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Me & The Gators!

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.

a short story about story

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

Story Conference

Valuing The Journey...

Recently, Amanda and I, and our three kids all piled into our super sweet sexy mini-van for a six-hour road trip up to Minnesota. And I’ll be honest...  The first couple hours of the trip were.......well, they were a mess.  Horrible actually.  Traffic was out of control, my kids were acting possessed by bored demons on crack, I was tired, and frankly.....I just wanted to GET THERE! 

Which is EXACTLY what the problem was!

I had become so focused on “getting there” that I wasn’t (at all) enjoying or valuing the journey itself.

I think that’s an easy thing to let happen in our own lives isn’t it?  We become so focused on just “getting” to the destination (Heaven/Calling/Destiny/Dream Job/Fill in the Blank...) that we don’t value the journey of actually getting there! 

Which is a problem.

Because the journey is the place where God seems to form us and shape us into the people He created us to be.

The bumpy road.  The loud children.  The heavy traffic.  The flat tires.  The break downs.  It’s all a part of the journey, isn’t it?

Yet, even in those moments I have to believe that there’s something happening beneath the surface.  That there’s something in me that is being formed and shaped.....and that is somehow going to make the destination all that much sweeter.

So let’s value the journey - not just the destination.

It sure helped our road trip once I made that decision. (And seriously, thanks Amanda for the motivation...)

Wanna hear more?  Click here (direct .mp3 link) to download last weekend's talk at The Orchard where I broke this down further and gave a few practical ways we can value the journey.

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! 

Woops.

What's with those smiles?

I’ve been home from Uganda for about a week now.  The jet lag has finally subsided and my stomach is [almost] back to normal.  But my dreams...  Man, my dreams continue to take me back to those faces.  The faces of children who have absolutely nothing.....but who don’t even seem to know it. 

What’s the deal with those smiles? 

Seriously.

See, I lose mine so easily sometimes.  Like when I’m out driving around in my car with the moonroof open, feeling the heat of the sun as it beats down on the graphite leather of my new sedan.....and suddenly someone cuts me off and I have to hit my breaks a little harder than usual.

Boom!  Smile gone.

What the hell?

The Internet is slow today.  My coffee isn’t hot.  Someone criticized me.

Smile gone.

Jesus help me.  Because I saw more of you in these children....who had nothing....than I sometimes see in myself....who has everything.

“I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Jesus in Matthew 18

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.