Today the Registration for Orange 2011 Opens for Everybody! Go right now to The Orange Conference site and register right now! For today only you can register for $50 of the regular rate, and get your Orange Registration for only $240 per person! There are even some bonus perks built in for those that register TODAY!
Tomorrow the Orange Conference 2011 will open registration. I hope that you will register and make plans to attend next April 27-29, 2011 in Atlanta, GA. As I look back on previous years, I have so many great memories from past Orange Conferences.
I first attended Orange in 2008. I took one of my favorite Kidmin volunteers, and didn’t really meet up with many other leaders. I was new to my job, and new to Orange. I remember being blown away by it all, and leaving a little stunned about how I could possibly move my church in this new direction. Here is my memory as I boarded a plane and headed back to Lubbock, and here is my Orange 2008 recap. I still reference back to what Nancy Ortberg had to say about necessary conflict in my first Orange breakout. Powerful, powerful, powerful stuff!
I then attended Orange in 2009, but went all by myself. This was my first year to be an “official Orange Conference Blogger”, and I was able to meet up with so many of my new friends! This was by far the best conference experience of my life, as I spent time hanging out at Waffle House, hotel lobbies, and slept a total of about 10 hours the entire week. Sharing a hotel room with Kenny, Sam, and Matt was a blast. I think it took me weeks to sort through all that I took away from the 2009 Orange Conference. Here is the 2009 Orange Conference Recap, complete with a video.
In 2010 I attended my third Orange Conference. It was a great trip, yet again. I met so many new people at this year’s conference, and it was definently the highlight of my travel schedule. At this conference I was able to bring my Executive pastor along for the ride, and it was great to be able to share the experience with somebody from Trinity. I’m hoping that the 2010 Orange Conference was a turning point for the family ministries of our church. Here is my 2010 Orange Finale recap post.
Don’t miss the opportunity to register for the 2011 Orange Conference starting this Tuesday, October 5th!
I’ve been reading some great Orange Week 2.0 material all over the blogosphere, and wanted to share some of my favorites. A big thanks the the Texas Giant, Kenny Conley for his daily recaps of Orange Week. I’m a thief. Most of the things that make me smart, I’ve blatantly stolen from other people. That my friend is smart!
Here is my list of great Orange Week blog posts:
Michael Bayne wrote an incredible post about the challenge of helping parents with the red side of the Orange equation. He talks about how most parents just want the student ministries to fix or entertain their kids. He’s got some great advice on how to engage parents to be red!
Zeremy Zach nailed it when it comes to student ministries become Orange. He addressed the stereotype of student ministries being isolated and “black sheep” of the church. He gives specific steps for student pastors to take to “drink the Orange juice.” This is something all the Kidmin leader will want to email to their student leaders!
Chad Swanzy posted an incredible resource on his other site, YouthLeaderStash.com
Gina McClain wrote a great post, I see RED people. I’m saying it’s her superior Oklahoma upbringing that brings us such great ideas.
Kenny gives us a reminder of what Orange should look like. Great honest post!
Sam Luce is a freaking blogging beast, and he nails it with this post about staying Yellow and doing it right!
I wish Dan Scott wrote one really great post that I could link to, but he hit homeruns all week long. Just go read it all! (On a side note, sometimes I read Dan’s blog and can hear his loud, larger than life laugh in my brain.)
Carlos Whittaker talks about his Orange Parenting, and it’s great to have a blog with as many readers as the Ragamuffin Soul community bring attention to the Orange ideology!
Gina writes another stellar post. 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. Great, great stuff!
There is so much more out there, and I want to encourage you to visit all those participating in Orange Week 2.0!
During this Orange Week 2.0, I’ve covered many of the reasons and thoughts behind why we have made a transition to the Orange Curriculum package of 252 Basics and First Look. But what about the family side (RED) of this change?
Let me be honest about something. A family ministry is NOT started with a curriculum change. Curriculum is a tool, and so far I do love the Orange curriculum; however, it’s still just a teaching model. But there is a great potential for reaching out to parents and engaging with the RED side of the Orange environment.
It’s simple really. It all starts with the take-home page.
