(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by 7meteor)
Today we are looking at the third chapter of Think Orange entitled “Warm Hearts.” Our contributor for this review is Matt McKee. Matt McKee is the pastor of Students and Children at Horizon Church in Cincinnati, OH. Matt worked at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX where he helped and create G-Force, a curriculum for elementary-aged children. He was also part of the dreaming stages of the Elevate elementary curriculum that is currently put out by Fellowship Church. Matt is also the author of Matt McKee Live.
The Title of Chapter 3 from the Think Orange book is Warm Hearts. At first I didn’t find that name very appealing and thought here comes the fuzzy feelings. I don’t know if you could tell but I’m not big on the fuzzy feelings. The thing for me though was that chapter 3 of the book goes into Deuteronomy 6 and backs up the principles and the philosophy for the foundation of Thinking Orange. This part of the chapter is where I will spend most of my effort for this post.
If you are not familiar with Deuteronomy 6 then you can read it now, it’s not that long so here you go:
1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
9 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. 10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,
12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah. 17 Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers,
19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said. 20 In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21 tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. 24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.
25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
So as you can see this chapter in the Bible is all about parents teaching their kids about what God has done. Parents, I happen to be one, have to be ready to give an account to what God has done. It is the parents job. Of course Reggie speaks to this in a much better manner than I have the past 3 sentences but that’s why you need to buy the book.
Here was the deal for me though. I personally know Reggie and call him a friend. When we get together we are like two school boys just having fun. I’m not saying this to brag but to let you know that I am blessed to have this relationship. While together one evening we started talking about this chapter in his book. Even after reading this chapter and seeing/experiencing the family experience that the Orange philosophy promotes as part of their strategy, I was still confused. Yes at this point you can say that I must not be that quick, but my confusion came in the form of parents and kids worshiping together. For you see when I read this teaching from Deuteronomy 6 and see the Family Experience I thought the end goal was worship. Reggie made it very clear that the end goal is not worship and he actually never says in his book that the goal should be worship. Did you have this confusion? Did you think the way I did?
So what is the goal then of the Family Experience and the goal of this teaching from Deuteronomy 6? Deuteronomy is the mandate that we as parents are to teach our kids about God and all of the great things that God has done. The Family Experience is simply a platform to help the family talk about God and the great things He has done outside of Sunday morning. It is a springboard for Tuesday more than a worship service for Sunday. Parents should be worshiping God on their own. They don’t need a Family Experience to do this but they do need it to have common ground to talk about.
Look at verse 20 again… It says when your son asks you… Equipping the family is not some fuzzy feeling or trying to measure if the family worshiped together. It’s about being able to give an account to who God is and what He has done. That to me is what chapter 3 is all about.
What do you think Deuteronomy 6 is trying to say?
What do you think the goals of a Family Experience should be?
You can check out other posts to this project:
- Introduction
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Conclusion
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I am relatively new to Orangeology so it was easy for me to get the idea of FX being a springboard for discussion between parents and their children. I wish churches had captured this concept when my children were younger (they are all old now, two of them 30+ and one is 20+). I am quite aware that the parents of our children who come to FX don't get it yet. But we are taking a few minutes in each FX to talk about how we are going to partner with them that month. They are beginning to catch on! We are beginning to hear stories of how this is playing out during the week. It is exciting to see parents and children worshipping together but much more exciting to see them talking about God each week!
Thanks for sharing. So great to hear what is happening at other churches.
I think your statement about being able to give an account of who God is and what he has done is dead on. The Israelites were going from a time when God was very visible (fire/cloud) to a time when he wouldn't be, and Moses knew they would need to keep God on their minds and hearts in order to follow him well.
I think the goal of the family experience should be to equip parents and spark conversations between parents and kids.
There's got to be other ways other than a family experience (FX) to help families have spiritual conversations throughout the week. What are some other ways you all have tried to do that. I know that Elevate (http://www.elevatekids.com) has come out with a DVD for families to watch together along with discussion cards.
At our church we provide a variety of options for parents to continue spiritual discussions at home. They range from encouraging parents to read the Bible Story at home to activities to giving parents liturgical readings based on the church calendar from the Mosaic Bible.
I agree with what has been said by Nick, but I also think that Deut. 6 is impressing on parents just how important living out their faith in front of their children really is, so that there is a model to follow. The Israelites had Moses but he was going off the seen and as we see the cycle happened that parents forgot to keep that model of who God is and what he could do in front of their children, They forgot to "impress" the truth. Our roles as parents is to train up, to help our children become copies of the Savior. If it's important to the parents it will be important to the children.
We have been using Discipetown and I love the Table Talkers which is a fold up paper that can sit on a table and has 3 simple ideas for having some talk time around the table about our topic on the weekend. It allows for parents to spend time in prayer, praise, the Word and impressing the truth of all that on their children. As the kids see the parents take this time out to focus on them and their relationship with Jesus, it has made some neat things happen. I have see more kids coming prepared to open their Bible's and learn, so that they can go home and talk with their parents about what God had spoken to them about. It's so cool! It gives you warm fuzzies!
I love what Tom posted. I agree that it's vital that parents live out their faith in front of their children. And help them to see God in their lives every day. As parents we need to purposely look for opportunities each day to give God credit for the provisions and blessings He brings to our lives.
He has great ideas for family discussions, too. We send home a "token" each week with all of the kids to remind them of the lesson, and post how that ties to the lesson on our website and facebook page. We try to list 3 or 4 activities that parents can do during the week to tie in to the lesson, too.
I think your statement about The Family Experience being a springboard for Tuesday rather than worship on Sunday sums up my thoughts on this chapter. My role as a Children's Minister is to equip parents to dialogue with and lead their children during the day-to-day life. What I do on Sunday at church should only be a recap or "finisher" for what is going on at home on a daily basis. Kids are going to learn so much more about relationship with God through their parents' words and actions day in and day out through life than what I can give them in 1 hour on Sundays.
We just started posting family devotionals recently that tie into our lessons each week and I am really excited about that. We also have takehome sheets and a craft that the kids take home as reminders and discussion starters.
I am at a church where a many factors about the way we do church make a Family Experience out of the question. I've often been sort of distressed about that, but after reading this post and the comments, I think the goal is still attainable to us through other means. If the point is to foster and fuel faith conversations between parents and kids, then I feel better about innovating new combinations of strategies to provide that for families without feeling frustrated about never being able to put on a regular FX. So thanks Matt and fellow commenters! :)
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