Childrens Ministry Online

Orange Week Day 7: Recap

Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

This is it, the last day or Orange Week. Here’s the recap of what was said:

Michael Bayne talks about one of his Orange memories, the talk Nancy Ortberg gave about conflict. Unfortunately, I missed her talk in 2010, but I did experience her conflict breakout in 2008 and I have to say it was one of the most powerful breakouts I’ve ever been a part of. Something else Michael said at the beginning of his posts that’s worth repeating. He said the Orange conference is the only place where your preschool, nursery, elementary, junior high and high school pastor can all come together and be on the same page. He’s right, I’ve not seen anything else like it.

Chad highlights some of his best memories from the Orange Conference last year, including a video he made while flying to Atlanta. Chad’s a really creative guy who puts together amazing videos for both ministry and for his own enjoyment. He also remembers a conversation he had while driving to the tweet up with Sam Luce and Jonathan Cliff. I didn’t know anything about the conversation until he wrote a post about it 8-9 months later. It was a great read.

Then, by request, Chad reposted another great Orange memory from 2009, the “Sam Luce” video. I’d almost forgotten about this one. I have to admit, I laugh out loud every time I see it.

I wrote about my favorite memories from past Orange Conferences. You’ll notice that most of my memories revolve around things outside the conference. No, it’s not a negative toward Orange. The Conference continues to get better year after year and I attend almost every breakout and sessions. But it’s the people I get to surround myself with and bounce the ideas I’m learning off of that makes Orange so spectacular. Some people jump from conference to conference. There’s nothing wrong with variety. However, if you’re just attending a conference for the speakers, then it probably doesn’t matter what conference you attend because most people who speak at Orange will be speaking somewhere else as well. But if you come to connect with other family-focused and like-minded people, then there’s no better place that Orange.

Oh, I also published a post about all the great badges you can put on your website to promote Orange. You can read that blog here or just go to the page of badges right here.

Sam Luce posted 10 things he’s learned from Orange Conference pasts. What a great post, fully loaded of inspiring moments and memories that bring a smile to my face. I mus admit, I’m proud that a memory of me made it to the top spot. Lanny, the answer is Tiberius!

Jonathan Cliff has tied me in the number of times he’s attended the Orange Conference. He does a great job summarizing his experiences from each. You should read his recaps, they’re great. It’s true, no Orange Conference is the same, each one unique in it’s own way.

Jared authored another post on Kidmin 1124 about what he learned from Orange last year even though he wasn’t there physically. He talked about Doug Field’s talk on leading and loving your own family and how it should be a privilege to your family that you work at the church. Right now my boy LOVES coming to church with his daddy. I know that it won’t always be that way if I don’t really make his time and experiences there special. Thanks Jared for the great reminder!

Wendy Douglas shares a very personal memory from Orange last year. She reflects on how she wasn’t that mom who truly led her kids spiritually, but ater reading Think Orange and attending Orange, she’s that catalyst for other parents to be that for their kids now. Beautiful Wendy!

One last post on Kidmin 1124 from Theresa Haskins tells her Orange Conference experiences. If you haven’t met Theresa, you’re missing out. One word. Enthusiasm. I don’t think anyone was as excited to be at Orange as she was! Ha! I do like what she had to say about Reggie. I’ve only met him a few times and know him better through other people, but from what I know, he really is the real deal. Humble and unassuming… passionate and a beating heart for what you hear him say.

Nick shared a great post about his two Orange Conference experiences, both in 2007 and 2010. I didn’t realize so many of the great speakers where there in 2007 as in 2008… and 2010. Hope you’ll be there again in 2011!

Dan Scott shares the story of his role at Ada Bible and how they turned Orange and built a Family Experience slowly over the period of five years. This is a very refreshing story as I think most would agree that Ada truly is an Orange church, setting a standard for so many others to learn from. Thanks Dan for giving us a peak behind the scenes.

