Orange Conference 2015

The Orange Conference 2014: Highlights from Orange on Vimeo.


This is my 8th year attending The Orange Conference.  If you are a teacher, pastor, leader, parent or just plain like kids, I can not tell you how much you would benefit from this event.  I mean it.  I have attended with a group, by myself, 8 months pregnant, and as a volunteer- no excuse keeps me from Atalanta in April.  You will NOT regret it!

If you would like to go but don't know how to make it work financially-contact me in the comments and I will help you figure you something out.

What is Orange?

Tuesday Tip: Orange

Occasionally I will get a Facebook message or email from a friend in ministry asking my advice on how to implement ORANGE at their church.

I have had experience leading the Orange Strategy in small churches, church plants, and large churches.

Whether you have been at your church for years or weeks one thing seems to ring true in all scenarios-

I was once asked:

 "If you had all the money you ever dreamed of, in your budget, what would be the first thing you would do?"

For those who have never worked much in Children or Student ministry, you might think my answer is really boring....but the truth is...what we as leaders need the most is something that money can not buy...

What we need is passionate, equipped, empowered leaders and parents!


Listen, you could be sleeping  in a bed of money when it comes to your  ministry, but if you don't have leaders... you got nothin.

YOU CAN NOT DO IT ON YOUR OWN.

You  might say:  "But, Leslie...."

NOPE.

"But...."

 STILL NOPE.


If you want to be an ORANGE church...

You better be ready to put your money where your mouth is.

When you commit to being an ORANGE THINKER what you are saying is

WHAT HAPPENS AT HOME IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT HAPPENS AT CHURCH.

Think about it:

On average, the church, the light, YELLOW will see a child 40 hours a year

the parents, the heart, RED, will spend close to 3,000 hours with their children a year at home.

YELLOW & RED= ORANGE

What you are saying is 

2 COMBINED influences are greater than JUST TWO influences.

When you think ORANGE you are saying to parents:

 "Hey!  We got your back! We have a plan-are you in?"

How?

Well, the church can give a child a consistent small group leader, a small group of kids their own age to do life WITH, resources for parents to know what to ask their kids about during the week.

Thinking Orange will sound VERY scary to some parents...they'll be the ones that thought the church should influence their children's faith... that's why they were bringing their kids to church in the first place!  It's our job to usher parents into the assurance that they do not have to be a theologian parent and have all the answers.  NOPE.

Instead, you are elevating the parents influence by encouraging them to invite their kids to grab a seat in the front row of their life and allow them to watch them follow Jesus...

It's not scary!  It's refreshing!

Empower parents to invite their kids to  watch as God grows them.....  and in return, their kids will grow.

More is caught, than taught.


(This is true for you if you are new to faith or a life long follower of Christ.  We are ALL taking NEXT STEPS.)


Find out more about ORANGE here:  www.whatisorange.org

ALSO!

 I can not encourage you enough to get your tails up here to Indy for the ORANGE TOUR 

OCT 16-17

If you need a place to stay while you are in town... I might know a way to help with that.

Contact me at lesliegalema@me.com

p.s.s Tuesday's Jam:
Write Your Story

Preface:

So in 2005 we were attending a church in Indianapolis and one Sunday after church there was this booth set up in our lobby.  There was a table with a sign that said "THINK ORANGE" with red, yellow, and orange construction paper circles cut out and hanging from  drop ceiling. I walked straight over and asked what "THINK ORANGE" meant.

The volunteer at the booth recited a simple strategy that has influenced my life's direction ever since.

She said: "Well when you COMBINE yellow and red you get orange and we think that in Children's ministry, when yellow (the church) and red (the family) work together, we make orange (kids.)"

It was like my whole life made sense!



I signed up to lead the 1st grade girls small group and went on my merry way.

Through this time, I decided to go back to college and get my degree in ministry and in doing so, I found out about a church across town, that could be in need of leadership in the Children's Ministry department... and so began my internship as a Children's Ministry Director.



