Orange Conference 2009

ORANGE THOUGHTS FROM REGGIE JOINER

Hey, I am proud to be part of a team that recognizes you are the real champions of the movement for home and family. You are the leaders who are actually working in churches to do ministry and who are helping parents engage with their kids to nurture an everyday faith. There is a new generation of leaders who get this because they are presently living the changes and fighting for the family. It is such a privilege to belong to this growing team of leaders and to learn from so many of you that are coming to the Orange Conference this year.

I can't begin tell you how fortunate I am to be able to work with this team and to spend time every week with staff like Sue Miller, Stuart Hall, Lanny Donoho, and other leaders who believe in the influence of the church and family like Nancy Beach, Francis Chan, Perry Noble, Craig Jutila, Jim Wideman, David Kinnaman, and Chap Clark. These are just some of the people you will hear from at Orange, as well as a few surprise guests we are not allowed to name. What I respect the most about these leaders is they actually work with churches and families firsthand. They are not just working on it; they are living in it every week.

The shifts we have been describing over the last several years are now happening everywhere. We hear stories every week from thousands of churches who are officially thinking orange.

Orange Conference has become the place for all of us to converge and dialogue.

Did you know...

- how you communicate Deuteronomy 6 can either paralyze or mobilize your families
- your partnership with unchurched parents will radically affect the influence of your church
- you can start a revolution in teenagers when you network with other churches
- the environments you create for children can shape their understanding of God’s story in their lives
- the way you connect families to other families can exponentially influence a child forever
- the way you don’t say something may determine whether it is really heard
- how you minister to college students may be one of your most important investments
- "speaking family" every week can impact the communities around your church
- your definition of the church can determine if the next generation will walk away to be the church

There is a next generation of leaders, including many of you, who have a lot to say about …


...how we should partner with parents
...how we should influence our communities
...how we should be the church

My prayer is that we will listen to each other.

Something unique is going to happen this spring, when every generation gathers to rethink how we can all work together to reach the next generation.

See you at Orange.
Reggie

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this is why i am looking forward to the Orange Conference. We, at Zion, are doing many things to try to move our church into "orange". It is going to be a long process to make the complete turn but we are beginning to make the steps. I think that it is a good thing ....