JC writes about a beautiful experience he had this weekend with his family and his brother-in-law who has Cerebral Palsy. He noticed how his parents serve their son so selfishly week after week, year after year. Seeing this kind of life played out in front of you is humbling and it’s hard not to be affected. JC shares thoughts about serving the community in a similar way as well as serving families with children like his brother-in-law. Don’t miss this one.

Well, I think that’s the end of the road. Another Orange Week in the books. If you’ve been reading these notes, you’ll know that some pretty incredible things were said/written this week. I’m still processing. That is the power of community and collaboration.

Well, expect some Orange Week spill-over this week. With writing all these long recaps, I know I didn’t finish saying everything I intended, so there will probably be a few more coming from me. Also, don’t forget that Tuesday, October 5th is the first day of registration for the 2011 Orange Conference. Do it! Sign up! Don’t wait! I can’t wait t see you there!

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Orange Week Day 6: Recap

Posted on 04. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

So I’m a good 12 hours late posting Day 6 of Orange Week. Not too much was said as everyone was pretty busy with services. So, here’s what I saw.

Michael Bayne shares a quick post about multi-site and his team’s excitement to bring Orange to another community.

I wrote a post about an idea we had recently in adapting one of our adult services to be inclusive of elementary aged kids. The motivation was both out of necessity as well as an effort to be Orange. Although we didn’t have many kids participating, we were pleased with how things turned out.

Over at Kidmin 1124, Wayne writes about his dreams for Kidmin. It’s an encouraging post as most of us in ministry will identify with his dreams. I think penning our dreams is a very effective discipline, one that has to happen before we can expect them to come true. Be sure to check it out.

In another post at Kidmin 1124, Barbara Graves also shares her dreams for Kidmin. It’s a powerful post describing that her true dreams move beyond the dream staff, the dream facility, the dream ministry strategy (even if it’s Orange) to something way more important. Great job Barbara!

At CM Buzz, Keith shares some of the Orange ideas he and his team are working on. What I love about his ideas are that they move beyond the church doors and spill out into the community. Good stuff, I hope to hear about success in coming months!

Nice and short. Only one more day of Orange Week!

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Orange Week Day 5: Recap

Posted on 03. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

I had a feeling that this would happen. It’s Saturday and there were only five Orange Week posts today. That’s okay for more than one reason.

• Most are off today and they shouldn’t be working.
• I wrote Friday’s recap earlier today and I’m a little happy that Saturday’s recap is only going to take a few minutes.

So, enjoy the short recap:

Michael Bayne wrote about how his Family Ministry team had a pretty big miss. For years, they avoided a large group gathering for preschoolers for a variety of reasons. Turns out that they had been wrong. Great post Michael, thanks for sharing it.

Today I wrote about ways we’ve missed it when it comes to being Orange. Mostly we’ve seen failure or something less than success when it comes to take-home papers, seasonal outreaches and the way our children’s and student teams integrate.

Jonathan Cliff announced a contest for his blog. Leave a comment or two on any of his Orange Week posts and you’ll get a chance to win a free digital edition of CUE Box.

At Kidmin1124, Barbara Graves shares about a mid-week program that she walked into. A great perspective about seeing what is wrong with a program and going after it. Barbara asks the right kinds of questions.

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Ideas that didn’t work

Posted on 02. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

Today’s post during Orange Week was supposed to be about Orange ideas that didn’t work.

I had a hard time coming up with any really great “stand-out” examples.

It’s not because we don’t make mistakes, because that’s not true. It may be because we’ve not taken any big risks lately where we’ve given ourselves the opportunity to win big or fall flat on our faces. We’ve been playing it pretty safe lately, doing things that have been successful and I’m not completely satisfied with that. So, I hope that a year from now I can tell you about some really dumb ideas we tried (the focus being on the word “tried” not “dumb”).

