Elemental Children's Ministry

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by Christine ™)

Those oranges in the picture above are standing and clapping… Get it? They’re giving a standing orange-vation… standing ovation… orange and ovation… OK, fine! I thought it was funny when I first thought of it.

I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to the contributors for the Think Orange project.

• Stacey Windover
• Amy Dolan
  
• Theresa Haskins
• Matt McKee
• Matt Guevara
  
• James Giroux
• Cash Hunter
• Kendra Golden
• April Smith
• John Mullis
• Diana Loach
• David Scott

Be sure to check out all of these brilliant and generous people. Without them, this project would not have happened!

Thank you also to all of you who contributed and tweeted and read. It definitely is humble privilege to know that you are reading this blog and using it to share ideas with each other.

If you did not have a chance to read any of the posts to this Think Orange blogging project, here are the links:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
  
• Conclusion
  

ALSO DON’T FORGET!!! You can win a FREE REGISTRATION to The Orange Conference for 2010 simply by participating in the discussions in the above posts. For each time you comment, your name will be entered into a random draw for a free registration. You have until 12:00 a.m. EST on Friday, February 12, 2010 to comment. I will announce the winner on Monday, February 15.

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by stirwise)

Today we are concluding our group blogging project through Think Orange with some steps to Orange-ify. The contributor for this review is David Scott. According to David’s blog profile, he is a husband, father, computer-geek, and former pastor. His goal is to live simply, give generously and love personally. David is the author of The Gospel Playboy blog.

Steps to Orange-ify

When I looked over the “Steps” section at the back of “Think Orange”, I was a little taken aback. One page. One measly page of seven steps. Thinking back over our church’s experience implementing Orange philosophies over the past six years, I thought, “there’s room for a whole other book here”.

But as I let Carey Nieuwhof’s section rattle around in my head for a while, I realized there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for implementing Orange concepts. Every church is different just as every family is different. I can tell you what worked or didn’t work in my context, but you’ll have to look at your situation and plan accordingly.

Carey’s points are broad, but appropriately so:

1. Discover: This is a time of dreaming, exploring what connecting parents and the church might look like in your context. It’s a time to ask questions and pray. For us, this started with a group of parents who stumbled on Barna’s “Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions”. It absolutely changed our paradigm. A group of 10 or so parents and staff members met weekly to flesh out what it would mean for our church to change from “children’s ministry” to partnering with parents. It was a challenging process, but it was one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of.
2. Define an action plan: Now that you’ve dreamed of what you want, how do you get there? What’s your strategy? What has to change in order for you to achieve “victory”, the achievement of your vision? Our group went on a fact finding mission, looking at how other churches were implementing family ministry. We sent a team to Northpoint’s “Grow Up” conference to explore their strategy. We looked at the things that were non-negotiable about our overall church and discipleship vision. Fortunately for us, a small church, defining change was relatively easy. Our entire staff was on board, willing to do whatever needed to be done. The big question was, Will everyone else be willing? We did our best to hammer out the details before presenting our plan.
3. Which brings us to Communicate. Your core team has come together to dream and plan, you’ve hammered out a strategy, but now it’s time to cast the vision for your church and families. You listen, you adjust, and then you communicate some more. This communication and feedback is ongoing. You have to recast that vision so that you don’t lose momentum. We did this by sending a team to each of our small groups to personally cast the vision in a setting that allowed for close feedback. We had some great questions, some of which we hadn’t thought of or explored.
4. Reorganize: Budgets, staff, competing programs, and even locations and times may need to be changed in order to accommodate your action plan. A great point Carey makes here is “Don’t just think addition, think subtraction.” That’s huge. Often attempts at family ministry become an add-on program to an already busy church. When that happens, volunteers, budgets, and staff are stretched, and competition for resources sets in. Simplify. It’s OK to kill a few programs.
5. Develop: Time to train your staff and volunteers, not just new skill sets, but also passion. You have to show your people how they fit into the big picture. It may not seem like a big job to be a part of the “sign-in” crew for the family production, but you can develop the vision in your volunteers to help them see what a critical role they play in making children and families feel welcome in what should be one of the best experiences of the week. Make sure you plan your training strategy so that when your people begin taking their place in the vision they feel confident in what they’re doing, so that they can “win”.
6. Promote: For some churches, “Orange” may be scary. It may be a huge change in philosophy. We abandoned Sunday school for our kids and most of our adults for our new Orange platform. (Man, some people take that personally!) So you have to help the wider audience, both your church members and the general community, understand what you’re doing and why. Be creative. Dream. Find ways to communicate your passion for what is about to happen, being sure to include your audience in how they fit into the picture.
7. Finally, Launch. How do you know when it’s the right time to launch? I’m not sure you can ever know. It may be too early or too late. There’s a magical balance between being under prepared and overly prepared. It’s your job as a leader to make the call. It will be scary, but through prayer, preparation and wisdom, lead your team. “Think Orange” makes a great point about listening and watching. Especially at the beginning, you’ll see lots of opportunities for change: things you didn’t think about, things you thought would work but didn’t. You’ll hear of strategies that worked better than you could have imagined that you can use elsewhere. Watch, listen, and change.

