Church-Family Relationship: Crucial Elements of the Orange Curriculum 

The Orange Curriculum is a leading kids ministry resource focusing on the church-family relationship. This unique approach uses light (church) and love (family). The following are essential components of Orange: 

Connecting Kids to a Strong Community

One of the biggest things that set the orange curriculum apart from other kids’ ministry curricula is its emphasis on family. They believe parents have far more influence on a child’s spiritual development than the church, and they focus on creating resources and experiences to promote this partnership. By equipping parents with tools to take their faith home, the message of Jesus can grow and flourish in a way that’s hard for anyone to do alone.

For example, they provide parents with resources like a blog, podcasts, and an app to help them understand what their children are learning in Sunday School. They also offer a curriculum that focuses on assisting families to celebrate essential milestones together, such as baby dedications and going to kindergarten.

Orange also uses 21st-century technology to connect with students, parents, and leaders through videos, storytelling visuals, music, and more. It helps make the lessons more relatable and engaging for students, which can lead to more excellent retention and understanding.

Orange offers interactive games that adapt to each child’s knowledge level and learning style to engage students further. Educational video games are a fun way for kids to process what they’ve learned in class, and they can be a great addition to any lesson plan. 

Partnering with Parents

Parents have the most time and influence on kids and teens. That’s why partnering with them is an essential aspect of Orange Curriculum. It provides resources that equip parents to engage their children at home better and encourage them to talk about their faith.

To help make these conversations more accessible for parents, Orange provides a Parent Cue to accompany every monthly theme for kids and preschoolers and every series for elementary, middle, and high school students. This guide gives parents the tools to communicate with their children about what they’ve learned at church and how to apply it to their lives.

Additionally, Orange provides prerecorded teaching videos for each weekly series. It allows churches to host a Parent Preview Night before the series launches and helps build trust with parents by enabling them to see what their children will be learning.

Making Faith Relevant

A key element of Orange’s curriculum focuses on the social-emotional learning of children and youth, directly impacting spiritual growth. The Orange ministry creates a variety of resources for churches to train volunteers, including an online course and annual conferences. Additionally, the Orange curriculum emphasizes the need to make faith and biblical principles relevant to kids and youth today.

It can be done through culturally appropriate activities, such as using a popular song or video to teach a lesson. Many Orange classes also incorporate fun games and activities that help grab students’ attention and keep them engaged.

Lastly, Orange is focused on helping churches partner with parents to encourage a love of church and provide families with tools to take faith home. It is accomplished by giving weekly church curricula a parent app and promoting opportunities for parents to connect with other families and leaders through family events.

This partnership is vital, especially as parents are increasingly hesitant to independently send their kids to church. To help facilitate a stronger relationship between the church and family, Orange also provides parents with weekly devotional experiences unique to their children’s age groups, which can be used at home. It can help them practice the four faith skills of hearing, talking, praying, and living daily.

Creating a Family-Focused Ministry

Orange understands that children’s spiritual development isn’t just influenced by what happens at church and home. Therefore, they create experiences and resources to help churches partner with parents to make the most impact on kids. This partnership is why they emphasize a family-focused ministry through their strategy and curriculum.

They have resources for kids, a parenting blog, and an app that encourages parents to lead their children well. They also promote a yearly plan for partnering with families, including baby dedications, kindergarten graduations, and baptisms.

In addition to these family-focused experiences, Orange offers customizable lesson plans and tools for teaching children the gospel. These lesson plans include storytelling visuals, drama sketches, and music playlists.

They also have scripts for large groups, a step-by-step plan for small group leaders, and screen images and theme graphics. They even have a “first look” activity meant to grab kids’ attention so they are more likely to stay focused during story time.

They believe a consistent spiritual environment helps kids better understand and apply biblical principles. That’s why they use yellow and red to represent the idea that when light (church) and love (home) work together, they significantly impact children’s lives more than one influence alone.