Here are a few things that have been pretty unsuccessful:

• Take home papers like Refrigerator Cards and God Time Cards. We do these even though we know that most don’t make it out of the parking lot. However, we’ve not come up with a good alternative as of yet. Maybe I’ll have someone on my team read Jonathan’s post and we’ll implement something similar to what he’s doing.
• Seasonal outreaches. Last year we held two outreaches. One was durring halloween where the plan was to send bags home with kids to “trick or treat” with their parents the week of Halloween for canned food for our food pantry. I think that the problem revolved more about communication and implementation for us, but it was a pretty big flop. During the Christmas holidays we had an outreach for needy families where kids wore their crazy socks to church and picked sock ornaments off our Christmas tree (which had  a list of items to purchase or bring the following week). We we’re pretty successful in the sense that we got lots of stuff, but I’m not convinced it was much of a family experience. I think most moms went out and bought the stuff.
• Integrated team. Don’t get the wrong idea about me. I fully believe in Orange and really do want to see it fully lived out at my church. However, we’ve still got a long way to go. Our student and children’s ministries marginally work together and is far from integrated. However, we’ve taken some pretty significant strides in the last month. I expect some big changes this year.

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Orange Week Day 4: Recap

Posted on 02. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

Well, you can tell a lot of people take Friday off, not nearly as many posts on the 4th day of Orange Week. I’m sure the 12 or so who did wrote theirs earlier in the week, huh? There were still some great posts, so let’s get into it.

We start this one off with a post from Pete Wilson’s blog, Without Wax. Pete starts off with a very strong statement, “There are few things more important to me these days than figuring out how to help our kids and students … I do know that we’ll never figure this out until the church gets more serious about partnering with parents.” The post continues with Pat Rowland (Cross Point’s Family Pastor) talking about his theory about family ministry. He’s got great things to say and I loved how he finished it up by saying:

• Parents need a Clear Strategy, and the Partnership of the Church.
• They need resources, not just a program
• They need to be shown how it works, not just told they should do it
• They need a community of encouragement, not an unattainable image
• They need an environment of integration, not complete age segregation

Michael Bayne talks about a giveaway he’d doing in conjunction with Orange Week. Last year he used a series from XP3 curriculum that greatly impacted his students and he’s giving it away. Be sure to check out his post, leave a comment and hopefully win some free curriculum.

Chad Swanzy wrote about partnering with parents in student ministry. It seems Chad hits what a lot of student pastors get frustrated about concerning working around parents or parents just getting in the way. I think it’s something that student pastors have to come to grips with if they really want t make a lasting impact in the lives of students, working with mom and dad.

Chad offers another great resource on Youth Leader Stash for families of teenagers as well as younger kids. It’s a family scavenger hunt, something a family could do on their own or with a bunch of other families. Check it out, it seems like a lot of families might enjoy this as well as experience great conversations along the way.

Sam Luce starts off his Friday of Orange week with YouTube Friday. This week: Annoying Orange. I have a love hate relationship with this little video series. It’s funny stuff, but incredibly annoying as well. If you’ve not seen it, you should check it out. If you have boys, they’ll love it… but you’ll have to decide if the fruit violence is appropriate. In addition to the humor, Sam shares some ideas he’s working on to empower families and push a gospel-focused vision or every family. He’s dong this through parent directed catechism and family events. Check it out, this stuff is good.

Jonathan writes a great post about the family side of all the changes he’s been making. He makes a very important point: “Let me be honest about something.  A family ministry is NOT started with a curriculum change.” Right on! Read how Jonathan has been very intentional with his “take-home” material to truly support families. Some of us might initially be disappointed by the few people engaging, but it’s a positive step in the right direction. One of the best Orange Week 2.0 posts I’ve read this week.

Over on the Ministry to Children blog, Sue Miller guests posts. She addresses the frustration some Kidmin workers feel about the impact they’re making in the lives of kids. She address several of the things the church can do better than the home although there are many things that the home can do better than the church. The great thing about Orange is that its not either/or, but both/and.

At Kidmin1124, Lindsey Whitney writes about how her church has been transitioning to Orange. The biggest yellow initiative they’ve initiated is staff meetings. It sounds kinda weird, but when being intentional, it’s one of the most important things to be done. Check it out to see how Lindsey’s church us using staff meetings to integrate their ministry efforts.

