You may be asking yourself why I am all of a sudden talking about citrus.  Why all this talk about Orange?  Well, I’m not actuall talking about the fruit, I’m talking about the color, or more precise yet, the color that represents a philosophy.

Here is the lowdown.

The basic idea behind orange is that two combined influences have a greater impact than just two influences.

That seems obvious right?  If you took two garden hoses and sprayed the water out of them you would have a certain effect but if you took the same amount of water and put it it through a single hose there would be a much greater impact, right?  Same goes with color, and this is where we get to orange.   Yellow and red are two very fine colors, in fact one of them may be your favorite color.  However, when you bring the two of them together they create orange and that is a color of impact, it gets your attention!

So what does all this have to do with ministry? 

Check out Deuteronomy 6:1-9

These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.  Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Job job of passing on the faith was never supposed to be assigned to the church, it was the job of the family.  Deuteronomy 6 is saying that the family should be investing in the spiritual development of their children in all that they do; in the morning before they are sent off to school, while traveling to lacrosse practice, at the dinner table, and before they go to sleep.

It seems like a lot.  Parents are busy and so are their kids, so this is where the church can come in and combine influence with the parents.  The church can help parents with resources, discussion points, common experiences, etc.  All with the aim of being a combined influence in order to have a much greater impact in the life of a child than if parents and the church were each attempting to do their own thing in the life of the child.

Is your community orange?