Apparently ORANGE is even more popular than we realized. This month we will be hosting a book study on best-selling book, The Orange Revolution by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.

This month in YouLead we are talking about the importance of consistent meetings. Understanding the ins and outs of what Gostick and Elton call a “breakthrough team” will help you develop and implement the overall Orange strategy in your church. When you build a solid team– around honesty, openness, trust and solid communication, you make way to have difficult conversations; that can lead to creative solutions that can ultimately impact the families in your community.

And although their Orange may not be defined the same way our Orange is, we do share a few things in common.

1. Orange is the color of change. If we are going to begin working together to partner with parents, then change is inevitable. Your willingness to change, to be a part of the team, and to take the time to meet face to face, can make all the difference.

2. Orange begins in the hearts of team members. If we want to influence the hearts of the next generation, it has to start in our own heart and in the hearts of the people we work with.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed it’s the only things that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Join us next Wednesday, we will be discussing Chapters 1-4!

Fridays on Orange Leaders we’re posting our Favs and we want to tell you about an amazing movement of people giving generously to save the movie of an Orange friend, author and communicator, Donald Miller. A group of us were in Portland right after he announced on his blog that making the movie was on hold indefinitely due to a lack of funding. But then there was an “inciting incident”- two regular guys kickstarted a campaign to save “Blue Like Jazz” (the movie)– and it went crazy.

Have you heard about this? Or have you checked back lately? Warning: it’s addicting! It’s now the largest funded project by a crowd of people ever. One of the coolest things to me is to scroll down the right-side and see the number of people giving different amounts of money toward the project (and all the awesome and funny rewards for different levels of involvement). Do you notice that most are giving the smallest amounts but together– it adds up to a bigger sum than any would have thought possible! There’s an important lesson there.

We’re making history. I say, “we” because I pledged just last night and we wanted you to know how you could get involved and/or help spread the word– through email, twitter, facebook, websites– get creative. Being a part of someone else’s story inspires us to dream and risk and live bigger stories ourselves. So check it out and have a great weekend! (PS- next month’s YouLead premium curriculum just might cover something by Don Miller- stay tuned.)

Thanks to Wayne Stock and Kenny Conley for their recaps of Day 6. We bet there will be more posts on our Orange Dreams, but for now here’s the list:

KIDMIN1124 (BARBARA GRAVES): Orange Dreams

KIDMIN1124 (WAYNE STOCKS): My Dreams For Children’s Ministry

KENNY CONLEY: Ideas that didn’t work

At CM Buzz, Keith shares some of the Orange ideas he and his team are working on. His ideas move beyond the church doors and spill out into the community.

And if you want a short cut to a few favorites from Orange Week 2.0 so far, check out:
JONATHAN CLIFF: The Best of Orange Week

I had a feeling that this would happen. Just finished the weekend and there were only five Orange Week posts for Day 5. That’s expected because most people are off today.
So, enjoy the short recap:

Michael Bayne wrote about how his Family Ministry team had a pretty big miss. For years, they avoided a large group gathering for preschoolers for a variety of reasons. Turns out that they had been wrong. Great post Michael, thanks for sharing it.

Today I wrote about ways we’ve missed it when it comes to being Orange. Mostly we’ve seen failure or something less than success when it comes to take-home papers, seasonal outreaches and the way our children’s and student teams integrate.

Jonathan Cliff announced a contest for his blog. Leave a comment or two on any of his Orange Week posts and you’ll get a chance to win a free digital edition of CUE Box.

At Kidmin1124, Barbara Graves shares about a mid-week program that she walked into. A great perspective about seeing what is wrong with a program and going after it. Barbara asks the right kinds of questions.

Well, a lot of people take Friday and Saturday off, so there’s not nearly as many posts on the 4th and 5th day of Orange Week. We’ll post Kenny’s recaps for each day.

Pete Wilson’s blog, Without Wax. Pete starts off with a very strong statement, “There are few things more important to me these days than figuring out how to help our kids and students … I do know that we’ll never figure this out until the church gets more serious about partnering with parents.”

Michael Bayne talks about a giveaway he’s doing in conjunction with Orange Week with a series from XP3 curriculum that greatly impacted his students.

Chad Swanzy wrote about partnering with parents in student ministry and offers a family scavenger hunt resource.

Sam Luce hosts YouTube Friday with a funny “Annoying Orange” video series and ideas of ways he’s empowering parents with specific types of events.

Jonathan writes a great post about the family side of all the changes he’s been making.

