This NFL season we at The Orchard here in Oxford decided to form a Fantasy Football League. The draft was lots of fun and the first week was surprising. Here’s a picture of part of the first weeks standings.
Now the thing is, both of those guys, the top two ranked teams, are the PASTORS of The Orchard. Yep, funny how that happened. That’s Pat and me atop the week one standings. Of course you can’t go on just one week. I know that. Heck, the Patriots won every game but their final one last season. And all people talk about are the Giants.
Week Two is almost in the books. And as fate would have it Pat and I are matched up. We still have Monday Night football to go. He’s got Brian Westbrook playing and I have Jason Whitten. But here’s the score total heading into tonight.
Truth be known, which ever of us loses will probably have the 2nd or 3rd highest point total for the league, but be 1-1. I plan to be 2-0!
Yesterday was a big day for us at The Orchard. Probably our biggest service ever. We had over 150 folks there when you count the children and teachers for their classes. There was such an energy in the room.
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.
