I had the privilege of attending a great children’s ministry conference last week. One of the speakers was Glen Keane – an artist and writer for Disney. He created some of Disney’s great characters – Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Pocahantas, Tarzan, and The Beast (From Beauty and the Beast). (Side note – Glen’s dad is Bill Keane – the creator and writer of “THE FAMILY CIRCUS” cartoon.)
What I did not realize and what Glen shared was that he wrote about these characters as he was journeying through his faith.
For example, as he began observing Christ followers (before he decided to become a Christ follower), he wrote about Ariel. Ariel was a character who wanted to enter into a world she was not yet a part of. She observed people in this other world and wanted to be like them – to become one of them. Soon after Glen wrote this story, he became a Christ follower!
The Beast represented Glen as he began his journey. He felt that he had all these feelings and emotions inside he did not know how to adequately and/or appropriately express. He talked about about The Beast’s “transformation” at the end of the movie is a reflection of how we are transformed into the likeness of Christ.
Interesting stuff…I thought you’d want to know!
Posted by Kathryn
This weekend we concluded our series Smudged. Chris Bell brought us a great teaching on spirituality vs. religion. We’re on a spiritual journey that is about a way of life.
Turn from believing rightly to living rightly.
Turn from following rules to building relationships.
Turn from the destination to the journey.
Turn from religious rituals to spiritual practices.
We ended the weekend by taking communion together – a spiritual practice to remember what a friend did for us. It’s all about cleaning the lenses of our life so that we can see things how they really are – unsmudged.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
- The Time Has Come – Hillsong United
- Hosanna – Hillsong United
- Losing My Religion – R.E.M. *****
- Everything – Lifehouse
Posted by Mike Jones
*****(Please use discretion when previewing or purchasing other songs by this artist as other songs on this album may contain inappropriate lyrical content.)
Our Smudged series continued as we talked about our children. Scott talked about how we can build scaffolding in our kids lives so that their lives and leadership would exceed our own. Very powerful and healing message in looking at how we see our parents and our children with an unsmudged perspective. We concluded each service with an opportunity for parents to dedicate their kids to God – asking God and our church community to help them build scaffolding in their kids’ lives.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
- Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United
- Everlasting God – Lincoln Brewster
- Only You – David Crowder Band
- Cats In The Cradle – Ugly Kid Joe *****
Posted by Mike Jones
*****(Please use discretion when previewing or purchasing other songs by this artist as other songs on this album may contain inappropriate lyrical content.)
This weekend in our series Smudged, Chris Bell talked about our health and how we view our bodies. He talked about not comparing ourselves to others but treating our body as the temple of God. He also gave some very practical things for us to check out to improve our health.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
- Lord We Praise You – Todd Fields
- Hosanna – Starfield
- Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin
- All To You – Lincoln Brewster
- I Am Free – Desperation Band
Posted by Mike Jones
The third week in our series Smudged was about how we see and deal with conflict. Scott talked about our some very practical ways to effectively and biblically resolve conflict in our lives. Check out the podcast here.
Here’s the music setlist from the weekend (with links to iTunes to purchase the original recordings):
- We Shine – Steve Fee
- Kingdom Come – Hillsong United
- Another Hallelujah – Lincoln Brewster
- Over My Head (Cable Car) – The Fray
Posted by Mike Jones
Here’s the video we showed this last weekend celebrating Easter at The Orchard.
Thousands of kids and parents came out for the Easter Egg Drop and more than 1600 people attended services. Truly an amazing Easter weekend!
Posted by Mike Jones
The Orchard Blog 