Has it been two years already?
Our first “official” worship service in the movie theater. It was Easter Sunday, 2009. We had been praying, planning, and working hard at getting started for several months. Our very diligent launch team had mailed out several waves of postcards, had ads in the newspaper, and had been talking to anyone that would listen. But twenty minutes before the service, NOBODY WAS THERE! My friend Doug and I had just come back downstairs from setting something up, or getting something ready… I don’t remember what. But we looked out the front window of the movie theater, and the parking lot was empty. Had we failed? Did Ellijay want nothing to do with us? This was going to be much harder than we thought. We prayed. “God, we will obey you, even if nobody but us show up.”
By the time we looked up from our prayer, the parking lot was filling up, and people were streaming into the building. We launched The Orchard Church officially that day with about 120 people in attendance. Many of them are still with us two years later. (Some I’ve never seen again!)
I remember a lot of great things about these first two years… Our first baptism service. (The river was COLD!) Cleaning the theater late on Saturdays. (and calling Mucho’s our “fellowship hall”) The movie mini-series that we did our first summer in the theater. (Wish we’d done Star Trek) Starting the BRANCH ministry, launching Lifegroups and youth ministry. Watching God provide the money to buy all our portable gear, and moving into the school. (Back to one service!)
Yep, there have been a lot of changes at The Orchard Church. There will always be change. But the MOST IMPORTANT thing will always stay the same…
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. -1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Our location, style, and schedule may change from time to time, but the Gospel will always remain the center of everything we do. It’s in our DNA. it is who we are. That’s not our definition. That is God’s. That’s why the church is the hope of the world. It isn’t about good teaching, or social justice. It isn’t about being “the place to be.” It is about believers walking in the pattern of the Gospel and preaching that Gospel to a generation desperate to know Him.
Two years? We’re just getting started.