The Orange Conference

This past week, I went down to the Orange Conference in Atlanta. The conference was held in the NW section of the city (Duluth). The conference was held at the Gwinnett Conference Center and the Arena.

Over the next week or so, I am going to blog about the trip. The entries will cover the general sessions, the pre-conference academy classes and the breakout sessions. I will also be blogging about conversations while we we were there and the implications that they might have on us at Zion.

The trip began Sunday afternoon after church. After church, we drove up to Cleveland and waited for the plane to board. The trip to Cleveland was excellent and relaxing and getting through the airport was hassle free. We flew into Atlanta and "blitzed" through the airport. our baggage was already there when we got to baggage claim. We went over to Enterprise and picked up our vehicle and went to the hotel. We only had one small glitch getting there. We unpacked our bags into the very nice hotel (Wingate at the Mall of Georgia) and went up to register. The wait for registration was not bad at all. they did a fantastic job. The convention center is amazing place to have a convention. After we registered, we went out to eat at Mimi's Cafe. This is a fantastic place to eat. If you have one in your neck of the woods, go check it out.

We then went back to the hotel to rest up for the first day of the convention.

Convention Facts

- 4500 leaders attended
- 45 different states were represented
- 10 different countries were represented
- 46 different denominations gathered

Orange Philosophy

There are a lot of things they would probably never agree about, but there is one thing that they all emphatically believe .... 100 years from now the only thing that will matter in someone’s life is their relationship with God.

Orange From Carey

Carey had an interesting take on the Orange Conference. Here are some of his words:

Orange is about helping church leaders to work together with parents to raise our kids morally and spiritually. I also think it's a huge front door that God is opening into communities world wide. Think about it: the average parent who doesn't go to church rarely lies awake at night wondering what a lead pastor is going to speak about next, but the average parent who doesn't go to church lies awake at night wondering whether their kids are going to be okay. If we come alongside parents and simply say "we care about the same things you do", it opens conversations that might never happen otherwise.

Why Orange

Orange is about combining influences. We in the church need to do this. We can not do ministry in silos and we can not separate the family. Here are two examples:

Youth Ministry (Red) Children Ministry (Yellow)
The Family (Red) The Church (Yellow)

We need to combine these colors and make Orange, it will make a bigger impact. A lot more to come, the convention was AWESOME.