mike jones

Just a few pics of my wonderful kids and their homemade costumes this year. I love hanging out with this crew. It’s times like this, just spending moments together having fun, that reality slaps you in the face… time is running away fast and they will never be this age again.

God thank you for the time we get to spend together and just enjoy life together! I am a blessed dad!

Peace.

We had a great time at the Fall Fun Fest at the Orchard on Sunday night! There was a crazy amount of people there – we estimate more than 600 kids and parents! Kathryn Egly and her crew did a fantastic job at putting this all together.

As the Creative Arts Director, I felt I would be doing a dis-service to my church family by not participating in the dress up activities. So, my wife and I dressed up as Incredi-Jones’ and had fun!

I include the following picture only to help alleviate humiliation to be possibly dished out by others. I do have to wonder how superhero parents handle their keys, cell phones, wallets and cameras! )

I do have to say though, my wife looked pretty HOT in a cape and boots

Peace.

All I have to say Scott is that you know you’ve reached some level of influence when people start dressing like you for Halloween

Great creative costume Bekah! Who would have guessed that Scott’s “Beauty Salon” photo would make the costume racks this year!

Peace and fun.

Another great weekend at The Orchard! We’ve been in this series called BiG! and man has it been powerful! The stories and comments have been awesome. We’ve been talking about how big our God is and how a daring faith is not a domesticated faith – we’ve got to take some risks and get out of our comfort zone.

This week we used the song If Everyone Cared by Nickelback to emphasize BiG! Mission. Realizing that it’s not about missions (where someone else does this in another country), it’s about mission. And that acknowledging the mission is not the same as engaging in the mission.

We’ve been talking over the last couple weeks at The Orchard about how we can make an impact in this world, so this song seemed appropriate:

As we lie beneath the stars,
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me,
Imagine what this world could be

Singin’ Amen, I, I’m alive
Singin’ A-Amen I, I’m alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We’d see the day when nobody died

There is so much that we can do even as individuals to bring hope to others in this world. All it takes is imagining what this world could be like and stepping out to do whatever we can. It all starts in our own backyard. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to engage in the mission.

Peace.

Two realms. Heaven and hell. One – a place, a realm where things are as God desires. The other – a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be.

In the book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell, he talks about this way of living that to me hits the nail on the head. We get caught up many times trying to see heaven and hell as an end result. Places where we will spend eternity in one or the other. We then try to get people into heaven.

Jesus talked very little about the life beyond this one because he understood that eternity starts now. The question for Jesus was not, “how do I get into heaven?” but how do I bring heaven here to earth.

I think this is what makes the greatest impact in the world… seeing eternity as beginning now and not someday in the future. Are we bringing heaven to this earth or hell to this earth? Are we choosing to do something about the hell here and now? Poverty, injustice, suffering… they are all hells on earth. Maybe you’ve experienced some this yourself. As a follower of Christ, am I doing what I can to resist hell coming to this earth?

The reality of the Christian life is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place, here and now. The goal is to get heaven here. To make this a place that God can come to and touch lives. Change lives. Big impact happens when Jesus followers can live this reality out in their world. Realizing this is part of the journey. The other part is realizing we can’t do it alone, but that we need our God and a church community to walk alongside us.

I choose to bring heaven to earth. How about you?

Peace.