My Epic Journey

Just finished reading a book by Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof called, Parenting Beyond Your Capacity.

I would highly recommend this book to any parent no matter if you have children or teenagers.  Here is a review of the book:

When parents work in tandem with the faith community to raise their children, they increase their parenting capacity exponentially.

Most parents have so many demands on their time that they can’t be the kind of parent they desire to be. They need to know the Orange Factor: Two combined influences will make a greater impact on kids than just two influences. And it’s true. Parents who partner with the faith community are the best way to bring the next generation into the family of God-and keep them there.

If you want to order one, you can do so HERE or HERE.

At EPIC, we are doing something new.  We don’t have separate programming for students during the weekend service.  Instead we encourage our students to worship, serve and learn along with their parents in main service.  Our desire is to create an ORANGE ministry.

This past week I received an amazing e-mail from one of our parents concerning an ORANGE moment they had with the teenager during our communion service.  Thought I would pass along the note:

Ryan,

I wanted to let you know about something pretty awesome that happened during yesterdays service.

I was sitting with my son who is a 6th grader listening to Terry’s sermon. When Terry introduced his main verse I handed my son a Bible and had him find the verse for us.

He found it with no trouble and we read it together as Terry read aloud.

At the end of the service Terry gave an invitation for communion. I asked my son if he would like to participate in this special time. He said he did.

We went up together and got our elements are returned to our seats.

I asked him if he would like to take the communion together and he said that would be good.

He then said, ‘ I will pray first’. He prayed for us to never forget the gift God gave us in His Son on the cross and thanked God for communion as a time to remember what was sacrificed for us.

After he finished I prayed and we took communion together.

What an incredible time of sharing such a great part of the service with my son. It set up a really good rest of the day for the two of us.

On the way to lunch after the service we had a nice discussion about Terry’s message and talked about the different points Terry had made regarding worship. I asked him if he understood each area and if he had any questions. He had a much better understanding of it all than I had expected and we had a great discussion.

I was glad that he was able to be in the service so we could share this time and I was glad that I had taken the steps to encourage him to experience the entire service.

I now have a clearer picture and greater appreciation of what you have talked about when you stressed the importance of ‘Orange Moments’ with our children.

I look forward to more of these in the future.

Have a great day!

This is my prayer for all of our students and their families.  That they would grow together in Christ and closer to each other.  That mom and dad would play and active role in being Deuteronomy 6.4-9 parents:

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 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. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

This coming Sunday, July 19th, EPIC will be holding a parent meeting at 4:00 pm.  Please be here on time so we can get started since we still have HS EPIC at 5:00 pm.  If you are unable to make it, I will send out information after the meeting concerning our discussion.