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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.

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.

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.

All You Need is a Good Idea!

I'm excited to introduce to you a new author by the name of Jay Heyman!   Jay is the author of a  new book entitled, All You Need is a Good Idea!. 

I had a chance to read Jay's book flying back from Orange County a couple weeks ago and I couldn't stop underlining, scribbling, and making notes all over the margins.  It's a great book filled with lots of practical stories and advice from a guy who has actually done it!

With that said, I recently had a chance to shoot a few questions over to Jay about his book.  There's some great insight here and I really appreciate Jay taking the time to respond! 

Jay - first and foremost...  Mac or PC?

Mac. I work with art directors and historically they much prefer the graphic capabilities of Macs, although the two platforms are getting more similar, as they pluck off good ideas from each other. I still get a kick out of installing software and seeing three pages of instructions for the PC and only three sentences for the Mac.

Who did you write this book for?

According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses make up 99.7 per cent of all  employer firms. My book is written for theses small businesses, for what I call the lieutenants of industry, as opposed to the captains. Smaller businesses often don’t have the resources and large staff to develop their marketing ideas. All You Need Is A Good Idea! will help them learn to create the ideas they need to stand out in the marketplace, build market share, get publicity, appear larger than they really are and make their competition nervous…while actually having fun.

My book provides a (hopefully) comprehensive guide from generating the first fuzzy notion to creating the final good idea. In a phrase, it is designed to help small companies learn to make their business conspicuous.

Your book is entitled, All You Need is a Good Idea!  Why "good" and not "great" or better yet... "PERFECT"?

While you are waiting for the “world’s greatest” idea, you will stand frozen in apprehension, immobilized by anxiety. You will find yourself conscientiously discarding all the ideas you create, judging them as not being good enough, or a little trite, or not quite clever enough. You will never satisfy yourself sufficiently to actually use one of them. Even President Obama recently commented “We will not let the pursuit of perfection stand in the way of achievable goals.” And he may not even have read my book.

Jay, you make a great point about how a good idea doesn't necessarily require a large marketing budget.  In fact, you even take it a step further and suggest that having a good idea backed by a huge media budget could potentially be a problem.  Why is that?

Too often a hefty advertising budget means you may be tempted to settle for conservative and safe communications, in the hope that the weight of the media will help the message break through. A good idea backed by a huge media budget would actually be wonderful. It is the absence of an idea, the reliance on the clout of the media that is a waste of dollars. (And you can name your own Super Bowl commercials that unfortunately fit this description.)

What do we need to be very clear about before coming up with a good idea?

Being clever for the sake of being clever is never the right approach. You must first thoroughly analyze whom you want to be talking to (your target audience) and what you are trying to convince them of (your strategy). If you are not clear about your destination, how will you ever know you have gotten there?

What are some common enemies to coming up with a good idea?

Committees. Settling for your first idea. Falling in love with a headline. Left-brain management types with colorful charts and imposing graphs that use quantitative methods to make qualitative judgments. The fear that you do not have all the information you need. (Just relax and memorize the Albert Einstein quote I put in the front of my book. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”)

Jay - thanks again for sharing some great insights with my readers!  

Buy the book here.

Visit Jay's blog here.

Interviewed by Cynthia Ware

While at The Idea Camp, I was honored to be interviewed by my new friend, Cynthia Ware from The Digital Sanctuary. We talked about Twittering, church leadership, transition, etc... 

Side note: the audio is a little bit off from the video - looks kinda like a cheap kung fu movie.  :)

The Idea Camp - Scott Hodge Interview from The Idea Camp on Vimeo.

Watch other videos from The Idea Camp here.

We Are Becoming!

As most of you know, several weeks ago we began what I think has become one of The Orchard's most unique and impacting series in a long time.  Each week, we have journeyed through different spiritual practices such as: silence, solitude, scripture meditation, daily prayer rhythms, generosity, and others.

The big idea of the series is basically this:

God is at work in us.  Spiritual practices are some of the ways that we cooperate with that work as God helps us to become the people He created us to be. 

There's a couple of reasons why I think this has been such an impacting series for us:

1. It's been unplanned.  At the beginning of the series, I really felt impressed to forgo all long term planning for this series.  Usually, we try to plan topics, etc... WEEKS out in advance.  But with this series I really felt like we needed to be completely flexible with where God wanted to take our church community throughout this series.  So we have literally planned out each weekend gathering one week at at a time. 

2. It has stretched us and pulled us out of our comfort zone.  We're comfortable with our long-range planning.  But starting with a blank canvas every single week throughout this series has stretched us and challenged us - in fresh and much needed ways. 

Has it been challenging in the area of creative planning each week?  Yeah, sort of.  But at the same time, I have to say that this has probably been one of our most creative and artistic series ever.  Watching it all come together each week has been amazing.

2. It's been very personal.  For both me and our community.  Each week has been planned in response to what it seems God did in hearts the week before.  It's almost hard to put into words - but it feels like a journey that God is taking us all on to prepare us for a shift from 3rd to 4th gear.  

3. It's been experiential.  Each week of the series we have tried to creatively provide ways for people to not only learn, but also experience and taste the spiritual practices we've been teaching on.  For example, one week we led everyone through several minutes of silent scripture meditation.  Another week, we utilized the technology of Twitter to guide people through a week of daily prayer rhythms.

