Archive - September, 2010

Orange Week 2.0: Yellow (Church) Initiatives #thinkorange

September 30, 2010 in CCC, Children's Ministry, Leadership, Orange with 2 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about the Red (family) side of Orange. Today I’ll write about the Yellow (Church) side of Orange. In the image I posted yesterday, you can see the initiatives we have for children at Community Christian Church. Those primarily include our children’s environments, Baby Bay, Kids Kove & Discovery Island.

The key to those environments is not what you might think, however. It’s not the programming, the decor, or the fun games. The key is the relationships with the leaders and other children. At the Orange Tour a couple weeks ago, Sue Miller made the important statement that children do not learn when they are afraid or nervous. Like people of all ages, they learn best when they are in community and feel welcomed, loved, and known. The fun games, the great looking environments, the amazing productions and all of that are a huge part of helping those kids feel welcomed and engaged. But all of that is done with the purpose of preparing kids to have a great small group experience.

It is in the context of small groups, or more generally the relationships between leaders and children, where children have the best shot at growing spiritually. As churches, we need to pour a ton of time, effort and resources into making community, or small groups (or however you do it) as successful as possible.

In our elementary environment (Discovery Island), we intentionally worked hard over a year ago to make our small groups better and it has paid off in big ways. Kids are connected more to the kids in their group and their leader. Leaders are investing in the families outside of Sunday morning. Relationships between parents and small group leaders are growing. Most importantly, children know they are loved by God and there is somebody else cheering for them in life.

It was interesting because when summer came, and volunteers had some time off, kids really missed seeing their regular small group leaders. This is nothing new. Relationships have always been, and will always be the most important thing. The child’s relationship with God, with their parents, with their friends and with adults who are investing in them saying the same things parents are saying.

Orange Week 2.0: Red (Family) Initiatives #thinkorange

September 29, 2010 in CCC, Children's Ministry, Leadership, Orange with 3 Comments

Yesterday I introduced Orange and Orange Week 2.0, and today I’ll write some thoughts about the Red (family) part of Orange. The simplest way to illustrate how Orange works in regards to Children’s Ministry at Community Christian Church is with the image below:

One the red side, everything depends on the parents. We believe parents are the one’s who are primarily responsible for their child’s spiritual growth and the Church’s job is to help them thrive in that role. We provide resources for parents that come with the Orange curriculums that we use (252 Basics & My First Look).

Below is a video of how one CCC parent uses resources at home with her kids as part of a rhythm they have created as a family:

At CCC we have a long way to go in terms of helping with the red side of Orange. If you’re a CCC parent, or any parent, how else could we help you?

Orange Week Kicks Off Today #thinkorange

September 28, 2010 in CCC, Children's Ministry, Orange with 2 Comments

Orange {www.whatisorange.org} is an organization that supports churches in their effort to partner with parents in helping them raise their kids to be passionate Christ followers. The name Orange is important, as it represents the combination of two colors, yellow and red. Red represents the family, and the love they have for each other. Yellow represents the Church, and the light it should be to the world.

The bottom line is, it takes the Church and the family working together to impact the next generation. You can read more about the Orange Strategy here. The Orange Strategy is a foundational part of family ministry at Community Christian Church, where I am blessed to serve.

Orange Week (Sep 28 – Oct 5) was started last year and is a time when Orange Thinking bloggers all write about Orange topics according to a specific schedule. You can see all the contributing bloggers, who are much better at this than I am, here. This upcoming week was a great time to have one because registration for the Orange Conference opens on Tuesday, October 5.

During Orange Week myself and other bloggers will be sharing some thoughts about our church’s Red (family) intiatives, Yellow (church) initiatives, Orange ideas and our Orange Conference experiences. I hope you’ll contribute to the conversation by commenting and/or blogging your thoughts and questions. Check out the video below to learn more about “What is Orange?”

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My NFL Picks

September 7, 2010 in Fun, NFL with 0 Comments

I’ve had an unplanned hiatus from blogging for the past 2 months. Blogging is one of the first things that gets neglected when time is tight. I decided to do something I’ve never done, and try to predict what teams will go to the playoffs and who will win the big one. It will be fun and will provide a good laugh when I check it again in February and see how ridiculously wrong I was.

For those of you that aren’t NFL fans, go ahead and skip reading this one :)

Here are my picks for each division, along with wild cards:

AFC North: Baltimore Ravens – Whenever the Ravens have a legitimate chance I’m totally going to be a homer and pick them to win. However, I do think the Bengals could win the division and the Steelers can’t be totally written off either, especially since they should have the easiest schedule of those 3 teams.

AFC South: Indianapolis Colts – How can you pick against the team that’s won 12+ games every year for the better part of a decade? The Texans will be good, the Titans will surprise but the Colts will still hold on.

AFC East: New York Jets – The Patriots and the Jets both have huge question marks in my mind, so I’m going with the team that should have the easier schedule.

AFC West: San Diego Chargers – The Chargers had been Super Bowl favorites for a few years but could never win in the playoffs. I think they’ll still hold on to their AFC West dominance though.

AFC Wild Cards: Bengals & Steelers – yup, it’s going to be an AFC North party in the playoffs.

NFC North: Green Bay Packers – Aaron Rodgers was great last year and will likely improve this year. The defense won’t be as solid, but should still play well enough to win a lot of games.

NFC South: New Orleans Saints – The champions will finally win their division in back-to-back years.

NFC East: Dallas Cowboys – This was probably the hardest one to pick as the NFC East seems to always be highly competitive. This year will probably be no different as the Redskins will surprise.

NFC West: San Francisco 49ers – Arizona will fall from their recent level of success, the Rams are rebuilding and Seattle will compete but I think the 49ers will win it, even with lackluster QB play.

NFC Wild Cards: Vikings & Giants – If Favre survives the season the Vikings should win enough for a Wild Card and I see the Giants playing better defense this year.

My Super Bowl pick: Ravens over Green Bay - The Ravens offense will have to live up to expectations in order to beat Green Bay but they’ll have to do that to even make it this far anyhow. From year to year, typically there’s 50% turnover in the playoff picture and I only have 25%, so I will likely be laughing at these picks in February.

What are your picks?