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Exciting Announcement!

Exciting Announcement! from scotthodge on Vimeo.

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.

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

The Orchard's New Logo

Six years ago, our 85 year-old church community changed it's name from "Aurora First Assembly of God Church" to "Orchard Valley Community Church."  As you can imagine, it was a tremendous move for us.  At the time we also created a logo and website that has served us well over these past few years. Here's the logo we've had up until today:

About 18 months ago, we started feeling it was time for another change.  Way overdue actually!  What was needed was a complete rebrand.  So with the amazing and generous (pro-bono) help of our good friends, Keith and Dawn Baldwin (fellow Orchard tribe, creative geniuses, and Aspire One pioneers), we began the process of designing a new logo and website that we are excited to share with you today!

Our goal was to create a logo that would reflect the artistic, missional, and organic culture of what The Orchard has become over these past few years.  While we certainly wanted something that looked "excellent" and "professional", we also didn't want to lean too far into a "corporate" or "trendy" look.  It was also important to us that the logo would look original and unique.  And I'm super proud and excited to say that I think we've accomplished it!  Here it is: We've also launched a new website that went LIVE today.  We've also changed our domain to: theorchardcommunity.com.  (Note: Our previous domain "orchardvalleyonline.com" will point to the new site today or tomorrow.  Emails are still "@orchardvalleyonline.com" for now.)

You can visit the new site by clicking here.

Here's a screenshot:

 

There are so many people to thank and I'll do that in a separate post.  I'm also hoping to get Dawn, Keith, and a couple people from our team to share more of what went into the creation of the logo and site as well.  Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for letting us share an exciting next step for us at The Orchard!

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.

Not Like Me

Not Like Me.  A new series beginning on 10/24-25 at The Orchard.

They'll Know Us By Our.......Christian T-Shirts!

 

Our team performed the song "T-Shirts" by Derek Webb this past weekend at The Orchard.  We even had a mini-choir with t-shirts that said the word "LOVE" across the center of them.  And man, they rocked it!  Pretty powerful song with just enough tension to make the right people squirm. :) 

Here are the lyrics:

they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
at anyone whose sin looks worse than ours
who cannot hide the scars of this curse that we all bare

they’ll know us by our picket lines and signs
they’ll know us by the pride we hide behind
like anyone on earth is living right
and isn’t that why Jesus died
not to make us think we’re right

chorus
when love, love, love
is what we should be known for
love, love, love
it’s the how and it’s the why
we live and breathe and we die

they’ll know us by reasons we divide
and how we can’t seem to unify
because we’ve gotta sing songs a certain style
or we’ll walk right down that aisle
and just leave ‘em all behind

they’ll know us by the billboards that we make
just turning God’s words to cheap clichés
says “what part of murder don’t you understand?”
but we hate our fellow man
and point a finger at his grave

chorus
they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
telling ‘em their sins are worse than ours
thinking we can hide our scars
beneath these t-shirts that we wear

"Yesterday" Soundtrack

We created a soundtrack for our "Yesterday" series at The Orchard. It's the music we play before/after/during our weekend gatherings.  It's quite an eclectic mix.  Some good stuff.

Here's an iTunes link where you can browse the list, listen to samples, or purchase any of the music.

Includes: John Mark McMillan, Derek Webb, Wilco, Editors, Kim Walker-Smith, Damien Rice, Shane & Shane, MuteMath, David Vandervelde, and others.

Baptisms. Again!

Here's a video of our spontaneous baptism from a couple weeks ago.  Still so excited by what happened...  55 more people baptized!  140 total in two weeks. 

Love watching God move at The Orchard!

Spontaneous Baptisms 2009 @ The Orchard from The Orchard on Vimeo.