The Orchard Blog

The silence is broken. We apologize for the lack of blogging happening here. You would almost think we are actually busy or something…! 🙂 These are busy times here @ The Orchard. A lot of great things happening – preparing for a NEW series beginning in a few weeks, gearing up for a busy, busy fall, etc…

Don’t forget Orchard 101 is coming up on Sunday, September 12th. If you are interested in finding out more about The Orchard – what we believe, where we are going, why we do what we do, etc… you will not want to miss out on this. Lunch is provided at NO COST to you and we will even watch your children if you need childcare. If you haven’t signed up or would like more information, click here and we will get you set up. You can also click here for more info on Orchard 101.

Thanks for staying up to date on what’s happening @ The Orchard! Have a great day!

foxnews.com article about churches using movies to reach people.

Link

This weekend, Ted Egly will be continuing our journey through the 3 Habits of Highly Contagious Christians series. We will be looking at a very important habit and you will not want to miss it!

If you missed Scott’s talk last Sunday, don’t forget – you can download it for free by clicking here.

It’s going to be a great weekend! See you Sunday!

Going back in time… On Sunday, July 25th the men @ OVCC had a FANTASTIC fish fry! Special thanks to Mark Anderson and his wonderful team of cooks and also to Todd Wollin and his barbership quartet for providing some fun entertainment.

Get ready for some more “men only” events happening soon!

See the Men’s Fish Fry Photo Album here!

This week a few of the Orchard staff team have been attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. This is an annual leadership conference that is shot out via satellite to over 41,000 people all over the US from a tiny little church called Willow Creek Community Church up in South Barrington. Ok, so maybe it’s not that small… 🙂

So far, we have had the opporunity to hear from Bill Hybels, Pat Summitt and T.D. Jakes. Today we will hear from Marcus Buckingham, Steven Sample and Tim Sanders. It’s a GREAT mix of top notch leaders from both the church and business world.

These types of conferences are always a great time to break away from the everyday routine and be reminded of some great principles of leadership (as well as lots of new ideas).

Have a great day!

BBQ & Baptism pics are now available online!

Click here.

On July 28th, the junior and senior high youth went on a photo scavenger hunt in downtown Naperville! We divided into two teams and went around town taking pictures of a variety of objects and people.

Points were awarded for each picture taken. (For example, this picture of Amber in the police car below was worth 10 points). We concluded our evening with pizza at Lou Malnatti’s.

All 7-12th graders are welcome to join us for a bar-b-que on Wednesday, August 25th. We will be kicking off the school year with some food and games… you won’t want to miss out on the fun!!! Pick up a flyer at the information booth, or e-mail Jill Costanzi at for more information.

One more pic – check this out!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day at The Orchard! We brought to a conclusion our summer series, “A Blockbuster Summer” with the final teaching entitled, “Mission:Impossible”.

At the end of my message, we interviewed a great couple in our church, Jimmy and Kerrie Pierce. Jimmy has a great story of how he just recently came to faith in Christ. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.

In the afternoon we had our All Church BBQ & Baptism. We had a great dinner and then went next door to Splash Country Water Park for the water baptism.

17 people from The Orchard made a public profession of their faith in Christ. It was an awesome site to behold! Watching these people stand in line to be water baptized drove home the reality to me of how each of them have their own story about their journey of faith.

Thanks to all of you who came out to support those baptized! And thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who contributed a hand to make the day so wonderful! We have an awesome community of people at The Orchard!

Here’s a few pictures – keep your eye out for more…

This is it! This weekend is our BBQ & Babtism!! For more details click here! You will not want to miss this. Plan to come out and celebrate with us the stories and lives of people who want to publically declare their faith in Christ!

If you didn’t get a chance to pick up your tickets for the BBQ, be sure to do it this Sunday in the lobby.

Our Sunday morning gathering is going to be great too! Larry will end our series that we’ve been in entitled, “A Blockbuster Summer“. We are also going to hear a story of someone in our church community who recently made the step of becoming a Christ follower.

Have a great weekend – see you Sunday!

As you may remember, a couple of months ago we had Mary Miceli at our weekend services sharing about a missions trip she was taking to El Salvador to work in a few orphanages. At the services that weekend, we presented our church family with the opporunity to donate toys and other items for children. Below is a brief report from Mary on her trip along with some photos of her work with the children.

Remember all of the clothes, toys, Playdough, and bats and balls that you donated this spring? The donations you made for my trip to the orphanages of El Salvador? Well, thanks to the Orchard’s generosity we (my friend Jillian and I) were able to take close to 1,000 pounds of donations to El Salvador! What an amazing opportunity we, all of you included, had to bless these children. I am truly thankful and so happy for your willingness to give.

We had an awsome trip, words honestly can’t sum it all up. We visited six different orphanages and spent our time with children ages 8 days up through 18 and beyond. We were able to go into the orphanages and just connect with and love these kids. We did art projects, played soccer, baseball, and ping-pong, did puzzles and more.

Their need for love/attention/affection was mind-boggling. Twelve-year-old boys were dying for a hug from us, a high-five after a soccer goal, and even a smile. And, when we gave them a Matchbox car, Playdough, candy, or a baseball and bat their smiles, joy, and true gratitude were overwhelming to witness.

Again, thanks a million for your donations (we were able to buy Spanish bibles!) and prayers! You helped make our trip possible. If you want to hear more or see more pictures or even find out how to continue to donate to these orphanages, let me know! You can contact me via email by clicking here.