The time between our first committee meeting and the time of our launch was a whirlwind. In retrospect, we probably launched too soon. We had a three months to implement steps 2-7. That includes creating and communicating a strategy, building out environments, recruiting and training volunteers, re-staffing, etc. It was insane. What I can say is that the passion generated by our small group of parents during the “Discover” phase was so intense that it made the implementation and launch manageable. We were a part of something huge that God was doing for kids, for families, for our church, and for our community. Six years later we continue to grow and change our ministry, but the growth and change in our kids has been incredible.

What phase of implementation are you in? If you’ve already launched, what are some of the experiences you had in implementation? Where did you fail? What worked for you? Share your experience with us.

You can check out the other posts in this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by charsplat)

Today we are taking a look at chapter ten of Think Orange entitled “Essential #5 Leverage Influence.” The contributor for this review is Diana Loach. Diana is the Director of Children’s Ministries at St. Giles Kingsway Presbyterian Church in Etobicoke, Ontario and has recently joined the team of Resource Consultants with David. C. Cook. You can connect with Diana on Twitter by clicking here.

One of the things that the church has very carefully done in past generations is to create learning environments. We have structured classrooms, and chosen curriculum resources that have our students work through their notes. Chapter 10 has the reader take a look at how we can “Leverage Influence” – a thought-provoking challenge to “create consistent opportunities for students to experience personal ministry”.

Reggie begins the chapter by having us ponder the mountain climbing teaching method that never has the student climb the mountain – just read about the fundamentals, hear from people who have been to the mountain top, and look at pictures from climbing expeditions. Why would one expect the book taught climber to be able to venture up the face of the mountain successfully. It just seems ridiculous, doesn’t it.

Yet, that’s just what we have done with our students experience of God. The truest way to learn where we fit in God’s Story is to actually find our place in it. I have long been a supporter of having teens work with the younger students in children’s ministry. It truly benefits everyone – the younger kids strive to “keep up” with the teens, and the teens develop leadership skills and get to see their faith grow through action. By engaging our teens in active ministry opportunity we ensure for them:

• a dynamic faith in God (that’s wonder).
• a personal identity in Christ (that’s discovery).
• a responsive heart toward others (that’s passion).

It is through these foundations that parents and leaders will “…see the Greatest Commandment show up in their kids lives, and by when that happens, the family wins, and the church has done it’s job.”

We are doing a great disservice to our youth if we never let them develop into the lamp stands that God has called them to be…if we teach them to recite the Great Commission, but never give the hands on skills to live that directive. It’s a little like climbing a mountain after only reading the handbook – we have to learn from someone who’s been there.

You can check out the other posts in this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Conclusion

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by Thomas Hawk)

Today we are taking a look at chapter nine of Think Orange entitled “Essential #4 Elevate Community.” The contributor for this review is John Mullis. John is the children’s ministry director at Arvada Covenant Church in Arvada, CO. John has been in education for 18 years, 10 of which are as a children’s ministry pastor. You can catch John on Twitter by clicking here.

Elevate Community has the dream that is fresh air and a breath of life to parents who are struggling to raise their kids. They say with intensity, “I want this for my son.” These are the thoughts that inspire leaders who have shepherding gifts. This is the material that helps me sound like a visionary genius when I talk to shepherd leaders about the impact they can have on the life of a child.

My kids are 17, 16, 15 and 13. I have 4 teenagers. (cue music. dramatic pause)

The last few years of life have forced me to struggle to grow up. I feel more like an adult than I ever have. I’ve also felt more inadequate and realized my need for help more than I have before. As the father of these fantastic, hormone guided not quite adult teens, I am thankful, grateful and blessed that they have people in their lives that are saying the same things I’m saying. I depend on it. When one of my teens pushes me away, holds me at an arm’s length or doesn’t want to hear what I have to say, I lean on the community my kids have with other adults who will say the same things in their lives that I’m trying to say as a parent. At Thanksgiving, my 15 year old son, Max, expressed his thankfulness for a group of friends in his youth group that help him and care for him. This is an essential truth of elevating community in ministry.

