I just returned from the Orange Conference 2008 last night. I took three of my team members from the Journey to Orange in Atlanta because I was intrigued with what was happening in this new movement, especially their emphasis on family centered ministry. I haven't blogged about this, and I guess I should, but I believe children's ministry (CM) in the mainstream church has become too kid-centric.Can a church ministry be too kid-centric? Absolutely. If you haven't read Barna's Raising Spiritual Champions yet, you need to do so. He makes a very strong case that the church has done the family a disservice by enabling them to become passive in their children's spiritual formation process.
Anyway, I have become increasingly interested in Orange because of its emphasis on "Reactivating the Family" - and recognizing that if the church is not equipping the parents to be the primary leaders of their homes, the church is becoming part of the problem. So, what did I find? I wasn't disappointed. They are passionate about serving kids by equipping and empowering parents.
There was a lot about the conference that liked and will write more about that stuff later...
For now, the problem. Many of the sessions I attended equated the principle "Reactivate the Family" with the strategy of "KidStuf" - a prepackaged, production centered family experience centering around the teaching of specific moral qualities in highly dramatic and memorable ways. Kidstuf was pioneered by Northpoint Church (Andy Stanley) in the late 90's - and like most of what Northpoint does, it is excellent in quality and very focused in purpose. In some ways, though, the whole conference felt like a big commercial for this one central product. Which wouldn't be a big deal if this were a Northpoint conference, or a KidStuf conference ... but the orange conference is about the Orange ideas (five core ideas - all great - not going to list them here right now. Go google it, lazy.).
So that was my problem. I am not a big production guy and do not plan to bring KidStuf to the Journey. I went to a couple breakouts that were meant to explore family ministry (at least, that is what I got from the titles and descriptions) but they were really just about how to do a KidStuf production, how to train actors, how to recruit choreographers, etc. Grrr. I was hoping to encounter more open dialog about how to adapt the principles of "Orange" to the specific contexts of our church, but I pretty much just met with blank stares when I admitted we were not a KidStuf / Wamba Land church ... and that we didn't intend to become one. The assumption was that you were already doing KidStuff or that you would as soon as you could get the buy in of your leadership.
I will blog again about what I really liked. I will say I really liked the food in Atlanta. Other than a SUPER LOUSY Mexican food place (a fish taco with stale fish sticks??? Come on!), we ate well. The highlight was an evening meal at Dante's Down the Hatch. Great atmosphere and good food...and Dante was a cool guy too. (I will give you a link to this, so even if you are lazy you can take a look and be jealous.)
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