 I googled "Think Orange" regularly.  I was craving more information about this strategy.  I called Children's Pastors and asked what they knew.  I watched as this company,
The reThink Group evolved.  I bought the curriculum with my own money, I read the books, I listened to the podcasts, I purchased the training videos, I trained my team, I pitched the vision...and in 2008, I heard about The Orange Conference in Atlanta, GA.

By attending this conference, I  have grown in my own leadership and have been challenged in how we should lead the next generation. Ask anyone who knows me, and they we will tell you, I am all in!  I have spent the last 8 years attending The Orange Conference and have never walked away from it disappointed.



Like, ever.



This year, through a "Hustle" assignment lead by Jon Acuff,  I mustered up the courage to make a large request. Working for The reThink Group would be a dream come true.  With Jon's push,  I identified someone with whom I had a connection at "Orange" and asked if there was any way that I could spend this year's conference watching how it all worked. From set up to tear down and all that was in between.

I hit send on the email and held my breath....

and wouldn't you know it, she came back with an offer to "shadow" her throughout the conference and take it all in!


Over the next few days, I will be recounting my time and the things I learned along the way.

#hustle

Mappin' it Out

Last weekend, I was honored to speak to our Youth at our XP service.  It was the first week of our ROADSIGNS series.


This is the message of Andy Stanley's book Principle of the Path.


(A delicious book that YOU should read....like..yesterday!)


The idea is that it is our DIRECTION not our INTENTION that leads us to our DESTINATION.


The principle of the path applies to every path, whether it's your dating life, your friends or your future.


It's ALWAYS your direction-not your intentions, not your hopes, not your dreams, not your prayers, not your beliefs-that ultimately determine your direction.

As a teenager, you might say, "I am nowhere near sure what direction I am heading...I am just here to have fun!  I will worry about my destination when I get to college!!"

True. Kind of.


The reality is, we all have an idea of where we would like to be in the future.  It looks different for the stage of life you are in..

.......but be real-we can all have the intention to do something, but until we set our feet to action, we will never get there!


I want to go to college:  but I never studied and didn't try in High School.

I want to get a job:  but I am too busy taking selfies.

I want to get married: but I keep dating ANYONE and EVERYONE and not looking for THE ONE.

I want to have a better relationship with God: but I don't pursue it.

I want to be a better friend: but I just don't have time.


Last week, I talked about Solomon, (who was  totally wise! )  and how he was trying to warn a guy from making a bad decision.

Proverbs 7: 7-27

Sometimes, we are  not open to hear what people who are older than us have to say.  "What could they possibly know? "


The truth is...
Wisdom and perspective is earned.  We earn it by living through it!


Listen to those around you-perhaps they see something that you haven't considered.  Ultimately, it's your decision, the direction you go-

Just like I said last weekend, a map is only good to us if we know where we are going!


If you don't know where you are going... any road can take you there.


Intentions are great!  The direction takes work.   Steady your heart.

The Slow Fade: Moving the Line

High School Graduation, 1999

Join me this month on orangeleaders.com as I write a 4 week study of

The Slow Fade by Reggie Joiner, Church Bomar, & Abbie Smith 




Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

YouLead

Sometimes I look at my house and the disaster our family of five made by leaving toys, dirty dishes, backpacks, laundry, and endless stacks of papers our  kids bring home from school and feel completely overwhelmed.  I see EVERYTHING there is to do around me and am paralyzed by where to start! 

Leadership can be like that at times.  Not necessarily disastrous or messy, but definitely overwhelming!  We look around and see all the things that there are to do and try, the meetings that need to be had, emails to be checked and returned, the teams to be recruited and it before ya know it, you are starring at a computer screen with absolutely no idea where to begin-much less what to say.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed and not know where to start!  If you are like me, you know the importance of developing yourself AND your team to ensure that you are aligning everyone from those you are on staff with to volunteers and parents, in such a way, that the vision of combining influences to make a GREATER impact on the next generation doesn't dull or burn out! 

The team at Orange feel the same way and they want to help leaders be the best we can be!

Join me this year in a subscription in YouLead - and say goodbye to those "stare at the computer screen" moments!
 