Anthony Prince writes this day about how a curriculum shift helped them become more Orange. They made several changes in their strategy, but their curriculum and Sunday morning strategy didn’t support what they really wanted to do. Their switch to 252 Basics and My First Look help set up ministry for the rest of the week.

Dan Scott invites the Middle School “guru” to post about Yellow Student Ministry. Guru Jon shares about the Cell Family concept he’s been leading for the last ten years. The fact that they’ve seen success in a method/strategy for a decade is worth reading alone, but it seems that they’ve maximized relationships in this model. Check it out, you’ll learn something for sure.

Matt McKee shares his favorite memory from a past Orange Conference. I’m just honored to have been a part of that memory. What you’ll see in the video is 5 friends who’ve only met for the first time a few days before sharing a meal at nearly 2 AM. What you didn’t know what that for at least 90 minutes after that, Matt and I were running Gina back to her hotel which I think was on the other side of Atlanta. Great times.

At Kidmin360, Greg writes about language. As a church, are we speaking the same language as our parents? Are we speaking the language they need to hear?

Another great day for Orange Week 2.0. I eagerly await what is said tomorrow!

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Orange Week Day 3: Recap

Posted on 01. Oct, 2010 by Kenny.

Well, I’m a tad behind with this recap. Last night I took my family for a quick camping trip. It was absolutely wonderful, but there wasn’t any way I was writing a recap from my tent. So, here’s a catch up from what was discussed on Day 3.

Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers wrote a great post about the Orange Strategy. He defined for his many readers what the Orange Strategy is and why he plans to attend the conference this year. Great post!

Here’s a fantastic post from Carlos Whittaker, a self-declared “Orange Dad.” What a great perspective he offers, declaring that he needs all the help he can get and he relies on the Orange essentials to help him be a better dad.

Ron Edmondson shared his thoughts about Orange and parenting here. Although a pastor and leader of ideas, Ron writes this post as a parent who has raised children declaring that he was Orange before he knew there was a term. He’s got some great thoughts about the role of the church as well as the role of parents when it comes to passing faith along.

Michael Bayne continues his series of posts, this time focusing on Yellow initiatives… specifically teamwork. He communicates how his church most impacts families by serving families as a team. The Children’s Ministry, Student Ministry as well as the College Ministry mutually serve each other as they reach out to families. I love what they’re doing. If this doesn’t describe the ministry you’re a part of, you should read his post!

Chad Swanzy writes a very interesting post about parents connecting with their kids as well as ministries helping parents engage in what God is doing in that family. He equates it to a climb. We read in the scriptures that Jesus often when away to be with God, but sometimes these locations were treacherous. In the same way, the climb we must take with our families to discover what God is doing is difficult, but a trek worth taking.

On YouthLeaderStash, Chad posts a great resource for parents. It’s a questionnaire where parents can gauge where they are in respect to their relationship to their teenage kids. I think that it’s important to note that if you don’t know where you stand at this moment, it’s difficult to plot where you’re headed. So, this tool should help parents evaluate what needs to be done now before moving forward.

On Thursday I snuck in a handful of new posts for Orange week. My first post (technically written on Wednesday, but after I’d already written the recap was about Defining the Red. Parents need to know what a family is supposed to look like. Too often they get their definitions from the media or what they see around them. Secondly, I wrote a post Defining the Yellow. Even as someone who has been heavily engaged in the Orange Strategy, I’ve gotten distracted or have at times forgotten what it means for the church to be Yellow. I wrote yet another about deciding between Red and Yellow, personally how I’ve had to decide to not do really good things because it didn’t equip families. Last of all, I wrote a quick post of an idea I had to help pain the country orange, by using the new site imakidmin.com to display that you’re Orange. That way others in your community will know who else thinks like they do.

