Creating One Action Item for Class Sessions at Orange

I am currently in Atlanta for my first Orange Conference and I am impressed with the level of engagement that the people at ReThink have created. Over the last several years they have been challenging ministry leaders to ask the question; "What would it look like for the church and family to work together in a seamless strategy to reach the next generation for Christ?" There are tons of ideas, books, speakers, resources, and a plethora of people engaging in the pre-conference today asking various questions around this topic. Many times going to any conference one easily feels overwhelmed with the amount of information and will easily get confused on what action to take when they arrive home. My encouragement to those attending would be to pick one takeaway idea from each session that you can take action on when you arrive home. I have not always done this, but this is what I did when I went to the D6 Conference in the fall and it allowed me an easy overview and one page review to send to my elders as well. Here are my suggestions:

1. Take notes and scribble as much as possible. Try not to limit yourself on what you hear, but try and capture the essence of what the speaker is saying. If you feel overwhelmed just keep writing. You will have time to process later. 
2. Immediately at the end of the class ask yourself, "What one idea or thought do I want someone else to know from this class or session?" Take this one idea and write it down at the top of the page that you took notes on. Highlight the idea so you can easily find it later. 
3. An idea is dead unless you create an action item. This one may be more difficult, but this is when you ask yourself what action steps need to happen when I get home in light of this one idea. For example and action step could be; "I need to schedule a 45 minute meeting over coffee with a parent to ask them if they will lead this or that program." You may not need an action plan for each big idea, but it is important to consider how each idea is integrated into your strategy back home. 

Coming to a conference is refueling and refreshing. Some could day it is like camp for adults and ministry leaders. As we all know the camp "high" often only last a few days maybe a few weeks. So go ahead have fun, take, notes, ask the questions, and create an action plan. Either you have invested time, money and energy to be here or your church has created the budget for you to be here. Either way start thinking now on small steps of what does this mean back home and what action steps will I take to make it happen. 

"It's Your Move"