Over on the Ministry to Children blog, Sue Miller guests posts about the frustration some Kidmin workers feel about the impact they’re making (or not making) in the lives of kids. The great thing about Orange is that its not either/or, but both/and.

At Kidmin1124, Lindsey Whitney writes about how her church has been transitioning to Orange by using staff meetings to integrate their ministry efforts.

Anthony Prince writes about how a curriculum shift helped them become more Orange. Their switch to 252 Basics and My First Look help set up ministry for the rest of the week.

Dan Scott invites the Middle School “guru” to post about Yellow Student Ministry. Guru Jon shares about the Cell Family concept he’s been leading for the last ten years.

Matt McKee shares his favorite memory from a past Orange Conference. I’m just honored to have been a part of that memory.

At Kidmin360, Greg writes about language. As a church, are we speaking the same language as our parents? Are we speaking the language they need to hear?

Later– Day 5 recap coming your way!

Thanks to Dad in the Middle– Wayne Stocks– for recapping Day 3. We’re reposting his list here:

KIDMIN1124 (JARED MASSEY): Yellow Initiatives: Easter with an Orange Twist

MICHAEL BAYNE: TEAM LEADERSHIP vs. serving in ISOLATION

NICK BLEVINS: Orange Week 2.0: Red (Family) Initiatives #thinkorange

JONATHAN CLIFF: Making First Look Work

KENNY CONLEY: Defining the red, Defining the Yellow, and Deciding between Red and Yellow

RON EDMONDSON: Orange Week: Churches Partnering with Parents

DR. STEVE GRCEVICH: A Unique Perspective on the “Orange” Movement

MICHAEL HYATT: Why I Am Attending the Orange Conference

REGGIE JOINER: What Can Your Church Learn from Halloween?

JOE MCALPINE: What a family service is…and isn’t and creating “orangegaging” takehomes

GINA MCCLAIN: #thinkorange group infusion

MATT MCKEE: Orange Week 2.0: Why Yellow?

DAN SCOTT: Thinking Orange | What’s a Cue Box? and Special Needs

CHAD SWANZY: THE CLIMB

JC THOMPSON: Yellow Initiatives

KEITH TUSSING: YELLOW ALERT!

WEST SIDE KIDS: Family CueBox

YOUTH LEADER STASH: A PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FAMILY MINISTRY

HENRY ZONIO: Shining a Light on Being Orange

I’ve never been to the Orange Conference, but I am excited to go this coming spring. I heard Reggie Joiner speak at the Catalyst Conference last year, and, frankly, that was enough. (He was awesome!) It is scheduled for April 27–29, 2011. Registration opens on October 5th.

The Orange Conference is committed to a simple premise that I believe whole-heartedly: the church and the family must work together to influence the next generation.

For too long, we have had an either/or mentality. Some ministries act like it’s up to the family. Others ask as though it is up to the church. The truth is it takes both.
This is why the conference is called “Orange.”

Think about it. As they say here on Orange Leaders:

Orange is a secondary color, created when you combine two primary colors—red and yellow. Orange is what red and yellow can do when they combine efforts. If you paint only with red, you will get what only red can do. If you paint only with yellow, you will get what only yellow can do. But when you paint with red and yellow, you’ll get new possibilities, fresh solutions, vibrant outcomes.

We believe the warm heart of the family can be represented by the color red, and the bright light of the church can be represented by the color yellow. When these two entities combine their efforts for the sake of the spiritual growth of the next generation, the result is Orange.”

What a great strategy. It’s about time.

In addition to a great strategy, they have a terrific line-up of speakers (some of which are my authors at Thomas Nelson), including:
Gordon MacDonald
Kara Powell
Eric Draper
Jud Wilhite
Sue Miller
Stuart Hall
Carey Nieuwhof
Jared Herd
Doug Fields

In addition to being relevant and practical, it looks like a lot of fun. I am a student of how to create inspirational experiences, and this is one I don’t want to miss. I hope you will join me. So, question: Are you planning to come?

Today a group of us from Orange are boarding a plane for Portland, Oregon to attend “The Living a Better Story Seminar” with Don Miller. He’s joined us a few times in Atlanta for our yearly Orange conference but now we’re going to his place. We’re gathering in a theater downtown for two days with a couple hundred other lucky people.

I’m very excited to hear some of Don’s yet-to-be published insights and to interact with people from all over that are fans of his books and blog. We already have something in common! I’m looking forward to the way this event is set up too– more of an interactive dialogue with chances to exchange insights and practical ideas with others as we analyze our lives, like wannabe screenwriters looking for scenes with real purpose. The goal is to walk away with a renewed vision to either make our existing stories better or maybe even start a whole new story.