Jonathan Cliff writes a great post about how his church made the transition to using My First Look curriculum for the Early Childhood area. He shares about his space layout and room order so you get a picture of what he’s dealing with and how he uses the material to suit his needs. If you’re looking to use My First Look or tweak how you’re using it, this is a great post to grab ideas from.

Gina writes another stellar post. I caught myself nodding in agreement at several points. Either parens haven’t done any spiritual training in the lives of their kids or they’ve probably fumbled through it. Parents like anyone tend to not do things they’re not good at. Gina spoke on how to get parents to pick up the reigns… again. Here’s a fantastic idea she’s done for some time on helping parents engage in the most important thing they can do as parents.

Over on Kidmin1124, Jarred Massey (on of my favorite bi-vocational Children’s Pastors) talks about how they structured their Easter services to span multiple generations in a very Orange way. The service was a hit and probably responsible for the grow they saw weeks after Easter. Really great thoughts Jarred!

Nick Blevins builds on his previous post in talking about the importance of relationships. His church has specific environments designed to engage kids, but they put all their effort into creating a place where kids can have relationships with their leaders. This is the most important thing!

Anthony Prince gets my vote for favorite post of the day as he relates the Yellow part of the Orange strategy to yellow snow (reminds me while in college a few friends and I rewrote the entire song of “let the river flow” to “don’t eat yellow snow.” Thats all I could think of when reading this post. Ha!). It’s a great post, you should read it. Anthony continues with another post about calling something that’s Orange that isn’t really Orange. I loved the post and I think he’s got a great point. Don’t start a family service because it’s what Orange ministries do. Just because you hand out refrigerator cards or God-time cards doesn’t make you Orange either. You need to know and understand what it is you’re trying to do and carry out initiatives that help you find success in your context. Too bad the laser couldn’t shoot oranges.

Leave it to Dan Scott to knock another post out of the proverbial park. He interviews the coordinator of the special area at his church. It’s obvious that a special needs ministry MUST be orange. Great thoughts if you need help in better ministering to these families. Also, Dan also created a video of him and his son talking about CueBox. I love it and I need to get my hands on one of these!

JC wrote a very short post on Yellow initiatives. This will be short as well. What stuck with me was once line: “If the gospel is just a part of your ministry, you need to re-evaluate.” BAM!

Matt McKee writes another great post, basically about how bad the church is at being Yellow. Really, it’s a great post. It truly is the Grace of God and his desire to see people come to faith that we’ve made any traction this last 200o years. Good post Matt.

Henry Zonio echos so many other thoughts from this same day in being Yellow. The church needs to illuminate Christ, point people to the story of God. It’s about transformation! Good stuff Zonio.

Greg Baird brings a great point to light during this Week of Orange. In this whole effort of helping parents lead their kids, the goal is never for parents to become perfect or even more perfect than they are not. It is them allowing God to tell the story of restoration in their family which is what transforms. Beautiful and well said!

In this day’s post, Keith talks about parents owning up to their shortcomings and understanding that they’re not going to do everything right. When it comes to passing on faith, there is not a cookie cutter approach. He also provides some great and simple things parents can do to produce faith in their kids.

Okay, that does it for day 3′s recap. Looking forward to all the additional information to come!

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Deciding between Red and Yellow

Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 by Kenny.

Several years ago I started a program at my church that was one of the more successful things I’ve ever done. I was passionate about making sure kids truly knew the Bible, what it said and even how to use it. Most churches that reach out to seekers don’t always have a good plan for this type of “discipleship.” So I started one. It was a Wednesday night program where kids systematically went through a study of the Bible. K-2nd graders learned about God through specific stories in the Bible where 3rd-5th graders learned about their Bibles, spiritual disciplines as well as a survey of the Old and New Testament. By the time I left my church, I had 1.5 years of the curriculum written. In another 1.5 years I’d have 6 years of great, small-group based curriculum. I led this for 2 years and every semester I offered it, my attendance would grow by 40%. Kids actually had to pay for their resources to participate, they were all in and they were learning great stuff.

