“What’s so great about Orange? What makes you unique?”  

It’s a question we get almost daily. Admittedly, I am a bit biased, but after over 20 years in ministry, and after talking to thousands of leaders in all those years, I am always confident in the answers I give. Different leaders have different elements that appeal to them based on their particular ministry needs and personal preferences. This is a variety of those pieces that come together to make us a truly unique choice:

Individuality

Because we know there is no way to create a cookie cutter solution for the 8,000 plus churches we serve, our curriculum materials are editable. At no extra cost to our partner churches. Our attitude is: we WANT our leaders to edit the curriculum to make it best suit their ministry needs, be those based on their service length, the number of services they use the curriculum to serve, their own denominational traditions, their ministry space situation, their volunteer base, etc. The list of factors is long, so we believe you should be able to easily manipulate what we offer to allow for your specific needs.  

Relevance

We also are continual students of how God created us to process, learn, develop and grow as human beings. He did this on purpose. We should pay attention to His design. What does this mean in our materials? What we cover Biblically from age group to age group is different. We consider what lessons are most applicable and most relevant for each group, and these are the lessons we select for the scope and cycle of that age group.

Then, within the curriculum itself, the activities, discussion questions, Bible lessons presentations, take home pieces, etc are all created based on how God designed a child/teenager, at that age, to process, learn, and engage. A piece of this is also recognizing how God created us with the desire to engage in community. To be known. To know someone knows our name and cares about who we are and what we have going on in our lives. This desire is something that begins in a preschooler and grows as we grow. We actually have an ongoing initiative we call “Phase” which has involved thousands of man hours in extensive research into what is happening in all developmental areas as we go through this amazing process God designed that we call “growing up”.  

Leadership

We also place an emphasis on providing each child/teenager with a consistent leader, who is engaging with them on a weekly basis. Is it a big ask for a volunteer? Yes, it is. “But, we are charged with working alongside families to disciple the next generation in what it looks like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Shouldn’t children/students feel as if the person they are connecting with at church knows them, knows their prayer requests, knows at least some of their personal likes/dislikes, takes an interest in their life, and cares about them enough to show up for one hour in their life for the duration of a school year?

[bctt tweet=”But, we are charged with working alongside families to disciple the next generation in what it looks like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” username=”orangeleaders”]

Don’t think this difference is lost on parents. It’s not. It’s feedback we hear over and over again from parents who see children connecting at church in a way they haven’t in the past or haven’t at another church. It’s one of the factors that makes kids so excited to get to church-they WANT to see their small group leader because they know their small group leader wants to see them! We all love to be wanted! 

Orange Specialist

Each partner church is assigned an Orange Specialist when they sign up for their license. Your Orange Specialist (“OS”) is NOT a sales person. We view the OS as your go-to person when you have any questions at all about the curriculum-implementing it in your church setting, taking the next strategic steps in your ministry, helping you with ideas on training both volunteers and parents, connecting you with other leaders in your community who also use Orange-basically anything you need as you implement the ORANGE Strategy at your church.

Your Orange Specialist reaches out to you after you sign up and periodically throughout your license period with us. PLEASE be sure to connect with this amazing resource made available to you!  

Parent CUE Cards 

The icing-on-the-cake for many leaders is the variety of ways we provide for connecting with parents. Our Parent CUE cards provide both a weekly and monthly option of a lesson summary which gives parents some ideas on how to bring discussion about each week’s lesson into their conversations at home. We provide this resource in both a printable and emailable format. A leader can choose the format that works best for their ministry, or use both to widen the circle of opportunity for connection.

We also provide a Social Media Plan each month with pre-created posts and graphics a leader can simply plug into their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Each week you will get a plan laid out for posts for each day of the week! Our Parent CUE app (available for iPhone and Android) is free to all of your parents. The app allows families to enter in each child and their age and opt to receive information and links to help them reinforce each week’s lesson, encourage them in their parenting and give them tips on how to relate to their children at the different phases they go through as they grow up!  

We wrap all of these wonderful pieces together in our curriculum offering in the hopes of assisting you in creating a thorough, thoughtful and effective strategy for partnering with families to reach the next generation for Christ! If you’d like to check out more about what we do and how we do it, feel free to sign up for a free trial of our curriculum materials at: https://smarterkinderlouder.com/ <%2