But this summer our numbers didn’t drop significantly because many of our college students stuck around Oxford taking summer school or getting jobs. So summer was a nice time to get to know them better, and we also saw a few new families start to attend during the summer. Plus often times we had many counselors from Camp Lake Stephens attend too.

But when fall gets near we know to expect an uptick in attendance. But no way to really gage it though. We averaged about 115 from the Sunday after Ole Miss’ exams were done through the last weekend before classes started. I preached on August 15th to about 135 people. The next weekend, the 22nd was “Move In” weekend. Classes for Ole Miss started the next day.

On that morning we saw familiar faces showing up. Then some we’d not seen in a few months. And then new faces. And more new faces. And more and more! We started finding folding chairs in the storage room. We took all the chairs out of the Kids’ Ministry rooms. And we ran out of chairs! We had people sitting on the floor, standing in corners, out in the hallways… There were over 250 people there! I was quite surprised. We practically doubled from the week before.

I joked with myself that my awesome message the week before brought everyone in. But really, I don’t know what the catalyst was. And we start wondering how to prepare for the next week.  Pat is preaching a series on Biblical Friendship and I think it hit home with many people. But so many of the new faces were college students.

This morning I woke up to get ready for church. It was grey and raining outside. I thought, “hmm.” I figured the rain would keep people in bed or just in their homes. So we wouldn’t have to move as many chairs around.

We still set up a few chairs in the overflow room, but didn’t know what to expect. Church starts at 10:30. It stops raining about 10ish. There are a few people there. But then it happens again. A steady trickle becomes a stream. And soon we’re scrambling for chairs again. Taking the chairs from the kids again. And having people sit/stand everywhere. It didn’t seem quite as crazy this time, but there were actually more people there today than last week. The parking lot was an insurance adjuster’s nightmare with all those cars parked so tightly and all those college girls trying to maneuver around!

Now people are suggesting knocking out walls and other major remodeling projects. I’m interested to see how many people coming on Sunday mornings shift to the evening service that will begin on September 12th. But running out of space is a good problem to (temporarily) have.

It’s been an exciting two weekends. Seeing your church attendance double. But we’ve got to continue to seek God in how to connect everyone that’s coming to God and to each other. Provide community both big and small for them. And to create space, whether that means extra services or expanded rooms. So if you’ve read this far (and I’ll admit that I left out a lot of details I wanted to put in. I’m trying to get better at that) I ask that you pray that we, The Orchard, seek God and His wisdom for what our next steps should be.

Next weekend is a holiday weekend. No one has school on Monday and many people are off of work. Will people be traveling? BUT…it’s Ole Miss’ first home game of the season! Will more people be in town and come to church? We’ll see.

But school started back for Ole Miss this week. And that means that parking places on The Square are now at a premium again. Restaurants are crowded. And coffee shops are lively. Right now I’m sitting in High Point Coffee (drinking a Vitamin Water (coffee…blech)) and I see quite a group of varied people.

• A table with five middle eastern women and their baby.
• A table with a 60ish year old man in a three piece suit reading the paper.
• A few tables of college girls looking over notebooks
• A dad and son have been waiting on their daughter/sis to get here. She just did.
• Various guys and ladies hunkered over their laptops.
• People come in with strollers to greet people, grab a cup of something, and then leave again.
• Books are being read.
• Scones are being ordered.
• The grinder is grinding constantly.
• Someone is wearing a coat and a toboggan on their head even though it is 64 degrees
• And over the sound system I have heard Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and other poppy songs from about 10 years ago. I don’t know who’s working today, but their style of music is different from what it usually is.

But it’s good to be back, experiencing the busyness. Soon baseball will start up and crowds will return. And the Rebel Baseball team will probably under achieve once again (hope so!) But it feels good. Maybe it just feels good because I can wear short sleeves right now, but it was about 14 degrees less than two weeks ago!

Well two weeks ago was the Double Decker 10K race here in Oxford, MS. I was grossly unprepared too. The hills would be my nemesis. And since I knew I wouldn’t be breaking any personal records I decided to make a video of it as well. Here it is.

Double Decker Run 09 from Blake Thompson on Vimeo.

The first one is Mad Church Disease. It was written by Anne Jackson. She grew up in the home of a pastor and has worked as a staff member of a church for quite a while. And she’s witnessed and experienced first hand the dangers of burnout related to ministry jobs. And in Mad Church Disease she explored those dangers and pitfalls closely. I was able to get this for free because I won the contest on the books Facebook page. I won it back in the fall of ’07. Seemed that it would take forever to get my prize. But it’s here now.