Developed by Orange, YouLead is designed to develop the leadership skills of yourself, your team and your volunteers. It centers on answering three basic questions: What can I do to continue learning as a leader? How can I be intentional about connecting with my volunteers consistently? What can we do to stay on the same page as a team?  Click here to learn more about a subscription to YouLead.

 

Not only that,but the folks at Orange have been generous enough to give me a discount code for $50.00 off a subscription of YouLead for those who read my blog and are interested in subscribing! The code is:  YLBLOG149Let's do this!

OrangeLeader's July Book Study

For July, I had the honor of leading a study of Brad Lomenick's  new book The Catalyst Leader for orangeleaders.com

(Brad runs Catalyst)



July Week 1

July Week 2

July Week 3

July Week 4

July Week 5

The Happiness Advantage

Dream jobs DO exsist!  I got the HONOR to be asked to write a month long book study of
THE HAPPINESS ADVANTAGE by Shawn Achor, for the orangeleaders.com blog!!!!

This is week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5


I will be back on orangeleaders.com blog in July to study The Catalyst Leader by Brad Lomenick --that gives you some time to order it and read along with me!

Summertime Memories

I have a love-hate relationship with summer.  I love flip flops, ice cream, swimming, the smell of freshly cut grass, suntan lotion, lemonade, and cookouts. I hate mosquito bites, humidity, sweating, sunburns, and the pressure I feel to find my kids something to do everyday to keep them out of my hair until it is time to go back to school. I see all the pins on Pinterest suggesting "101 Things To Do This Summer With Your Kids," and while I pin them to my "Perfect Mom" board, the likelihood of my actually opening the link and reading the article is slim-very slim.  (My "Mother of the Year" crown is on back order.)

I don't know about you, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to make these "Hallmark Moment" family vacations for our kids and in reality, no matter how hard I plan, those vacations never turn out like I had pictured it in my mind. 

The truth is that when I reflect on the those summer memories of my own childhood, it is the simple things that were often unplanned and completely part of the fabric of our everyday lives that stand out most to me.  I grew up living in the same town as a lot of my cousins and both sets of grandparents.  In the summer, it was not uncommon to find us all at my grandparents house.  My Mamaw and Papaw lived in the same house for over 50 years.  It was this tiny little buttery yellow house that set on the edge of the Morehead State University campus.  Although our family took lots of fun vacations, it was sitting under the big tree in my grandparents front yard with my Papaw Bill,  digging holes in the dirt with my Mamaw's kitchen spoons with my cousins that I remember the best!  We used to have dance parties (no music needed) in that front yard and when cars would pass we would all freeze in some "cool" pose.  Those are the things that didn't cost a penny, and  looking back, I wouldn't trade for any amount of money!

Moments like these are often hard to manufacture, but they mean so much!  In "Orange" terms, we call this CREATING A RHYTHM. One thing every kid really needs is memorable moments with their families and if we are all being honest, that costs us very little money and in the long run is something money can't by. As we enter this summer, I am challenged to slow down, and take time to enjoy simple moments with my kids, as I suspect it will be in those moments that we make the most memories.

Front Row Seat

I once heard Andy Stanley say that if we are interested in finding out our weaknesses, then we should ask the people that work with us.  He says that the people we work with are never surprised by our weak spots.

Isn't this same idea true with our kids?  The truth is, our families have a front row seat to our lives and most of the time we forget they are watching us!  We have all heard the phrase that parents will say to their kids: "Do as I say, not as I do."  Kids hate that- and rightly so.

As parents, if we are truly concerned with WHO our kids turn out to be, then we need to be even more concerned with WHO we are!  If we are the most influential people in their life, then what are we teaching them by how we live our own life?

Are we practicing what we are preaching?  What are our kids gathering about WHO we are? What is the view from the front row?

If we expect our kids to value integrity then we have to live it, for more is caught than taught.

As parents, we are always being thrown curve balls and our kids are watching us.  We must lead ourselves before we lead ANYONE.

Right before Moses lead the Israelites into Israel, he gave them one last pep talk.  He said:

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[b] 5} You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.


Catch that?  Moses told the Israelites to LEAD YOURSELF then LEAD YOUR FAMILY!

