• I started off Leverage Influence with a post about engaging students in meaningful ministry as a means of discipleship.
• Kendra Golden compares us engaging students in ministry to a drug dealer getting a kid hooked on drugs. Ha! I don’t think I ever would have taken that approach, but I like it in a weird way.
• Matt McKee posts about Leveraging Influence using another story form OrangeLeaders.com but then also sharing how it’s done at his church. One of the last things he said was significant. It was about being territorial about students and realizing we can work together to reach them.
• Sam Luce talks about the excellent relationship he’s always had with his youth pastor and how he’s been able to use students to serve in the children’s ministry and the great benefit they bring.
• Jonathan Cliff writes a post about personal experiences of growing in his faith when given the opportunity to serve in a significant way and how this is a powerful way to impact students through their service in Children’s Ministry.
• JC talks about the difference of using teenagers as opposed to developing them and what developing students in the light of service actually looks like.
• Dan Scott writes more about the strategy his church uses to leverage influence and empower students to serve within the church and outside the church.
• Gina talks about how serving is the most “actionable” component of the strategy and how we can empower students to serve both inside and outside the church. She also gets bonus points for adding DC Talk’s “Luv is a verb” video. I have very special memories associated with that album.
• Anthony talks about involving students in the mission, not just them being the mission. Good stuff with great examples.
• Nick Blevins also write about leveraging influence. He talks about how students have to see that they are the church as opposed to just attending one.

Leverage influence is the part of the Orange strategy that primarily targets students. Although I oversee a student pastor and student ministry, my primary ministry gifting lies in children’s ministry. I’d really appreciate hearing from some student pastors who are putting this into practice. However, I don’t speak from someone who hasn’t experienced this. I look at the students at my church and the ones who are strongest in their faith are the ones serving weekly in the childrens ministry or middle school. Most importantly, this is how I was “discipled.” I am a product of this strategic element.

What is this idea of leveraging influence? It’s equipping students to live out what they’re learning and to be a part of an adventure that is bigger than themselves.

Reggie explains that there are four philosophies of student ministry:

• Stop them from going to hell
• Keep them for raising hell
• Scare the hell out of them
• Give them weapons to charge hell

Our best resource for discipleship and volunteerism is to take a teenager and give them the tools and let them be a part of rescuing a generation. This type of mentality sets a teenager up for spiritual success. Here’s what I’ve seen in my years of ministry experience. I’ve seen student ministries where only adults are aloud to lead and students merely participate. This creates a church subculture that allows students no place to go once graduating from school as they’ve never had a chance to integrate with normal church life. I’ve also seen children’s ministries that “use” teenagers (I’ve been guilty of this as well). The sound booth becomes the Jr. High hangout. Children’s pastors are grateful for the help, but frustrated with the unreliability of these teenage helpers.

Let me speak more to the children’s ministry side of this issue of “using” teenagers? Once we have an integrated strategy, the concern of the children’s ministry should be both that of impacting kids and helping develop these teenage participants. I know too many chidlren’s pastors (including myself) who were called to the ministry while serving in childrens ministry as a teenager. What a great opportunity for kingdom building within our churches? How can we work better with student pastors to serve their goals for their teenagers?

Leveraging influence involves creating opportunities for students to make a difference. At times this may call for folding papers, setting up curriculum boxes and other brainless work; however, what in ministry can we give them that is significant? People feel significant when we give them something significant to do? If the end goal is a teenager who is strong in faith and making a difference in the world, it’s unlikey that this will happen without engaging them in ministry work. In Think Orange, Reggie says “If what they ahve heard never moves from their heads to their hands, it will probably never make it to their hearts.” Create opportunities for students to live the adventure.

So in a nutshell, what is Orange?

Orange represents change. It’s the color of transition. What color do you think of in the Fall? Orange. Similarly, many feel some serious changes confront the church. Business as usual hasn’t been working. Children growing up in the church are leaving their faith once finishing High School in alarming numbers. Change is needed.

Orange represents partnership. It’s the merging of two colors to become a third. With Orange, this partnership is between the church and families. It’s when the church, heavy with resources combines with parents, who have significant influence, begin working together to make a bigger impact. Two combined influences will make a greater impact than two influences.

Simple, huh? Really it is. But there’s more. Central to the Orange “philosophy” are five core elements:

• Integrated Strategy
• Refine the Message
• Elevate Community
• Reactivate the Family
• Leverage Influence

Over the next five days we’re going to look closely at these five elements to see how we can be agents of change that will impact THIS generation.

During Orange week others are blogging on the same topic each day and links to their posts will show up in the comments. Be sure to visit their posts to see how the elements of the Orange strategy are being carried out in real-live scenarios. If you want to share your thoughts surrounding this topic you can either by replying in the comments or writing a post on your own blog and linking back to this specific blog post (so the link to your post will show up in the comments.