We won’t just be listening or even just sharing with each other– we’ll actually be creating actionable steps to move our story along and push our characters toward transformation when we get off the plane next Tuesday back in our normal everyday setting.

We’ll take good notes and share them here on Orange Leaders if you’re interested. If you’ve read Don, what’s your favorite book, quote or takeaway?

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

I’ll leave you with this challenging thought:

A good story is about something. Scott Pilgrim is about a guy who wants a girl. Inception is about planting an idea via a dream. Toy Story is about a group of toys reuniting with their owner. What is your story about? Is it clear? Are you making decisions that make it clear? Are you wandering? Is your story wandering? These are the very difficult questions we want to tackle at the seminar itself. Let’s live better stories because the world lives on stories, and it’s consuming stories that aren’t as good as the one you can live with your life.

The next best thing to this Seminar is Don’s book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. (Warning: if you read it on a plane, others will hear you laugh and catch you crying. And it will take awhile to get off because they will stop you to ask questions about what in the world you’re reading OR feel like your BFF because they read it and loved it too! Not that this has ever happened to me…)

This is it…our last week of reading “Making Ideas Happen.” If you’re just joining the conversation, you can catch the first three installments here, here and here. This week we read the following section:

Reading for Week 4: Pages 164-220

Scott Belsky does an incredible job wrapping up this book. There were so many fantastic talking points in this final reading that it is hard to narrow it down to the key points for this post. Here’s my best shot at the topics that rise to the top….

Leadership Focus
“To successfully lead your team (and yourself) through bold creative projects, you must find ways to re-engineer your reliance on traditional reward systems.” (page 169)
A lot of attention is paid by Scott to the plan that a good leader has for rewarding team members. The first main point is that traditional incentives don’t necessarily work the way we have always thought. Most organizations reward with raises and bonuses, but there are alternative plans that work as well or better. One suggestion is to plan rewards at small increments in order to keep incentives always within reach. Another idea is to use different rewards….here are a few thoughts on why this is a great idea:

• Research has shown that monetary rewards are actually less productive than rewards that create a better climate or culture for people to work in (not climate as in “rain forest”…climate as in “flexible work hours”). Have you seen this video illustrating this point? It’s FASCINATING!

• Teams that have fun together actually become more productive. Introducing more time to have fun can be a subtle reward to accomplishing goals as a group.

Last thought on the rewards overhaul: “Success is more than a personal reward for leaders; it is a valuable currency that can be distributed to the team.” (page 176)

The Creative Team
Scott spends the first chapter about creative teams talking about the importance of team chemistry and emphasizing some important characteristics to consider when hiring:

• Does this person have initiative? Have they demonstrated it in other roles?
• What is the chemistry between this person and the rest of the team?

The last senior pastor I worked with always said that the success we experienced among our staff could be attributed 100% to hiring people that we LIKE and TRUST as the first priority….secondarily was their skill set.
“Getting people excited about your idea…is just the first phase of sharing ownership. The second and much more challenging part is empowering team members to push the idea forward rather than micromanaging them every step of the way.” (page 191).
This is exactly why it’s important to hire trustworthy people that also have a lot of initiative….no micromanaging necessary!

Self-Leadership
The last portion of this week’s reading focuses specifically on self-leadership. Scott begins by making the statement that it is imperative to realize that we have to be self-aware – “It is not about our actions but about the emotions that trigger our actions.” (page 203). Because we are often leading the process of making our own ideas happen, it’s our natural tendency to become overly emotional and make poor decisions. This has to be acknowledged by healthy leaders and dealt with in order to either kill a project early or keep involving other people and depending on them.
“The best leaders…don’t go nuts over the unknown, and they don’t lose patience when dealing with disappointments. They are able to work with what they know, identify what they don’t know, and make decisions accordingly.” (page 205)

WHAT REWARDS SYSTEMS HAVE YOU FOUND TO WORK THE BEST?

WHAT IS THE MOST CREATIVE REWARD THAT YOU’VE GIVEN OR RECEIVED?

We broadcast this announcement from Reggie Joiner yesterday. If you didn’t get to watch it, then, check it out here:

Reggie Joiner Webcast Announcement – 9.16.2010 from Orange on Vimeo.

To read more about this announcement and find out what YouLead is all about, check out this blog post about our upcoming changes: http://www.orangeleaders.com/?p=3558