The next two were because of a gift card I’d received for my birthday. But I got Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll and Crazy Love by Frances Chan. Both came highly recommended.

Mark Driscoll is pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Interesting city. Interesting church. And it’s quite a conservative church when compared to the local culture of the Northwest. Mark Driscoll says somethings sometimes that really have rubbed some people the wrong way. But I usually appreciate the heart from which he communicates from. He can make you crack up now and then too. Vintage Church is his look at the Biblical model for church, how it is structured and effectively in action.

Crazy Love, by Francis Chan, is about what a life that is truly and passionately in love with Jesus would look like. How would that love affect the person and the way they lived their life. Francis is pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA. Great communicator with a heart for the scriptures. I’ve heard him speak a time or two and get his podcast sometimes too. Check him out.

So..those are my new free books. Hopefully I’ll spend some time reading them soon. When I do I’ll give a quick review!

She kept telling me she was “helping me” when really she was nudging me to help myself. But I appreciate her a ton for it. It turned out to be fun and makes me ready to do the next one…what ever it happens to be. But with a few interview appointments spread out over a few days and some friends in town over the weekend too, I pushed back the editing of the video til last night. Like really got started at about 11:30pm. And then the re-edits and tweaks that no one else would probably notice kept me going back over it. So I finished around 3am [aided by the fact this was my first time to use iMovie08] so we could show it in church today. But I’m all good.

Anyhow, here it is. It’s not perfect. But it was fun and a learning experience. I hope for more to come soon. Tell me what you think in the comment.

Small Groups (@ The Orchard) Promo from Blake Thompson on Vimeo.

And it would be like tooting my own horn or something if I were to say, “Congratulations, Blake!” Plus it would also seem weird if I started talking to myself in 3rd person. My wife would give me a sideways glance but the people I work with might start questioning my sanity. And how lame would it be on top of all that? I mean, it’s just fantasy football, right?

So, since I am not able to congratulate the winner of the 2008 Fantasy Football season here with The Orchard, I’ll just post a small screen cap of the winners.

Last night was Art With Santa for our church. It’s our 2nd annual event that happens right before the Oxford Christmas parade. Kids come in and make Christmas art projects and get to sit on Santa’s lap if they’d like to. I don’t know exactly how many showed up. But it was pretty full in The Powerhouse for about two hours. And Pat said it was at least three or four times as many people who came last year. [a few pice below].

Then afterward we walked the parade route handing out signs for kids to hold up that said “SANTA, I’VE BEEN GOOD THIS YEAR!!!” The cool thing was that on the back side was our church name and info. So hopefully we’ll have a few more people hearing of us and maybe coming by.

We’re about to eat a little supper, and then decorate the tree. We were afraid it might not fit in our house because the house in Clinton had higher ceilings. The tree is a 9 footer. But it made it barely.

Now for some ART WITH SANTA PICS:

But one of the things I can’t understand is the gas prices here. They are ALWAYS more expensive than the towns nearby. Some say it’s because of the university here, but Hattiesburg (where USM is) always has gas cheaper than Oxford. Cheapest gas right now in Oxford is about $2.35, while in Hattiesburg you can find it for $1.99. But I can drive about 30 minutes to New Albany or Pontotoc and get gas for about 30 cents less?

Why is this? Who sets the prices? Is it the store? Is there a secret union of conveinence store owners in each zipcode that sets prices? Is it worth it to drove 25 miles for a full tank of gas and save 0.30 a gallon?

And why doesn’t some store owner just drop his price 10 or 15 cents to catch those people driving out of town and undercut the local stores a little? Seems like it’d make smart business sense? Or is real estate so high in Oxford that they have to charge that much to cover their own property expenses?

I don’t really know. But it’s crazy.

But I’m uploading some pictures to print. So I came to one of the local watering holes. And it’s interesting today. Here’s what I see around me.

• Halloween decorations: to the tune of cotton stretched to look like spiderwebs, orange lights, and big black spiders.
• A girl with a stack of books a foot high. Most of them had Thoreau on the spine. Surely she won’t need all 9 of them while sitting here.
• About four macbooks. One is black. Looks sweet.
• Two guys in black suits wearing their shades inside. They didn’t’ realize that look went out when the debate left Oxford.
• Sarah Palin is on the tv. But the sound is down so I can listen to something I can’t really pick out on XM radio.
• About 6 junior high kids. I tried to take them for young looking high school kids, but then they got up and started moving around and removed any doubt. They they cozy up in the big chairs together and stroke each others face.
• The above should be outlawed in some fashion.
• New photos on the wall. They each have a little card at the bottom corner. So they’re for sale. I’ll check them out before I leave.
• Now CNN has a story on “Atheist Business Campaigns” in London.
• Older folk with their younger children sitting and reading at tables.
• The junior highers finally left. Now it feels comfortable in here.
• Tow friends talking animatedly over a magazine or something.
• And some readers.