When it's all said and done, my hope and prayer is that our community has had small, bite-sized, appetizer-type tastes that will only make them hungrier for the ways in which these spiritual practices can truly impact our lives. 

So with all that said....

I'm thankful.  God seems to be doing something really great at The Orchard right now.  And I'm even more excited what's to come these next couple of weeks as I teach on a few missional practices.  Which ultimately, is what all the other practices eventually point to.

On a side note.....We've been really honored by the influx of requests for our artwork, sermon transcripts, video pieces, and other creative elements from this series.  Typically, we are more than happy to share whatever we come up with.  We're all about that.  However, because of the uniqueness of this series and what it is that God seems to be doing through it, we've decided to hold off on sharing any of our creative or teaching elements for at least three months. 

And to be honest, I can't even tell you why I feel so strongly about that, but it just feels right, so I'm going to follow my gut.  Who knows, maybe there's something else that God wants to do with this series that we're not aware of yet.  Or maybe it's just that this thing feels very personal for us at The Orchard.  Or both.  :)  Either way, thanks for understanding....

Plasticky, Produced....and the most AMAZING, OFF THE CHARTS blog post EVERRR!

Craig Groeschel touches on something in his book, It, that's been on my mind quite a bit lately.  It has to do with finding the balance between doing things with "excellence" and still keeping things feeling raw, authentic, and real.

Over this past year at The Orchard we have added some pretty significant elements to our weekend gatherings in terms of media and technology.  Yet as we've taken those steps, we've also worked hard at being very intentional about not coming across "over produced" or inauthentic in any way. 

And honestly, it helps that most of us involved in the creative process hates anything that feels too produced or plasticky.  So our radars are always up when it comes to things feeling too canned. 

So anyway...  This got me thinking about some of the things we try to be intentional about in order to keep things feeling fresh and authentic.  Here are a few off the top of my head:

We are intentional about avoiding "churchy" and cliche-ish sounding words and phrases during worship and teaching.  Our communication style is very conversational in approach - across the board.  Still passionate and full of life....but mostly conversational.  We don't go from sounding like "regular people" to Southern Baptist radio preachers once we hit the stage. 

We are very careful not to over-hype everything we do.  What's great about this is that when we do show excitement or buzz about something, people really do believe and expect that something unique is getting ready to occur.  Avoiding over-hyping everything builds excitement equity with people.  I intentionally shy away from overusing words like "awesome", "off the hook", "amazing", etc... because using these types of words too liberally cheapens them, and over time, causes them to lose effect.  (Plus, the phrase "off the hook" just bothers the crap out of me.)

We don't try to hide or overcompensate for production mistakes.  Not that we encourage them, but we do play them off pretty well!  We've learned to laugh and make light about slip-ups during our gatherings. 

Our style of music lends itself to feeling raw.  Don't get me wrong, it sounds and feels AMAZING, but it doesn't sound like an overproduced band like this one.  (Ok, that was a horrible example!  That's not over-produced, that's just downright FRIGHTENING!) 

We stay away from anything that looks, feel, or sounds scripted or canned.  We try to say things in a way that feels fresh every time. 

Moving video backgrounds and cool lights are fun, but they need to be used strategically.  Same thing with lights and video pieces.  Too much motion can get old FAST! 

We are intentional about dressing in a way that communicates to people, "Hey!  We're normal!  Just like you!"  And then after a few weeks, everyone realizes that there's nothing normal about us whatsoever!  :)

So I'm curious....  Is this a challenge for you?  If so, what types of things do you do to help keep things feeling real and authentic?

Pixar Postmortems

Ed Catmull, President of Pixar, offers some good tips on conducting a postmortem (post-project reviews) in his article How Pixar Fosters Creativity in September's Harvard Business Review. 

People in general would rather talk about what went right than what went wrong. 

Left to their own devices, people will game the system to avoid confronting the unpleasant.

Vary the way you to the postmortems.  By definition, they're supposed to be about lessons learned, so if you repeat the same format, you tend to find the same lessons, which isn't productive.

...ask each group to list the top five things they would do again and the top five things they wouldn't do.

Employ lots of data in the review. 

Most of our processes involve activities and deliverables that can be quantified. 

Data can show things in a neutral way, which can stimulate discussion and challenge assumptions arising from personal impressions.

On a side note....  Don't EVER, EVER, EVER Google the phrase "Postmortem" in an effort to find a nice photo to go along with a blog post.  EVER.

EVER!

arrive | engage | listen

I'll post more later, but wanted to throw a few photos up of this weekend's art by Katrina Willis.  Such a beautiful element that really added to our worship environment. 

We continued our "Becoming" series this weekend and I taught on how we can prepare our hearts for the times we gather together as a community - specifically how we ARRIVE, ENGAGE, and LISTEN.  Such a unique, but powerful teaching.  And great response!

Really, really loving this series...

(Click for larger images)

Benched!

My buddy, Jeff Shinabarger, continues to inspire.... 

Check out what he's been up to in his East Atlanta Village neighborhood. 

Benched from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Side note: Jeff spoke at The Orchard last month.  You can download and listen here.