Almost three years have passed. Plenty of time for me to have finished the curriculum, but I haven’t. Plenty of time for me to have started this program up where I’m at now, but I’m not going to. I’ve wrestled over this time and time again, but I know it my heart that I won’t implement this program again, at least not in the same way. Although it was successful, kids loved it and they were learning great stuff that was transforming their behavior, it cae down to a decision between red and yellow.

If the stats about more than 70% of kids leaving the church after High School are true and that one of the best ways I can prevent that from happening is engaging parents as spiritual leaders in the home, then implementing this successful program of mine doesn’t really matter. It’s a decision between yellow and red and in this case, red wins. I have to take an honest look at what I do and ask myself this question: “Does this program or event help me engage parents as spiritual champions?” If not, then I might need to rethink what I’m doing.

I don’t think my curriculum is dead. I’ll pull it out again one day, but maybe to tweak it for parents to use. Who knows, maybe I’ll just use it for my own kids.

So, what Yellow program do you need to kill?

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Defining the Yellow

Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 by Kenny.

I think Sam said this very well yesterday.

In our excitement to become Orange and better engage with parents, we can easily have an identity crisis. We can forget what it means to be Yellow. We lose track of what being the church is all about, which is to proclaim the love of Christ through the power of his word.

Orange is a strategy. Being Red or Yellow is more about describing a state of being. The church needs to BE yellow! Don’t get distracted by the strategy because the strategy is simply meant to point parents to the light of Christ, which is what the Church is suposed to be.

Regardless of the curriculum we’re using, are we clearly communicating the gospel? Are your kids understanding the message of Christ. Find ways to connect with parents. Find ways to help parents pass on their faith. But in doing all of this, don’t forget to be the church!

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Orange Week Day 2: Recap

Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 by Kenny.

I think people had a busy day today, a few less posts today. However, there were still a bunch (still going to take me way too long to write this recap) and they were pretty awesome posts! So, here they are:

Michael Bayne wrote another stellar post today, this time about engaging with parents of students. He talks about how students at this phase in life are pulling away from parents, but through intentional conversations, parents can stay connected to their kids and continue to have influence. You as a ministry leader can help parents start these vital conversations.

Chad Swanzy wrote a similar post yesterday pointing to a powerful resource that he repeated today. He made a great point. How can you impact students if you don’t even know what the pulse of the home is from his/her perspective. This resource helps you figure out exactly what it is.

I wrote about my struggle of really defining what it means to be red. For the past two years I’ve though so hard about being Orange, I think I’ve somewhat neglected championing for parents what it means to be red. Here’s a reminder.

I don’t know what box to put today’s post from Sam Luce in. It has read in the title, but it talks more about the church being yellow. Putting this aside, I think it’s one of the best posts I’ve read from Sam in a long time. Sam writes really good stuff, but this was powerful. I’m probably going to reference this in one of my posts soon… but read it now, it’s that great!

Jonathan Cliff continues telling about his transition to Orange Curriculum. Today he writes about how he uses 252 Basics. It’s a great and practical post for those using 252 or those looking into it. I know that it’s going to help people, one of my most popular posts is when I wrote about how we used 252 several years ago. However, we all know the most popular post involved chainsaw juggling clowns.

Over at Kidmin1124, Barbara Graves wrote about the influence parents have on their kids and how kids typically mirror the faith of their parents. Barbara surveyed several parents to find out what they did to live out their faith at home for their kids. Tons of practical advice here!

Nick Blevins posted a great resource on his blog today. First of all he showed a diagram of how his church lives out Orange, Yellow and Red strategies. Very specific and helpful. In addition, he posted a video that teaches parents how to use God Time Cards and Refrigerator Cards. If your kids are like our kids, most of these cards end up as floorboard and parking lot trash, but this video is a great tool to show parents how to use them.

