Orange Thinking

How we got here...

For a number of years, the elders here at MSCC have discussed Youth and Children's ministries, asking the questions: Is what we're doing the best way to do it? Are we being effective? Are our kids where we want them to be spiritually by the time they leave high school? Where can we improve? How can we know whether or not we're effective? These and many other questions have been the topic of many hours of discussion, thought, and prayer.

As a result, we were reminded of a few key principles.

• The first is that God gave parents the primary responsibility for passing on their faith to their children (Deuteronomy 6 ).
• The second is that since the church only has the children for about 40 or so hours per year and the family has them for thousands of hours per year that it only makes sense that the parents will have far more influence with their kids than the church will. What happens in the home is more important that what happens at church. {video link}
• Another principle we saw was that it is the church's role to equip believers (including parents) to live this life that God has for them (Ephesians 5 ).

With these thoughts in mind we began to ask: What should this look like at MSCC?

God helped us answer that question as we read together a book about another church that went through the same kind of process just a few years ago. What we read helped crystallize our thoughts about what we needed and wanted to do.

We realized that we needed to invest in a strategy that first and foremost partners with our parents helping them become the parents that God wants them to be, thus increasing the impact on our children. The book, "Think Orange" is their practical development of these principles and fits so well with our philosophy of ministry. We decided to use their experience as a guide as we develop our Family Ministries around these principles.

The concept of "Orange” represents a melding of the influences of the home (red for the love and warmth of the home environment) and the church (yellow for the light that the church represents to the world). The merging of these two influences makes the resulting IMPACT greater than the sum of the two parts. When the church and the home are both fulfilling their God given roles and working together to influence their kids, really amazing things can begin to happen.

The elders made the decision to begin this process by reassigning our resources to reflect our belief that this is what God wants us to do. To make this happen, we needed a strong leadership commitment. Therefore, we established a Family Ministries role. Jerry Beres and Gary Rosing will co-pastor in this role. The Light Company, Blast, Middle School, High School and College ministries will work together as a team under the supervision of Family Ministries.

We will work together to insure that the right resources are applied to the best ministry fit rather than having all the teams competing for the same resources. Another part of the plan is that these ministries will work together to structure the curriculum in such a way that it flows from one grade level to the next and builds according to the age needs of each group of kids. Lastly, and probably most importantly, these ministries will be working together to develop resources and tools to help parents with their job of passing on their faith to the next generation.

So we are headed into a new adventure! What an opportunity to experience God’s love together and to live the adventure of following Jesus Christ in our personal lives, our homes and in our church.

Joining Forces for the Sake of the Kingdom and our Children,

Jerry and Gary

Pastors of Family Ministries