Parenting is NOT about your kids seeing you as PERFECT.. you will NEVER be able to pull it off! Parenting is about your story of RESTORATION and REDEMPTION.  It is about showing them where you have been, where you are, and where you are going.  The truth is, our kids will never outgrow our influence.  When they are grown and living their own life, they will still be watching us.

Here are some Self Tests we should all try to revisit as we continue this parenting journey.

1. It’s about you, not them.
Do a heart check. It’s great to want your child to be honest or responsible. But why? Is it because you want to see that in them? Or is it also because you want to be known as a mom or dad with great kids? Kids can smell their parents motives a mile away.  If you make their life about you-take a few steps back and PUNT! I don't think that it is ever too late for a parent to drop their ego.
2. You aren’t modeling what you’re saying.
I read a quote once that said "I can't hear you, your actions are speaking so loud that I can't hear what you are saying" It’s one thing to tell your kids to control their temper. It’s another thing to control yours. It goes without saying that what you do carries far more influence than what you say, unless what you say is consistent with what you do. 
3. You and your spouse aren’t on the same page.
Kids know how to manipulate the "system."  They know who the softy parent is and who is the rule follower.  Do not let your kids divide your relationship.  We tell our kids that mommy and daddy are on the same team.
4. You fail to do what you said you were going to do.
At a very young age, you kids figure you out!  If you don't follow through, your kids notice.  If you set a consequence, you better be ready to follow through.  If you say you are going to do something, then you better do it.  Your kids will lose trust in you when you are inconsistent.  (this one is HARD! and I fail regularly!)
5. You are a controlling parent.
It's tough, but kids need to learn defeat.  When we hoover over our children and control their every move, we are not preparing them for the real world.  YES! Set rules!  YES! Sent boundaries!  The key is knowing the difference in setting boundaries and being a puppeteer.  We are raising adults... plan accordingly.

If you start to address issues like these, you will grow in integrity. You will become more of the person you want your child to become.


Make it Personal.

Fight for the Heart.

Create a Rhythm

Widen the Circle

Lead with the END in mind.

Put Up Your Dukes!

We have all heard the phrase "choose your battle."  When we choose our battle, we decide what is worth the effort, what is worth the work, what is worth the fight.

I can remember when our oldest was a toddler and she was learning to pick up her toys, I liked having everything in order.  Toys  went in one tub, dolls in another, books on the shelf, and so on.  When our helpful little toddler would pick up her toys she would just throw any toy in any tub with no rhyme or reason.  My eyelid would twitch as she did everything out of order. One day, it hit me like a brick wall! 

"What is more important?  That she picks the toys up by herself, or that she does it the way I want?"

Reality check:  The key was that she was cleaning up her room BY HER SELF!

So I had to choose my battle.

I once heard that there are 2 kinds of parents.  Grace Parents and Truth Parents.

Grace parents are the ones that bake cookies or always have time to order a pizza for all their kid's friends. If you push them on an issue like bonus allowance or getting that extra 30 minutes of TV time, they’ll usually bend. If they have something difficult to say, well, they might not say it at all, and if they do, they might speak it so gently you hardly heard the issue when it was finally raised. They smile a lot. They are always, so stinking nice.

Truth parents are "by the book" types. Facts are facts and rules and rules. If bed time is 7:30, it’s 7:30 – why would you even ask for an extension? And the kids (especially teens) should fully understand everything the Bible says because obedience matters. The truth may not be pretty, but someone needs to stand up for it, say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Jesus said if you love God, you’ll obey him. So obey. (THE FIRST TIME!)


I am not suggesting that we become push over parents so that our kids can have whatever they want in life OR that we should be as military as possible so our kids never get out of line.
I am just taking a cue from John 1:14 that Jesus came ‘full of grace and truth’. Grace and truth. Not grace or truth. But both. Together. Grace and truth.

I feel like should have this written and hung in every room in my house to remind me.  Jesus lived this one out. He never spoke the truth apart from grace, and never spoke grace that lined up with truth.

So here’s the challenge this week: as you interact in your family:

• Speak the truth with grace
• Speak grace with truth.

