What is “Orange?” If you are tempted to say a great color, you are only partly correct. Orange is a way of thinking. Although I have believed wholeheartedly in the Orange vision for a couple of years, the vision is becoming even more clear with the first chapter of “Think Orange” by Reggie Joiner.
It’s all about the advantage of combining influences. “When you think orange, you see how two combined influences make a greater impact than just two influences.” The example Reggie used that combined finding homes for children with great photography and art galleries created a powerful movement that caused inquiries about adopting these children to double. Separately, these two entities were both doing a great job, but together, the outcome is remarkable. Yep, that’s Orange!
The church has an even greater potential to become remarkable! The church isn’t just a small percentage of the population, it’s potential is THE population! My heart is racing after writing that! “Think Orange” is about combining the church and the home for the sake of impacting the next generation. The church is represented with yellow and families are represented with red, combining these two influences creates a radical shift in strategy!
Seven years ago, my mind shifted radically. I believe that each year ministry needs to be evaluated. I have always taken the time to ask leaders, volunteers, parents and students their opinion about what is happening in ministry. Well seven years ago I realized that although that’s good, it’s not good enough. I never considered asking our junior high pastor if we were handing him kids that were ready for junior high ministry. I asked. I found out we weren’t. Our JH pastor wanted students to know their testimony before they got to junior high. Simple, but that’s when the light came on! We needed to change our strategy to combine our influence! So we started meeting together on a regular basis. Not just us, we included the senior high pastor and the Christian development pastor as well! Big powerful ORANGE change!
Instead of working on the same thing at the same time with a different strategy, helping children and students grow in their faith, we all began working on the same thing at the same time with the same strategy. It was challenging. It caused us to redesign our programming. It convinced us that partnering with parents could give children and students a better chance. It was worth it. Advantage….ORANGE!!
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