Before you gather with your small group leaders to cast vision and motivate them, prepare for that meeting by reading chapter 9. Take notes. Think about it. Soak it in and let the thoughts become yours. Or, at least take the book with you and read some of these main points:

When you elevate community as a part of your ministry strategy –

• You recognize the need for multiple voices – this happens when kids care about what another adult or their peer says more than what their parents say.
• You cooperate with how God grows people spiritually – God uses significant relationships to prompt or encourage us.
• You help children and students navigate through critical life situations – caring adults will help kids interpret life situations correctly.
• You recruit and nurture a different breed of spiritual leaders – the commitment level of volunteer leaders increases because their service is more meaningful.
• You do something that nothing in culture can match – culture can outdo the production of the church but it can’t outdo the relationships of the church.
• You provide reinforcement to the parent – a place where kids can show up and be safe and have meaningful dialogue with a trusted adult.

Elevating community takes time and serious effort from ministry leaders like us. It takes determination. As leaders we have to fight the tide of “easy.” There is no “easy” button. We have to battle people saying, “Can’t you just ask parents to serve once a month? You’ll get a lot more people that way.” Have you ever heard that? But people will respond when we lay out the preferred future for our children and how we connect them with caring leaders. We pray for this a lot. I’ve seen the quality of the leader and the quality of the ministry rise over time as our team cranks up the heat on the passion of a person that has the gift of shepherding . I also believe high powered people will be attracted to your teams. People that want to make a serious impact in the life of a child or student for eternity are interested in a big vision. The big effort has big rewards in the life of children, students and leaders.

“Children and students need the skills to navigate through difficult obstacles and the right voices to give wise direction. Everyone needs to be believed in by someone, and everyone need to belong somewhere. True community provides both.”

Elevate Community

You can check out the other posts in the seires:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 10
• Conclusion

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by RottyM)

Today we are looking at chapter eight of Think Orange entitled “Essential #3: Reactivate the Family.” The contributor for this review is April Smith. April is the preschool minister at Church of the Way in Lawrenceville, GA.

When You Combine 2 Influences You Build An Everyday Faith

I love Halloween! It’s probably my favorite holiday. I love the laughter! The candy! The costumes! The excitement and imagination in the air! All the orange! The way kids and parents hang out together. In chapter 8 Reggie proposes what if church were more like Halloween? Holidays are built around the idea of family. What if churches were? What if everything we did focused on equipping parents to be the spiritual leaders in their homes? What if we really believed in them? What if we partnered with them?

Chapter 8 discusses how every parent we meet should be seen as a partner with our ministry, but they may be partnering at different levels. There are four levels that help us know where parents are, so we can help them move to the goal of being the spiritual leaders in their homes. We as leaders have the responsibility to equip parents to be the spiritual leaders in their homes. “Will we measure the parents we meet by our ideal standard of what a family should be, or will we see them as a part of God’s story of redemption and restoration?”

Aware – Parents are concerned about a particular situation or development. They are outside the church but open to it. They might reconsider church if they thought it was relevant to the moral or spiritual development of their children. They want to become better parents. Unfortunately most churches are more concerned about focusing inward to the needs of parents who are already in the church.

Involved – Parents have a basic relationship with the church. They may be just bringing their kids to church but they are taking steps to influence their kids spiritually. They feel better about their parenting because they are involved in activities with their kids. Sadly, research shows that about 80% of these churchgoing parents say the church has done little or nothing to help them be better parents. Most leaders assume because these parents are attending church that they are better parents. Most church strategies include adult programming for adults and kids’ programming. Partnering with families does not mean only involving parents and kids in separate programs.

Engaged – Parents are committed to partnering with the church. They are growing and assume some responsibility for spiritual leadership in the home. They attend family experiences together at church. They participate in leading children in activities sent home to encourage what they’re learning at church.

Invested – Parents devote time and energy to partner with the church. They understand the strategy of your ministry and participate with Christian parent groups. These parents have bought in to the philosophy of being the spiritual leader and being a partner with the church.

“Every parent needs you as a partner. Start acting like it.”

