I don’t know about you, but I was beyond excited last weekend when the fall temps were here to stay! There are so many things I love about fall. I love the feel of fall - waking up cold in the morning and putting on a sweatshirt to make a cup of coffee, sitting by a warm fire in the evenings. I love the smells of fall; the crisp cool air, pumpkin spice candles burning, and a good campfire. I also love the colors of fall. I can’t wait to get out my fall decorations and deck the halls in warm colors, especially orange! What’s not to love about orange? It has become one of my favorite colors. I guess because of what it represents for me – the changing of the seasons, school spirit (yes, I’m a Columbus East grad, my boys all went there, and I have one in college now where orange is a school color). But there’s one more thing that orange represents for me: it reminds me of what I do and why I do what I do.

Let me explain. You may not know this, but in all of our kids and student ministries at The Ridge, we use the color orange to represent our vision and strategy. In these ministries, we want to come alongside parents to help them raise their kids to know and love Jesus. We count it a privilege that parents allow us to spend an hour a week with their kids. But to be honest, that’s all we get (at the most). We know that the people who have the most influence in kids’ lives are parents! But what if we can give parents the tools they need to continue the conversations at home? We have the potential to make a bigger impact! So, we represent this with colors!

The color yellow represents the light of the church and the color red represents the love of the family. What happens when you put those two together? You get orange! By combining two very important influences in the kids’ lives (home and church) we synchronize our efforts to show this generation who God is more effectively than either can do alone. In Ridge Kids and Little Ridge Kids, we offer what we call a Parent Cue. We let parents know what we’re learning and how they can talk about it at home. There are so many other ways we can connect with parents - we’re just getting started. But that brings me to the big event this weekend: Fam Jam!

Fam Jam is about more than celebrating the wonderful things about fall - the cool weather, pumpkins, hayrides, and more. It’s about purposefully bringing kids and parents together to have some fun at church! It’s about providing a means to introduce families you know to The Ridge.
Bring your kids out to Fam Jam on October 19 and have some fun with them, and also hang out and get to know other families from The Ridge as well as volunteers who work with your kids. If you don’t have kids in Kindergarten through 5th grade, consider helping us make this event fun and safe (teens, young adults, parents of teens, empty nesters: I’m talking to you!).

I’m looking forward to Fam Jam this Saturday, when we get to combine some of the things I love most about the color orange (all things fall and family ministry) in an effort to reach out and get to know families in our church and community. And don’t worry, I’ll leave the school spirit at home!

For more information about Fam Jam and how you can help out, click here. 

Plus, RSVP to the Facebook event and invite your friends!