Tag Archive - Orange

Making 252 Basics Work

September 29, 2010 in Ministry with 9 Comments

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 252 Basics Curriculum in our environments.  Yesterday I talked about how our overall format for Elementary is a Small Group -> Large Group -> Small Group setup.  Kids enter into a small group environment with their small group leader (sgl) and then when all is said and done, they are right back in this group at the end.  Our Elementary environment currently consist of kids in the 1st through 5th grades.

How do you use it in Small Group Time?

We have struggled to create community for our kids at Trinity, but this year have added quite a few additional SGL’s to make this change work for us.  Our phase 1 of small group setup, was to separate genders and grades.  So we had a goal for 10 groups, that would be a 1st grade boys, 1st grade girls, etc…  We didn’t quite get there, but we’re still recruiting.  In a way, I feel we should rename them “smaller” groups, as some of our small groups aren’t that small.  It’s all a step in the right direction, but we must get more SGL’s for it to continue to work.  We do this setup for our two largest Sunday Morning services on the weekend.  For our much lighter attended service on Saturday night, we simply separate small groups into boys and girls.

Here is the first way we make 252 Basics work for us.  For Saturday nights we use the K-5th grade small group material.  It’s simple to do with many different ages and works great for Saturday nights.  For Sunday Mornings, we use the more age specific material for small groups.  I cannot tell you how great it is that 252 gives us age specific material for small groups.  Our SGL’s have loved it, and there is so much to choose from when creating their Small group leading booklets.

How do you use it in Large Group Time?

As far as large group, we’re still a work in progress.  252 offers three large group setups; K-5th, K-3rd, and 4th-5th.  For August and September we used the 4th-5th grade large group script, but have just changed to the K-3rd script for larger group in October.  We’re trying to find something that works for us.  We pretty much follow the large group script, using 2 (and sometimes 3) people on stage.  We made a decision this fall to concentrate on training SGL’s, and to take the large group leading upon ourselves for a season.  So my Elementary coordinator and myself alternate between storytelling and hosting.  My Elementary coordinator, will also lead worship segments.  So far, so good.  I really like teaching with this curriculum, and find it easy to tweak and adjust for our church culture.

But what about the kids?

The kids are loving it!  They’ve picked up on the 3 basic truths, and I know they like the constant transition between small group and large group.  It’s created less down time that before, and that’s a positive.  We’ve followed the monthly themes that 252 suggests, complete with a decorated stage and stage leaders in costume when it’s appropriate.  For example, in August it was a western theme, and after a week we had kids coming to church dressed up in Cowboy clothes.  Not something that might happen for Sam Luce and his Yankee cohorts, but in West Texas it was a perfect fit.

Are you using the videos?

We do use the Feature Presentation DVD’s for Saturday Nights, and have used an occasional storytime video from these DVD’s when we thought it was a great fit for Sunday Mornings.  We also use the Get REEL DVD’s for transitional elements.  We don’t use all the video on both the DVD’s but combined, we find what fits and works.  It’s a great resource to have!


Why the Orange Change?

September 28, 2010 in Ministry with 10 Comments

We’ve made a huge change in the past few months, as it relates to how we program for our Children’s Ministry.  The change was simply a major shift in curriculum, but it goes beyond that to something deeper as well.

For the past 2+ years we have used Elevate in our Elementary environment, and for the past year haves used Elevate Jr. in our Early Childhood environments.  We’ve used Elevate in just about every combination of use, from 100% videos, to only small video segments.  We’ve tweaked the heck out of that stuff, and it served us well while we transitioned from a stale ministry to kids to something resembling a living, moving ministry at Trinity Church.  I think many great things about the Elevate curriculum package, and have gone on and on in the past about how much I admire what they do for churches with their curriculum.  I’m not going to get into the question of, “Why not Elevate?”, as much as look at the question of, “Why did you choose 252 Basics and First Look?”

I’ve had my eye on the curriculum offered through reThink for a few years now, having attended the past 3 Orange Conferences and getting my fill of the overall vision and strategy behind it.  I have friends that have used it almost exclusively and others that have shared it’s positives (and negatives) with me.  I felt that we had to wait until the right time to make the move, as it would have to coincide with another volunteer effort to help make it work.

In August of 2010 we moved to 252 Basics, after a long two month process of recruiting Small Group Leaders.  We’ve done small groups for 3 years, but only at the end of a large group time.  We used 252 Basics to help move us to a Small Group -> Large Group -> Small Group model.  This simply means the kids arrive in their small groups, exit to a large group worship environment, then return to the small group where they will be retrieved by their parents after church dismisses.  This was a HUGE change for us, but something that has worked almost flawlessly for the past 7 weeks.  I’m proud of our staff for making the change happen.

In September of 2010 we moved to First Look, after reThink released the updated Wonder! Look at God’s Story DVD’s.  It’s a funny story actually, we were actively looking for Early Childhood storytellers and thinking we’d start First Look sometime in January 2011.  But after seeing the Wonder DVD’s, we decided to push our date up.  That along with a great 50% offer that was on the table back in July and we were all over it!