You can check out the other posts in this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Conclusion

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by JimmyMac210)

Today we are taking a look at chapter seven of Think Orange entitled “Refine the Message.” The contributor for this review is Kendra Golden. Kendra designs curriculum for LifeChurch.tv‘s Content Development Team. Last year, this team replaced traditional ministry department silos with the goal of programming for kids, youth, and adults with a strategic long term vision. Kendra and her writer husband Brannon live in Oklahoma with their 3 kids and 2 foster kids. You can catch Kendra blogging about spiritual growth at Metacognician and curriculum strategy at In On The Ground Floor.

I’m so stoked to get this chapter to review because this element of Orange is the one I spend the most time swimming around in. I had already served on our LifeKIDS team for a few years before I first heard of Orange at Grow Up ’06. I was halfway through writing five years’ worth of our elementary discipleship curriculum at the time. To be honest, I was so shaken by the ideas within this particular element that I begged our children’s ministry leader to let me scrap it all and start from scratch. After all, the conference theme was “Jump”–and I am a jumper by nature! But, that was not to be. We changed a few things, but mostly we forged ahead to complete the curriculum. However, that was the first of many steps for me towards refining the message.

If you haven’t read the book, let me first plead with you: Do not dismiss it. Simply reading these chapter reviews won’t make your ministry Orange-ish enough. Orange is a multi-faceted concept you need to submerge yourself in. Reading and discussing Think Orange with your ministry team or going to the Orange ’10 Conference in April are really the only adequate ways to process it. I don’t mean to make it sound complicated. It’s actually profoundly simple. (So simple they could pick a one-word color that communicates its essence!)

But don’t just take my word for it. Rather than only sharing my thoughts about and personal experiences with the ideas in this chapter, I’ll give you an overview of “Refining the Message” (one of the five strategies that make Orange Orange) by sharing the quotes from it that are messing with me the most right now. Below is what I highlighted with my commentary in italics:

p. 136: …you can change the color of something without compromising its nature. It doesn’t mean you weaken your message just because you focus on what your audience needs.
This is a hard pill to swallow for some.

p. 137: Think about the possibility of having parents and leaders who are connecting with kids and teaching the same thing, at the same time, in an easily applicable way.
Realistically, this probably looks radically different in each church setting.

p. 138: Saying less means you have to decide ahead of time what to teach based on the question, What do I want this child to become?
I love this one because it’s what I do on my team, but I feel tremendous pressure to “get it right.”

p. 139: Prioritizing content, or teaching less for more, is based on the assumption that all Scripture IS equally inspired by God, but all Scripture is not equally important.
Whew. That’s the one that rocked my face off in ’06!

p. 141: Churches have a bad habit of sacrificing the potential that exists in timeless, life-changing truths because they fail to communicate those truths in a relevant or helpful way.
From an argument supporting the word “relevant.”

p. 142: It is important to refine your message to a few core principles that help parents and leaders stay focused on the bigger picture.
Unless your ministry goals have clear, practical “handles” that parents can grasp, it’s not refined enough. Ouch.

p. 143: We have the potential to say things in a way that will make a lasting impression, a bad impression, or in some cases no impression at all.
Painfully challenging.

p. 147: Your message will be amplified when it is repeated through physical environments and caring relationships.
Any church can pull this off.

p. 153: Say less, say it for a reason, and say it clearer.
Then sometimes don’t say it.
But always say it louder.
Just be careful what you say,
And how you say it.
This is “Refine the Message” in a nutshell. Thanks, Reggie, for refining your message enough to sink into my thick skull.

So readers, what does refining the message mean to you?

What message are you sending to families? Is it the one you intend?

What will it look like in your church environment?

How will you send the right messages to your kids, students, and parents?

How can you use this strategy to communicate Orange to your leadership?

You can check out the other posts in this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Conclusion

Today we are taking a look at chapter six of Think Orange entitled “Essential #1 Integrate Strategy.” The contributor for this review is Cash Hunter. Cash is the Pastor of Youth and Children at Woodruff Road Christian Church in Greenville, SC. Cash has been married for 6 years to his college sweetheart Kristy. Cash also authors a blog called Thoughts from a Youth Minister.

When you combine two influences you create synergy.

Chapter 6 of Reggie Joiner’s book “Think Orange” is the first chapter in 2nd part of the book Five Orange Essentials. In other words Integrate Strategy is the 1st Essential Joiner talks about. If you had a chance to read Orange Week from some other Children’s Minister Bloggers you already have an idea of the 5 essentials, and this blog group will explain them once again. I have the privilege of discussing Chapter 6- Integrate Strategy. 

