One of the most important events on my annual professional calendar is the Orange Conference.
Why Orange? In sum, when it comes to a student ministry curriculum, I have not found one as powerful, versatile, comprehensive, and intentional as Orange. It cares for the middle school student just as much as the elderly aunt who takes care of him. Orange seeks to equip the entire family, not just the teenage kid, for both individual and familial faith. That simple.
As a user since 2011, I've continually been sold by how well it prepares me to share the Gospel with teenagers and build parent partnerships for faithful ministry in the home.
This post originally appeared on the Orange Leaders Blog on June 22, 2016.
What is the toughest question you’ve ever had to answer, and who asked it?
Given that somehow you made your way to this exceptional community called Orange Leaders, I automatically know a few things about you:
Not long ago my wife introduced me to the best show on television... Chopped. I love it. Hands down noting beats it. A simple show in concept: four chefs compete against one another using a basket of mystery ingredients - yet so captivating!
Why? Because the ingredients equalize the playing field. Whether the chef be a novice out of culinary a school or a multi-restaurant owner veteran, each chef receives the ingredients at the same time and must respond to them.
The ingredients are the star of the show. They call out the character of the chef. Not the other way around. It's the ingredients that define the path.
Said C.S. Lewis, "The prayer that precedes all prayers is may the real me meet the real you."
A great friend of mine from college once shared this quote with me. He and I served in Young Life together, leading high school students toward a growing relationship with Jesus. I can recall that he ended nearly every one of his ministry talks with this quote just prior to closing in prayer:
"May the real me meet the real you."
I probably listened to him share this quote with me dozens of times. I think I also used it. But quite honestly, I don't think I understood the meaning behind it until much later in life. Intellectually I understood it. It's simple in structure, but truly profound in its meaning.
Perhaps I missed it time after time because inherent within this quote lays an assumption that you know the real you.
Know your message enough to find the direction, but leave it open enough to let the Holy Spirit inspire new content.
For humor, build the island, but then make sure that you make a sturdy bridge to and from the island. Satire is about an idea, but mockery is about an individual. We are not called to mockery.
Put handles on ideas so that we can carry them forward. We have enough ideas. Put a handle on them.
This post originally appeared on the Orange Leaders Blog on June 22, 2016.
What is the toughest question you’ve ever had to answer, and who asked it?
Given that somehow you made your way to this exceptional community called Orange Leaders, I automatically know a few things about you:
Not long ago my wife introduced me to the best show on television... Chopped. I love it. Hands down noting beats it. A simple show in concept: four chefs compete against one another using a basket of mystery ingredients - yet so captivating!
Why? Because the ingredients equalize the playing field. Whether the chef be a novice out of culinary a school or a multi-restaurant owner veteran, each chef receives the ingredients at the same time and must respond to them.
The ingredients are the star of the show. They call out the character of the chef. Not the other way around. It's the ingredients that define the path.
***This post originally appeared at Orange Leaders on 23 July 2015:
Ever receive one of the billion Internet memes floating in cyberspace? Ever let out a sigh when you receive a text from that kid, open it, and discover that you just got meme’d by an angry cat or a one second repeating loop from a 1960s sitcom? Of course you have, because you serve as a family ministry leader! Another phrase for “family ministry leadership” should be “meme receptor.” We serve a generation who loves making, finding, and sending memes, especially to us!
Just in case you might be the only person who reads this post and thinks, “Hmmm, what’s a meme?” Let me bring you up to speed: a meme is a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.
The words ‘fun’ and ‘church staff’ often seem more like oxymorons than necessary partners. In fact, even as I write this, I just finished a staff meeting. Fun is not the word I would use to describe it.
And perhaps rightly so.
Church staffs need structured, time-bounded meetings to discuss and critically engage with the necessary issues pertinent to ministry. Various seasons in the year call for team members to discuss hard conversations, make tough decisions, disagree with one another, and maintain deadlines. Not fun things to do, but very necessary things to do. The health and growth of every ministry organization depends on these kinds of meetings.
***This post first appeared on the Orange Leadership Blog on 26 March 2015. You can read it here.
As a ministry leader, one of the questions that you must consistently ask yourself is: In what direction am I moving?
Recently, a good friend and I headed for the waters of Santa Cruz, California, to surf. On this particular day, the swell came from the South and brought us a steady supply of beautiful, tight sets - great waves for novice and experienced surfers, alike! My friend and I positioned ourselves into the line-up, alongside of several dozen other guys out there, and patiently waited for our turn. It seemed like every wave perfectly crested with ease, and we agreed that days like this one rarely come along.
For most ministry leaders, casting a compelling vision that keeps people pointed in the same direction requires the most amount of energy and strategy. Personally, my biggest headaches, as well as my most significant victories, both stemmed from keeping the people under my care pointed in the right direction.