Here is what we have liked about both changes:

  • The biggest thing we’ve loved is the overarching theme of the Orange Strategy.  You’ve read Think Orange, right?
  • It’s so easy to edit.  There is simply nothing so easy to edit and dissect at First Look and 252 Basics.
  • So many options to work with.  It can be a little overwhelming, but if you give yourself a month to familiarize yourself with the mountain of content…it proves that there is something for almost any setup and environment.
  • The video elements for both 252 and First Look have been much improved over the years.  We feel they are a great fit, most weeks.  I’ll get into this more tomorrow, when I share how we use 252 in our environments

The biggest reason we decided to make the change to 252 Basics and First Look is that as a team we felt that it offered us the best opportunity to present a vision to parents of what the church could mean in the lives of their children.  Very simply, that is it!


Orange Week 2010, again

September 27, 2010 in Ministry with 3 Comments

It’s here again.  Orange Week returns all this week as I’m going to be bringing you ORANGE related topics!  What do I mean by Orange? Orange is a color and it’s a fruit…duh!  It’s also an idea.  It’s the idea of creating environments in our churches that combine the best of the family (red) with the best of the church (yellow.)  Get it?  Red + Yellow = Orange.  It’s my desire as a Children’s Pastor to work as hard as possible to bring together both entities of the church and the family to most positively impact the spiritual growth of a child.  Here is the idea in a nutshell:

Two combined influences make a greater impact than just two influences.

So why this week? First of all, it’s a lead up to the Orange Conference Registration opening on Tuesday, October 5th; and it’s an excuse to creatively dream and strategize with dozens of other bloggers doing the same thing.  I’ll be sharing links every day from other writers writing on much of the same strategy.

So what will you write about? I’m going to be going through our transition to the ReThink curriculum (252 Basics and First Look) here at Trinity Church.  I’m going to share some about how the transition has opened things up to families and to the church.  Get it?  Both the red and yellow transitions!

This is all good, but what’s in it for me? I know that my writing about myself isn’t at the top of your to-do list, so I’d like to make it worth it to you.  All week I’ll be collecting comments from all the Orange Week blog posts on www.jonathancliff.com…and then on Monday October 4th I will giveaway 3 virtual downloads of the newest resource from ReThink, CUE Box.  Totally free, all you have to do is read and comment.  (Or don’t read and just comment…whatever…)


Married People need a Big Night Out

September 16, 2010 in Ministry with 1 Comment

So this week www.marriedpeople.org released some new downloadable events for churches.  You’ve got to head over there today and see all that they have going on to help churches reach out to the parent side of the family.  Good Stuffs!
Married Couples Can Have Their Own “Big Night Out”
MarriedPeople Offers New Downloadable Event for Churches

(CUMMING, GA — September 15, 2010) MarriedPeople, a partner organization ofOrange designed to help churches help marriages, is launching a new “Big Night Out”event program today. The Big Night Out events will help couples celebrate the goodthings happening in their marriage in a way that is powerful, yet fun for both wife andhusband. Created to be turnkey, downloadable and low cost, these events can behosted within local churches anytime at their convenience.
“Big Night Out downloadable events are designed by church leaders for church leaders.While the nights are most definitely fun, they truly are life changing for many, manycouples,” said Reggie Joiner, founder and CEO of Orange.
““Most churches lack the time and budget for a focused marriage ministry. We willprovide the tools to churches that want to be known for helping marriages,” said TedLowe, founder of MarriedPeople and former director of MarriedLife ministry at NorthPoint Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. “We want to make the church the hero.”
Church leaders can log on to marriedpeople.org and download everything they needto conduct a Big Night Out event at their church. Big Night Out downloadable eventsinclude program orders, messages, host scripts, production orders, videos, computergraphics for promotion and the event, takeaway pieces for application, several word documents that coach leaders through the event and more.

Orange 2010 Finale

April 30, 2010 in Ministry with 0 Comments

So there it went. The Orange Conference for 2010 is in the books, and I’m packing my bags to head home. I’ll be leaving my old friends, and my new friends; but I’m taking all my ideas with me. Too often we compare these kind of events to trying to drink water from a fire hose. With the obvious meaning, that it will not easily be processed in just one week. I agree, but I also believe that all that I heard this weekend will eventually find it’s place. God knew it was a bunch of information to take in, but he also knows what I needed to hear and when I’ll remember what I heard. I’m thankful for the relationships that were continued this year, the ideas that were challenged, the advice handed out, and for the dreams that this conference will inspire. The future is bright, there is no doubt.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to some of my breakouts in time to get a good seat, and I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to hang out at all with my Lubbock Kid Ministry friends, and finally I’m disappointed that I couldn’t bring my entire team to see and hear it all for themselves. In spite of these letdowns, the conference was fantastic! I seriously can’t wait to be back, and experience it all fresh and anew next year!

I’m really excited to read through some new books I bought (#1 Parenting Beyond your Capacity and #2 Slow Fade), and can’t wait to get back home to share with my team the experiences I had. I’m excited about what this conference and trip means for my church, and I hope that as we work to reach the families and kids of Lubbock, TX that God’s blessing and provision stays with us all!

If you are looking for a perfect conference, then keep looking. But if you are looking for a place to meet others, and investigate with your imagination what the future could hold…then register for Orange 2011 today!

To read all that I swamped this site with over the past few days, please visit: www.jonathancliff.com/tag/orange2010. To see some great Orange Conference photos, please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangeconference.

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