For me, this means, I might have to take a minute and think before I speak in anger, or when I’m tempted to simply be nice in a way that’s void of truth, I’ll also pause and reframe.

Our battle is the shape of our kid's heart.  The WHO not the WHAT they become.  The reality is the WHO shapes the WHAT!

Truth and Grace.

Fight for the Heart.

Parents Just Don't Understand

Look Familiar?
Do you remember the day, the month, the year that you looked at your parents and thought to yourself:

 "They have no idea what it is like to be a kid."

I do and I suspect that most all of us could agree it happened somewhere around 12 or 13 years old. (For me, it was 1992-1996ish)  I remember when my dad picked me up from school one day, and as we were walking to our car, ran into some of the boys in my class tossing football, when Dad decided he should play too.  The boys thought it was awesome, I was horrified.  I also recall my mom always wanting to call my friends parents to confirm that it would be ok if I came over to spend the night, and also to confirm they would be home.  My parents were known in my circle of friends as being "strict." I always felt so uncool.

 It's as if, over night, our parents became completely oblivious to anything near the "cool" spectrum.  Everything that they did and said was horribly embarrassing and never relevant to your life or way of thinking. 

Turns out, they were actually onto something!

There are two things I think parents of teenagers must remember.

1. Parents are THE MOST influential people in their kid's life.  Influential doesn't always mean you will be popular or that you will be your child's "BFF."  Being influential means that we make the rules, we set the tone, we lead by our example, we provide, we point to what is most important, we give advice, we protect, we get nosey, and we hold them accountable. Most importantly our influence, like leadership, is a stewardship, and parents, WE are accountable.

2. There WILL come a time when your kids will shut you off. Their friendships will become the center of their world.  As parents I think part of our influence is to be very intentional about planting mentors in our kid's life. What if, when our kids turned 13 years old, we assigned them 3-4 mentors for them to interact with that year.  Someone who will be a voice in our kid's life saying the same thing we are, only in a different, maybe even cooler way!?

I can think of several people who were planted in my life as a teenager that, without their influence, I might have made some wrong turns along the way.  These people were Sunday School teachers, school teachers, older cousins, cheerleading coaches, youth leaders, camp counselors and so on.

By WIDENING THE CIRCLE in our kid's life, we leverage our influence in a proactive way!  When we as parents start leading with the end in mind, we become less concerned about our popularity with our kids or even about our kid's popularity and more about a bigger picture.

Who can you purposely plant in your teenager's life?  Be intentional. Keep in mind of what your kid's interests are, what they are good at, what they struggle with and from there, think of who could speak into their lives that have similar interests or stories so that can easily relate to.

Remember, it's not about WHAT they will become, but WHO they become. What we do now, counts later.

Orange Parents: Widen the Circle
Parenting Beyond Your Capacity

Widen the Circle.

QUALITY vs QUANTITY

Operations.
Systems.

All businesses have them-well, all GOOD businesses have them.  It's how they run their ship.  It's policies and plans and strategies for how they function.

As I type this, I am looking around my house on this Saturday afternoon, clean laundry piled next to me on the couch, toys thrown, winter coats thrown over chairs, stacks of various school papers, mail, and books piled, and I, in my pajamas with my feet propped up here at 2:31pm.

Confession: We didn't get our Christmas tree taken down until mid January.

I am thinking that somewhere along this 10 year "nest building" journey, Adam and I have neglected to get some "systems" in place for running our family ship.

It often feels like chaos.

To look at us, it may appear we have some kind of routine, our clothes match, we are bathed, hair is combed and we are generally on time to things, but the truth is...LIFE is RUNNING US-instead of US RUNNING IT.

Our kids are 8, 5.5, and 2.5 years old.  Time is flying. 

In my last post, I talked about keeping "the end in mind," and focusing more on WHO our kids become than WHAT they become.

Lately, it has been on my heart to start being more intentional about the time we spend together. 

Life is crazy!  We are busy!  Some may believe that a family should spend as much time together as possible.  Some may believe that it is important to get their kids involved in everything possible, that their social calendars are what's most important.  I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.

