I’ll be spending the next week in Atlanta, GA at The Orange Conference.

Joining me will be our church’s Student Ministries team, our Senior Pastor, and my friend and colleague Staci Travisano.

While at the conference, I’ll be checking out the following breakout sessions:

Pre-Conference Breakouts

BUILDING AN APPRENTICE MINDSET

The inevitable truth is that passions change, life happens and for various reasons people transition off of our team often leaving a gaping hole. This breakout will help you build a ‘replace yourself’ mentality within your ministry that will grow your volunteer and leadership base. Explore how to effectively hand off ministry, mobilize your volunteers and empower student leaders creating a healthy ministry environment able to endure change.

CLARIFYING A CLEAR AND SIMPLE VISION FOR YOUR MINISTRY

As a leader, you need to be able to communicate a clear and compelling vision so that the people that you lead will be able to know where the ministry is headed. We will look at how to discern the unique vision God has for your ministry, how to communicate with conviction, how to celebrate when it’s clear and how to evaluate and change course when it’s not effective.

CATCHING VOLUNTEERS UP TO SPEED

We all need more volunteers, but how do we get them up to speed quickly while maintaining quality, security and excitement? In this workshop, we’ll explore a plan for systematically helping a new team member come up to the speed of Orange. Resources will include best practices from Orange Leaders, sample Moodle courses, and bibliography.

Breakout Sessions A-D

FAMILY FIRST

Family First is a very popular & engaging idea – but how do we actually do it? In this session we will consider ten creative family first strategies – concepts that will add balance to the families in your congregation as well as those families that serve on your church staff. We will also introduce the idea of a “Family Dream Session” so you can pro-actively lead your family into a God honoring future!

LAUNCHING A FAMILY EXPERIENCE

Have you considered launching a family experience at your church but feel completely overwhelmed at the thought of all that’s involved? This breakout will give you practical and proven low budget steps to launch an engaging family experience that will capture the heart of families in your community, increase attendance, remove staff silos, increase giving, and create a strong, positive community presence for your church using an out-of-the-box innovative approach. You will learn techniques from building sets without spending a dime to marketing techniques that attract tons of unchurched families in your community that keep coming back for more.

DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS IN LEADERS’ CIRCLES

Every leader faces unhappy parents, dissatisfied volunteers, or tension with senior leaders that requires tough conversations. (Sometimes even all on the same day!) Each situation requires courage, wisdom, and prayer to handle it. None of us like conflict, but all of us can be equipped to handle these difficult conversations better. Join us to learn some practical tips and tactics that will enable you to face this tricky situations with confidence and poise.

ALIGNING PARENTS TO A VISION FOR FAMILY

So you’re creative, you have ideas, you’ve strategized every possible angle and your team is ready to work. What’s missing? You might be able to create the experience of a lifetime INSIDE your church building, but impact is happening OUTSIDE of your church building. Parents are a key missing ingredient to success in the changed lives of our student population. Want to know how to get them on your team? Start here.

I’ll try to gather my thoughts post-conference and share notes and other learnings here.

If you’re at Orange, feel free to connect with me on Twitter (anthony_prince) or Facebook (facebook.com/anthonyprince).  I’d love to catch up over coffee.