We’ve all done take-home pages, right? I’ve done it for years, only to discover once my kids were old enough to get take-home pages that they go unused. Why do they go unused? Because anything I get on a Sunday Morning, in the hectic environment of dismissal will be lost. There is just something about that crazy, pickup your kids, gather all the crafts, and get to the car that leave take-home pages unused. But 252 Basics and First Look create quite a conundrum. The God Time and Small Talk take-home pages are great, but how can I get these to parents and avoid the confusion of it being a take-home item?
A solution to the problem?
We’ve decided to distribute take-home pages through email. But we’re being very intentional about it. Parents at Trinity Church can only sign-up for the pages via the website at parents.trinitykidsplace.com. Once signed up, they will receive the appropriate take-home kid for their child at 3:00pm on Sunday Afternoon. It is perfect? No, but it’s something. With only Facebook promotion on our parent sign-ups, we have 25 families receiving the weekly email. That’s a win. We’re establishing a schedule of promoting the website on the first Sunday of every month with take-home pages, and then we’ll let it rest for 3 weeks. Then hit it again the next month.
But what’s next?
I’ve got a list now of 25 families that have jumped through a minor hoop to continue the conversations at home from what their kids are hearing at church. See where I’m going with this? I now have a list of those parents and families most interested in the things that I want them to be interested in. I now have a list of the families to promote the new Cue Box too. What’s the CUE BOX? Clickety-click to read more. Combined with 252studio.tv and the CUE Box, I can help families engage with the bright YELLOW side of the Orange environment.
Let’s be honest please…
This is just one small step in what I hope will be combined with many of the other things we’ve done to engage parents. When combined with our Baptism process and Child Dedication experience and Family Friendly events; it is my prayer and hope that we can shine our bright YELLOW and engage the deep RED of the families at Trinity.
Previously, I addressed why we made the change to the reThink Curriculum package for our areas at Trinity Church. Today I’d like to share about how we use the First Look Curriculum in our Early Childhood Environments. I’ve already covered how we made the change in Elementary environments, so go read that now! Our Early Childhood (EC) and Nursery areas would cover any child from birth through Kindergarten, specifically we’ve always referred to EC as 3 year olds and up. It’s complicated, but that’s how we roll currently.
What is our setup?
We have one main environments for babies up to 12 months that consist of glider rockers, swings, bouncy chairs, changing tables, padded floor mats, and lots of people that want to just rock babies. We then promote kids up to a Walkers class when they turn one year or start walking; we have two of these classes. Then kids turn 2 and are promoted to the 2′s, of which there are 2 classrooms. Then kids turn 3 and are promoted to the 3′s, of which there are 2 classrooms. Then kids turn 4 and are promoted to the 4′s, and they are then taken to our Pre-K building and placed in a much larger space. There is currently only one 4 year old environment. Then when kids turn 5, they promote up to the 5-6 Pre-K and Kindergarten environments. We have two Kindergarten classrooms, but they meet together in one much larger room for storytelling and singing time. After they’re “together time” they return to separate areas.
I share all this to say, that EC can be a complicated beast to organize and prepare curriculum for. There are often times that we have to add classroom space and create the additional third space for each age; and other times that we have to combine areas due to out-of-town leaders. We have always struggled with curriculum not being age-appropriate or hard to teach. First Look has eased this frustration, and allowed us to solve this problem.
How do you make it work?
Here is where First Look has proven so easy to implement. Just like 252 Basics, there is a mountain of content to sort through; but they provide something for every environment, age, and space. I have song posters that it above changing tables in the baby rooms, and play time instructions for walkers that support the lesson for that week. Then my 2 year olds have their own material that is perfect for their age, then it just continues up through preschool and kindergarten.
We tweak it somewhat, but mostly to get all the content to fit into our 65 minute service format. The ability to edit, subtract, and add to the curriculum has been our favorite part. No more scratching out content on a secured .PDF file, we simply edit it out in a word document and go with it! Leaders of each classroom space get a manual for each month. We do our best to make the manual as snazzy, colorful, and exciting as we can!
Was it easy to train your teachers?
We’ve never had training work so well. I really think that the overarching 3 basic truths of First Look, made it easy for classroom leaders to buy into it. They were excited to get started, and have spoken very positively of the change over the past 4 weeks.
Do you use the videos?
We use the Wonder! Look at God’s Story DVD’s for our large group storytelling segments. The videos are short, short, short, and they work perfectly to keep the kids attention. These DVD’s have helped us ease into the transtition and have proven to be a great resource.