That’s what’s happening in my neck of the woods. What’s happening right where you are RIGHT NOW?

Last night The Orchard was a host for a screening of the new Invisible Children Video, GO. You probably remember me talking a bit about it last week.

Suffice to say it was pretty amazing. The turnout was less than we expected and hoped for, but the event itself was a blast. The roadies from the IC were great. Very helpful, knowledgeable, and genuine. The movie was inspiring. It told the stories of three out of 15 high school students who were allowed to go to Africa and see the effects of the money they raised. 

In turn it inspired some of them to make an even deeper commitment to helping the cause of children in northern Uganda.

And The Lyric Theater….it’s freaking amazing [or freakhog amazing]. It’s a great venue for a movie for sure. And I look forward to seeing some bands in there soon. But even the Roadies said that normally while the movie is showing they hang out at the merch table because they’ve seen/heard it so many times. But they said that The Lyric Theater in Oxford was by far the best venue they’ve been to in terms of video quality and sound quality. They said it was like watching the movie almost for the first time again.

All in all it was great night. Hope to have a better attended event next time. I think we learned a few things about getting the word out too.

Lastly, here is an older video from Invisible Children. It shows a bit about their Displace Me Campaign from a couple of years back. The more I see from these guys, the more I’m amazed with their video production skills. Plus, this video has one of my favorite songs in it too.

And then there are shows like The Hills and Laguna Beach which are more like docu-dramas with “real” people involved. Those have become really popular on MTV and have lots of teen/college drama with relationships. Never seen it myself. But it gets lots of viewers.

Well Endemol USA, the minds behind shows such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Deal or No Deal, and Fear Factor are putting together a reality tv show based in Oxford/Ole Miss called “Mississippi Co-Eds”. I guess the nation’s #2 Party School combined with small town southern charm made Ole Miss their choice. I can only imagine the drama that can be found in the daily lives of six Ole Miss Students. Supposedly several networks are interested, but no decision has been made as to who gets the show.

Auditions are already happening. Now I wonder if I’ll try to go eat around The Square and see a camera crew following some girl with big glasses into Rooster’s or Proud Larry’s? Part of me thinks it could be cool to have such a show here. But part of me thinks it could be a disaster.

What do you think? Will it happen? Would you do it?

ht to the DM

Invisible Children has made and is making a big difference in the lives of those children. And this weekend The Orchard in Oxford is partnering with them to bring their latest movie, GO, to The Lyric Theater on The Square in Oxford.

We set up a website for it today: InvisibleChildrenOxford.com.
Go visit it. Find out more. And attend the screening.
October 12. The Lyric. 6pm.
Two videos below you should watch…

The trailer for the movie GO:

Part of what led to the movie:

Two days ago I was sitting at my desk and my good friend Twitter told me that the crew from the Clarion Ledger was reporting that John McCain was suspending his campaign to go to Washington D.C. and try to fix the current financial crisis. He was proposing to postpone the debate.

Now I know this sent ripples through out the country in regards to political strategies and who’s playing what role in the drama that is a presidential election. But here in Oxford, it was the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Within minutes of hearing it Pat and I sent out a few messages to friends here locally. It was already spreading. And Oxford was freaking out.

There had been so much prep put into this weekend. And now it was on the verge of not happening at all. But as the time crept along, it seemed that all parties involved (except John McCain) were proceeding as if nothing was expected to change. Barak Obama even made a speech saying that this might be the most important time to have a debate so that the American people can see what sort of many they’re putting in the White House.

So today, the day of the debate, it seems that things are still expected to happen at 8pm tonight. We’ll see. But there are TONS of media trucks and crews and reporters all over downtown Oxford. Lots of concerts and speeches and rallies and brown nosing to occur.

And just maybe, we’ll have the next POTUS here in town in a matter of hours.

On the tv is silent but showing news about remembering 9.11 with public officials talking over the hot spots. And also hurricane Ike is barreling across the gulf. I tried something new. The hot chai energy tea. Said to ener’chaize’ you. The barista said if I didn’t like it I could go back with the old stuff. I traded my cup in for the old. I know that I’m supposed to drink coffee. That’s what everyone else does, right? But I went w/ the Chai instead.

Oxford is gearing up for the Prez Debate in about 2 weeks. Still pretty amazing that an event of that magnitude is coming to small town Mississippi. But Oxford is unique. I told Bev yesterday, “Is it strange that Clinton is larger than Oxford, and it has a weekly paper. Yet Oxford has a paper that comes out every week day?” She just replied, “lots more happening in Oxford.” And she’s right.

