everything orange!

OK, so sorry for my delay in posting....I went to a conference in Atlanta last Saturday, and returned in the wee small hours of the morning Thursday, so have been playing catch up since then!

So I went to the Orange Conference, which is put on by the reThink Group, an organization that "encourages churches to reThink the way they minister to families" (from their website). Our church uses the curriculum that they publish for preschoolers and children, so off to the conference I went with 6 others from the preschool/children's area. Can't say enough great stuff about this conference...the basic premise behind Orange is that 2 influences working together make a greater impact upon a child's life than 2 influences working alone, so RED (the home, love from the family) works with YELLOW (the church, light from the gospel) to make ORANGE... So it's the goal of an "orange" church to partner with parents and train parents to be spiritual leaders in their homes, to impact their children for the cause of Christ.... Way more to it than that, but that's it in a nutshell.

So I wanted to share this resource with you all - it's the best preschool CD I've heard (it's called With Me Every Day), ever, I think. The music is thoughtful, and quality-wise, super. Not another inane Christian children's CD (the girls have a few that make me want to pull my hair out!). One example: the song "You're Amazing," says "You're amazing, and I lift my hands to worship, and I sing and dance to praise you, how wonderful you are!" It's joyful, and it's a wonderful introduction to biblical truths musically. It's the CD that goes along with our preschool curriculum, First Look, and helps teach the 3 basic truths we hope that our kiddos learn by the time they leave our preschool program: God Made Me, God Loves Me, and Jesus Wants to be My Friend Forever. To hear samples of the songs, go here, and find With Me Every Day.

Also got to hear Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz Don Miller) speak at the conference, so here's just a note, if you haven't read Blue Like Jazz yet, by all means try to do it soon... I'll have more to say about that later, I'm sure, but for now, just a recommendation.