blogging just hasn't been that high on my priority list.  Sorry faithful folks.

So anyway...  Rather than try to knock out a bunch of amazing blog posts, I thought I'd throw out a few random thoughts of what's been happening over these past few weeks.  Here we go:

• Easter.  This year's Easter weekend The Orchard was a record-breaking weekend!  Our teams did an amazing job and I think my head is still spinning after a HUGELY successful Helicopter Easter Egg Drop.  All I can say is WOW.  If you missed the video review, click here.
  
  
• Orlando.  Had a great time at Exponential in Orlando.  Exponential is sort of a like a big family reunion (but without the weird uncle and the funky potato salad).  This is actually the largest church planting conference in North America and one that I would definitely encourage all church planters to attend in 2010.  Had fun teaching a session with Gary Lamb (did he really say "wanker"??) and then participating in some great conversations in the Exponential Lounge with guys like Erwin McManus, Francis Chan, Dave Ferguson, Craig Groeschel, Matt Chandler, and others. 
  
  
• Austin. After a couple of days home I found myself in the amazing city of Austin, TX to be a part of Q.  Q is one of my favorite gatherings of the year.  It's small and all about influencing and changing culture.  Think TED format.  Loved connecting with a bunch of friends - both new and old.  People like Kem Meyer, Mike Foster, Jeff Shinabarger, Tim Stevens, Alan Hirsch, Kyle Zimmerman, John Burke, Rick McKinley, Chris Seay, Gabe Lyons, Mel McGowan, Charles Lee, and a bunch of other amazing people. Next year, Q will be here - in Chicago!
  
  
• Austin II.  All I can say is - what a cool city.  And with a slogan that's all about keeping it "weird" what do you expect??  Check out a few photos I posted in Facebook.
  
  
• Jackie Huba.  Writer, Author, Speaker, Blogger, Marketing Guru-ess, co-founder of the Society for Word of Mouth.  Forbes calls her work "the word of mouth gospel."  Anyway....  Had a chance to grab lunch with Jackie while in Austin.  That was worth the trip alone.  If you don't follow her twitter you need to. 
  
  
• Atlanta.  Orange.  It's THE premier and the BEST family ministry conference in the flippin' universe.  Loved being a part of this and having the opportunity to share The Orchard's story and some thoughts/ideas on the topic of navigating change with a room full of Lead Pastors and Senior Leaders.  Just wish I could have stuck around for more than a few hours, but was glad to be able to hang with a few of our staff who were attending and introduce them to some killer Korean BBQ. 
  
  
• Uganda.  In a couple of weeks.  More on this later, but looking forward to getting my heart messed up by this trip. 
  
  
• Study.  It's what I should be doing right now.  So I'm done.  Hopefully back in the groove of blogging.  We'll see.  Thanks for the encouragement folks.

Exponential 2009!

I'm in Orlando, Florida with my good friend, Ted Egly for this year's Exponential Conference.  For those of you who don't know, Exponential is the largest church planting conference in North America.  This year, almost 3,000 people have registered to be a part.  Check out a list of this year's speakers here.

A few things you need to know about...

Tomorrow (Tuesday, April 20th), Gary Lamb and I will be hosting a post-launch session entitled: "The Leader's Capacity to Stay on Course." Really looking forward to this!  It will be at 4:15pm.

I'm also excited about a new addition to the conference this year known as the Exponential Lounge - where I will have the privilege of hosting conversations with a bunch of great leaders such as Erwin McManus, Dave Ferguson, Francis Chan, Larry Osbourne, Craig Groeschel, Matt Chandler, and a bunch of others. 

The best part about the Exponential Lounge is that all of our interviews/conversations will be broadcast LIVE on our conference channel.  You will also have an opportunity to ask questions via text messaging thanks to our friends at Jarbyco! 

Some important links & info:

Exponential Channel (live interviews that I'll be hosting with some great leaders)

Twitter hashtag: #exponential09

My Twitter: @scotthodge

Texting Instructions: "EX + your question" to 24625

Here's Tuesday's Schedule:

• 12:00pm: Erwin McManus
• 3:00pm: Larry Osborne
• 4:15pm: Efrem Smith & Mark DeYmaz

*All times are EST.

You can start texting your questions for Erwin at 11:15am EST tomorrow!

Hope you'll join us!