Pat and I were talking yesterday about Oxford. How for Mississippi it’s unique. I mean, in such a huge way, it IS Mississippi. But then it’s a lot of other stuff too. The university brings a lot of diversity, there is a political hotbed here even before and beyond the debate this month. We were trying to decide if Oxford was probably the most cosmopolitan city in the state. I’d guess it might be. You could argue for Hattiesburg or maybe the Gulfport/Biloxi area.

But Oxford has stereotypes of the “Ole Miss brand“. And there are lots of reasons why that stereotype is there. LOTS! But there are lots more types of people here than just frat boys, sorority girls, and lawyers. There are plenty of rednecks, blue collar workers, soccer moms, a varied “artsy” crowd, lots of people who wear vintage clothes, tight jeans and thick framed glasses. There are minorities and internationals. There are people on many sides of the political and moral spectrum. There is a music scene here that if it isn’t vibrant [and many would argue that it is] it’s consistent And God wants them all to taste of His love and grace…and see that He is good.

Wow, I didn’t know where this entry was going. But it’s where we ended up. So I’m going to go back to my tea and my book. I’m going to watch the people walk by on the sidewalk. And I’m going to listen for that still small voice of God…

What are you doing right now?

Services start at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. And at about 10:20ish, it looked to be a normal Sunday morning. Summers have been a little slow for us in a few ways, while at the same time adding quite a few new couples and families. And even when Pat finally shooed everyone into the worship room at 10:33 it still seemed like a regular Sunday. But there was a little more energy to the room. But as Matthew began to welcome people and started the first song, people kept coming into the room. And then more. And more and more.

We were having to continually take chairs off the racks and set them up in the back. And then we ran out of room in the back and had to set them up along the side. It was packed. Part of it was that school started for Ole Miss today, so there were a lot of college students back in town who had been Orchard attenders. And part of it was new college students checking us out for the first time.

There also were a few friends from my old youth group who drove up from Mississippi State to spend the morning with us too. And…I was the one preaching that morning. It was more teaching about why we value Small Groups at The Orchard, and why we see Biblical precedents for them too. We launch SGroups next week and wanted to hit them good. But I was pretty confident about the morning.

So all in all, it was a great morning. And lunch afterward was good to catch up with some old friends.  The video above is dark. I know. But I tried to use my Macbook to capture some quick video. It was still plugged into a few cords and cables. So it’s shakey too.

But we fell that big things are on the way for The Orchard. Be in prayer for us.

How was your Sunday?

After supper last night we went out for some dessert at Holli’s Sweet Tooth and then a walk around The Square. It was a great evening for a walk, and the girls had a good time [except when sitting with WF.] Watch the video below.

Thursday: Talk to utility companies. Get things switched over. Get a big cashiers’ check from the bank. Do a final walk through. Buy a gift certificate for our realtor to a local restaurant. Buy a house. Unload a few things at my new house. Walk around it and realize that I finally have a house in Oxford. Go back to New Albany to watch the season finale of LOST.

Friday: The Wife leaves New Albany to go buy paint and start painting the new house. My stepmom and I load a horse trailer and flatbed trailer to the gills. My mother in law comes to help by talking on the cell phone for hours. Drive to Oxford and unload everything. The Wife has painted the great room already. Drive the trailers back for more the next day. Sleep well.

Saturday: Load up two big flatbed trailers again. Most everything fits. I have lots of help on Saturday. Drive to Oxford. Stuff everything in the garage. Meet neighbors. Put the mattresses on the floor and go to sleep.

Sunday: Drive 10 minutes to church instead of 40. Go eat lunch with friends (since I now don’t have to drive 40 minutes back home). Then come home to paint and arrange furniture. Rain comes. I like my street. More painting. Family supper at the table for the first time in this house (leftover “moving food”.) Tired. I lay in my backyard looking up at the stars for a few minutes. That was nice. Time for bed. Will only have to drive 10 min to work tomorrow.

Here’s a quick video of the house for you (RSS readers might need to go to my site to watch):

Soon, we’ll be out of our 800 Square Feet.

We’re so happy.

Pics soon.

Pardon the messiness. But we’re packing up to move! We should be home owners tomorrow. We’re closing on a house in Oxford. Then we’ll be able to actually be a part of the community! And no more driving acorss Hwy 30 multiple times a day.

I know my wife may shoot me for how chaotic the house looks. But everyone was still asleep before I left this morning, and grabbed some quick vid.