Jack-o-lantern

Fall has been crazy with recreating nearly everything about Kid's ministry at Real Life Church, vacation, and life in general. I wanted to pause and share with you an article that I received this past May at the Orange Conference. Orange is a conference that focuses on family ministry in a whole new way. At this point I could write pages about my time at the Orange conference and the philosophy of Orange, but instead I will say I will share more later or check out www.orangeleaders.com

This article addressed some different issues and made me ponder somethings. It was written more for church or ministry leaders, but I think that it is good for us all to read. I hope that you enjoy:

"'Jack-o-Lanterns': What are you doing to ENGAGE the family?
Oh, oh. Can we actually use that word in this book? Maybe the problem is we have thought so much about what is WRONG with Halloween, we have never considered what might be RIGHT about it. No, we are not asking you to dress up like a witch. We are not trying to make any kind of statement about Halloween. We are not even going to tell you if we think Halloween is right or wrong. If that bothers you so much that you miss this point, then you have a different kind of problem.

Before you judge too quickly, consider a few Halloween stats:
-An estimated 47% of household consumers are expected to decorate for Halloween.
-Halloween is second only to Christmas in decorations sold.
-Over 790 million pounds of jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin pies will be bought.
-Candy sales will exceed over 2 billion dollars.
-More than 93% of children go trick-or-treating every year.
(I wonder how many of those families go to your church?)
The point is that most families love Halloween. Right or wrong, there is something about October 31 that stirs the imagination of children and engages the hearts of parents.

Watch your neighborhood closely this fall. Listen to the laughter. Take a look at the generosity. Taste the sugar. See the glow in children’s eyes. Notice the parents walking with their kids. And how families connect with other families. It seems kind of…can we say magical?

Why can’t church be more like that? Don’t you want to create a shared experience for the family that captures their imagination and incites a relational revival in the home? Then maybe you should think ORANGE. Halloween orange! Start thinking about the family, and what it takes to create the kind of shared experience that results in quality time for parents and kids. What would happen, for example, if you started acting like what happened at home might be more important than what happens at church? What if you decided that one common goal throughout your children’s and student ministries would be to actually enlist parents to reach their own kids? Be careful. There is a critical difference between trying to complement the family and actually partnering with the family.

Oh, and just for fun, make a list of the people you know who grew up to become witches, warlocks or Satanists because they went trick-or-treating as a child. Then cross-reference that list with the names of people who you know that grew up in church and quit when they became adults. Maybe we should worry less about who goes trick or treating, and more about how the church is reaching families.
Orange Issue # 3 Reactivate the Family: Engage parents to take initiative in the spiritual growth of their own children."


Thank you people at the Orange Conference and ReThink Group for bringing such things to light and helping many of us being to see things from another perspective. Thanks for adding words to the things I've observed and a strategy to my thoughts and heart beat for ministry.