Anthony Prince provides an incredible example of and event that allows families to spend time together. I heard something at a conference breakout 6-7 years ago that has never left me. The speaker said that our greatest successes in ministry are when we create spaces for kids and their parents to simply be together. I heard this before Orange Mania swept the land and even today it still holds true. Anthony tells about this great event for moms and their sons. Also, props to Staci for using the word “rocktackular.”

Dan Scott posted an amazing post on his blog about seeing red. He shares about how through all the years of leading Orange in his church, he never asked a parent to tell him from their perspective what it means to be a part of an Orange Church. I love what she had to say. Seeing what she verbalized makes me want the parents at my church to say the same thing. I need to get on that!

Earlier this week Dan Scott poked fun at me for the number of blog posts he assumed I’d write this week. I just want to point out that this blogging maniac will probably come in second. He wrote a killer post about how he and his team made age specific events more family friendly. Scott, you’re brilliant… or at least someone you work with is. I must admit, I like the yellow, pinkish and salmon color references. I laughed out loud and when I did I remembered how much I liked your laugh… contagious. Looking forward to hanging with you again soon!

JC wrote a great post about how families were the fabric of creation. I love how he communicates this through the genealogies in Matthew 1. JC, great perspective here and extra points for your creativity!

Matt McKee wrote about Reggie’s “Stock Family.” This is one illustration that I’ve heard Reggie use that I’ve repeated more than anything else. Families aren’t perfect. We need to stop trying to read out to the perfect family. We need to recognize that God loves the imperfect family and that it’s through whacked out crazy families that God has done some of his greatest works!

Henry Zonio wrote a phenomenal post about the heart of Orange, which is families. He powerfully described how many parents fail and how often times we get frustrated and blame them. Instead, we need to come along side them, encourage them and build relationships with them. Zonio hit the nail on the head when he said that these parents will always love their children far more that the church will. Read this post!

Keith Tusing joins the conversation today by sharing about his experience at Orange last year. He shares about three “slices” he took away that impacted him greatly. BTW Keith, dip those orange slices in chocolate and you’ll experience something life changing.

Wow, I think these posts are getting better every day. Can’t wait to see what I’ll be reading by Monday! I might have to get an Orange tattoo at an undisclosed location. If I just caused someone to sin… I’m truly sorry. Enjoy the recap!

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Defining the red

Posted on 29. Sep, 2010 by Kenny.

I’m writing this post really late. I intended to have something written on Tuesday, but it’s now Wednesday night and I’m just posting. It’s been really busy for me, but that’s not really my excuse. I’ve gotten stuck and kinda got confused.

I suggested to those participating in Orange Week that we spend two days writing about the red side of Orange and then two days writing about the yellow side of Orange. Then as I sat down to write the other day I couldn’t think of anything to write. My brain is so stuck on Orange, I couldn’t put my finger on how we’re encouraging red. It wasn’t until this morning after reading Gina’s post yesterday about red and talking to Jonathan on the phone that it clicked. I feel that it is so important for us to define what being red looks like for a family. Because so many families don’t know what God expects of them, the church may have to define what family life is supposed to look like… and what that looks like is red… not Orange.

Red symbolizes the love of the family, the heart of the home. Red is expressed in healthy relationships between parents and their kids. It’s parents who are living out their roles as spiritual influencers for their family. Deuteronomy 6:4 is a description of red. However, something Jonathan told me today that really resonated with me. I can’t remember how he set up this statement, but he said that we need to illustrate for families what it means to be red, but taking steps toward yellow. In the same way, the church needs to be fully yellow, but taking steps toward red. Where these two movements intersect is where Orange happens.

Don’t get me wrong, in most cases the church has to do a lot more than just being yellow taking steps toward red. When parents aren’t being very red or when they’re not taking any steps toward yellow, we create Orange events or Orange programs that kind of force it to happen. I don’t think this is necessarily bad. Parents have to start somewhere, right? They’ve got to grow and develop and be equipped with the knowledge and tools to be red.

So, in addition to doing a bunch of Orange stuff, we need not forget to define for parents what it means to truly be red. Do we clearly paint the picture for them?

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