As a Minister who has been in full-time Ministry for only 6 years you can say I am still pretty new at Ministry and still getting my feet wet, but I have learnd from the mistakes of others, and more so have learned from seasoned leaders like Reggie. In the two churches I have served and are currently serving I have had the challenge of being the Associate Minister over Youth and Children and at first I fought to keep them separated, until I wised up and realized I could have one Ministry feed the next one, which feeded the next one. In other words I “integrated” my separate ministries into one super ministry called “Family” ministries. But I didn’t realize I was doing that until I read Chapter 6 of “Think Orange”.

In his book Reggie says, “You need to make sure that everyone who leads with you is leading in the same direction”. I am now just getting the hang of that, but it is amazing how the Ministry has boomed, now that all our volunteers from wee-worship in toddler rooms to our High school ministry is seeing the importance of having a plan of action with an end in mind, and that is what “strategy” is. We are now intentional on how we do church, I give you an example. In our C2 kidz Worship (our elementary worship service) we take up an offering every week, now before we would collect some pennies, quarters, and every once in a while a dollar or two, but this year we are trying something crazy we are trying to raise enough money to build a well in Africa (just our C2 worship, just our offering on Sunday mornings). The cost of the well is about $4,000.00. Guess what? In just four week’s time when we launched this idea to our kids we have raised over $200.00 that’s an average of $50 a week, which means an average of a dollar a kid, not too bad. Last year I think we might have collected $500.00 the entire year in our children’s offering. That is what “integrated strategy” is. Our Small groups leaders, our parents, our children, and our worship leaders have all bought into building a well for kids in Africa who need clean drinking water.

Joiner goes into details about the different models churches use for their strategy. I can’t go into much detail you just need to read the book, but I would say that most churches use the department model, which means that every department (or ministry) is responsible independently for their programming, even at the church I’m at now that was there model, until I got our leaders and volunteers to buy into “Orange”. Now we practice a more integrated mindset where we have a team that is overseas our entire family ministry (preschool – high school). What happens is what Reggie Joiner calls the “Integrated Model” and everyone on your teams is on the same page and you get more done.

One Last thought. If you are going to have an “integrated strategy” you can’t do it just through email and phone calls, you need to have personal contact with your staff, volunteers, and parents. You need to get everyone in the same room to get on the same page. Some of you are afraid to meet with your parents, but your parents are a huge part of “thinking orange”. Just try it… get everyone in the same room and always remember to “Think Orange”

You can check out other posts from this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Conclusion

Today we are looking at chapter five of Think Orange entitled “Skeeples and Lomes.” The contributor for this review is James Giroux. James works as the Student Ministries Cultural Architect at Cedarview Alliance Church in Barrhaven, Ontario, Canada where he designs creative environments and worship expereiences for students. You can check out James’ blog highlighting Life, Passion and Adventure by clicking here.

I have the unenviable task of writing a review on a poem. Lucky me! Before I get there though I have a few comments on the chapters that precede it. As I began to read Think Orange, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. As a Student Ministries guy my time tends to be focused on material centered around youth ministry. As I have begun to do some of these book reviews I have been slowly seeing a bigger picture and how integral family is to the success of what we do.

Reggie Joiner does a great job of disarming all the different camps in his opening comments and sets the stage for finding common ground between ministry leaders and families. I can say that he approaches the subject gracefully and with a sense of humor that is quite refreshing.

Reggie doesn’t come across as a know-it-all and Think Orange (so far) doesn’t have a ‘quick-fix’ feel to it. He outlines the problem quite well, that separate, the church and families will continue to struggle but that together they will begin to see breakthrough where it hasn’t been easy.

In Chapter 5 of Think Orange the creativity of people jumps out and the story of Skeeples and Lomes is born. It is a story of two groups, each with unique roles but who for too long have been separate and unwilling to work together. Their main job is to help youngsters grow up and stay away from the Cravat. A cave of goo.

Eventually one little one starts on a course toward the Cravat, gets caught in the goo and neither group, the Skeeples nor the Lomes are able to get them out on their own. Only by working together are they able to rescue the little ones from the goo.

As I reflect on my reading so far and the situations in my ministry life where I have been able to work with families in raising up young people that is when I have had the most success. When I can hang out with students and their dad at a movie or when parents are organizing opportunities for me to chill with students and spend time with them, that is when ministry is the most effective.

I will say that where I wrestle is putting what happens occasionally and with great success into some form of system that can be replicated. I believe that Think Orange will get there as the chapters go on but for now I am motivated and excited to continue working with families to see young people transformed by the life, passion and adventure of following Jesus.

You can check out other posts in this project:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Conclusion