The truth is, we could sit all day in this house together and never speak to each other, do anything together, or go anywhere.   I don't believe that good parenting comes from just being in the same room.  On the other hand, if we over involve our kids, we are so busy getting them to connect with others, that we don't connect with them.

It comes down to this: Quality vs Quantity.

Quantity is the amount of time.  Quality is what you do with the time.

In the end, it is the WHAT we did together that will matter, not the AMOUNT of time.

As parents we need to be intentional about CREATING A RHYTHM with our kids.  Traditions, moments, shared experiences that will last a lifetime.  I call those moments, "heart snapshots."  A moment in time that will be written on their hearts...forever.

How are we spending our time?  What are we showing our kids, by our day to day lives  is most important?  What are we missing out because we don't take the time to notice?

One day, they will be grown.  I do not want to look back on their childhood years and think "It's a good thing the house was clean...." or, "I am sure glad that they were involved in every sport offered."   Spend time with them. Make a mess.  Connect with them on their level. Get to know them. Encourage them. They will be little for a short time, you can clean your house later.

Create a Rhythm.

Orange Parents
Parenting Beyond Your Capacity

Focus on the END

Do you want to know what is pretty chaotic and completely unpredictable?  Parenting.

Think about it! When we buy a microwave, we get an instruction manual.  We buy a computer, we get an instruction manual. Get this!  Even poptarts come with instructions!

At some point in every parent's life they are given this tiny little human and hurried off on their merry way with absolutely NO IDEA what to do with them.

Something I have noticed is that with each stage of our kids life, there is this ultimate milestone we are trying to achieve.  With a newborn our goal is sleeping through the night and getting them on a feeding schedule, then on to rolling over, sitting up, crawling, holding their bottles, and walking.  With a toddler our goal is eating solid food, sippy cups, and potty training. Preschool is all about getting along with others, sharing, and taking turns.  Elementary school is about reading and writing
 making friends...

....I think you get the picture. 

The point is, there is always something we are working toward.  I know there are times in my own parenting where I am struggling  to get to that next milestone, just trying to survive!

A few years ago, I was at The Orange Conference in Atlanta, GA, and heard a very wise illustration that changed how I have seen parenting and even how I do ministry. We were challenged to see parenting NOT as raising kids, but as raising adults!

What a concept!

I can remember very vividly when I was learning to drive.  I had Driver's Ed. with a police officer and he had me drive in and out of orange cones in the high school parking lot to practice my steering skills.  I did pretty well on the first 2 or 3 turns but somewhere around turn 4 I began driving over and hitting cones.  I couldn't figure out why I was messing up so badly.

The police officer laughed at me and pointed out that I was too focused on what was coming up next and needed to focus on the END and use my peripheral vision for the turns.

Is it me, or does that seem a lot like parenting?  We get so busy looking at what is next that we lose focus of the big picture!  As our kids get older we start to worry about WHAT they will be involved in and WHAT college they will choose, and WHAT profession they will be in-  which is all valid but maybe we should ask ourselves WHO they will be as they grow!

What if we started raising our kids with WHO they would be as adults in mind?

If a mission is only as good as its strategy then what is your mission as a parent? When you drop them off at college someday, and drive away, WHO will you be leaving?

Who do we want our kids to be?

Personally, I want my kids to be compassionate, loving, independent and trustworthy.  I want them to be a good friend, a good spouse, and a good parent. I want them to laugh and not sweat the small stuff!   I want them to have a heart for serving others.  I want them to recognize where they are gifted and use their gifts for God's glory!

If I want this for my children, everything I do in raising them should point to helping them become just that!

It's our job to lead our kids.  It's our  job to be examples and have a plan of action!  It's a worthy cause and not for the weary!


HOMEWORK:
What is your family mission statement?  What are you about?  How do you let your kids know what it means to be in your family.  Do you ever talk to them about the kind of person you want them to be when they are grown?

Would that change how you do things around your home? 

I say we make a sign with our mission statement and hang it where everyone can see it as a reminder of WHO WE ARE!


Focus on the END.


ALSO: Check out www.orangeparents.org
and read THIS BOOK