I’m looking forward to attending my first Orange conference this April. The Orange Conference is brought to you by Reggie Joiner and his team at the ReThink Group. Reggie has written two awesome articles for me this year that we’ve published in K! Magazine.

I planned on attending Orange last year (K! Magazine was a partner) but at the last minute decided that I couldn’t swing it because of church obligations. Bummer. I sent one of our team members in my place.

K! Magazine is an Orange partner again this year and I’m looking forward to attending the conference for the first time. Although I’ve yet to attend Orange personally, here are some cool things I’m hearing from people about Orange.

1. Orange is edgy and culturally-current.
2. It’s cheap (as low as $219 if you sign up early enough).
3. It’s a conference for the entire team – senior pastor, youth pastor, children’s pastor, etc.
4. The focus of the conference is equipping parents to be the primary spiritual leaders in the lives of their kids.
5. The general session speakers always knock the ball out of the park.

I’m looking forward to watching Orange in the years to come. Will Orange fizzle out when pastors jump off the family ministry bus and focus on something new? I don’t think so. If family ministry becomes a thing of the past (which I don’t think will happen any time soon) the ReThink Group will always challenge the church to change and innovate. That’s the way I see it.

Yesterday when I was walking through the KidzMatter conference room I looked over at our magazine rack. I saw our first six issues (Jan/Feb 08 through Nov/Dec 08) and paused to thank God for His grace! I’ll be the first one to tell you that if it wasn’t for God’s grace, K! Magazine would still be an idea on paper. I am thankful that 12,000 – 15,000 children’s minsters are reading each issue of K! Magazine. Amazing Grace!

Last week I was invited to speak at a children’s pastor network lunch in April, 09. It’s a network in the Indianapolis area which I didn’t know about. They meet once a quarter for lunch and discussions at various churches. Very cool. It so happened that the next meeting was the following day. Although I learned about it in time, my schedule would not permit me to go. I went ahead and emailed some children’s pastor friends in the area and told them about the network and upcoming meeting schedule.

Tina Houser was able to go. They met at College Park in Indy (a very cool church with a very cool domain name) and had a great time. There were about 25 people at the meeting. She passed out K! Mags (thanks Tina!) and found someone that was reading her new book.

Friday I met Tina and another children’s pastor for lunch. I asked Tina to give me the 411 about the networking lunch. Her first words, “The men outnumbered the women!” If there’s anything that’ll put a smile on this guys face, it’s hearing that the guys outnumbered the girls at the children’s pastor gathering! Way to go guys.

This morning I intentionally found a few men in our children’s ministry and paused to thank them for serving in our children’s ministry. It’s not just for the girls, can I hear an amen?

I can’t believe that next week our editorial team meets to plan the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of K! Magazine. It seems like yesterday that we had our first meeting to talk about the Jan/Feb 2008 Inaugural Issue of the magazine.

It’s been a great year. People always ask me, “How do you do it all?” The answer is simply this. God has given us a great team. We have an awesome staff at KidzMatter, a creative team of editors and artists, advertisers who are supportive and believe in our mission, and lots of others.

I’d like to hear from you! Don’t write a book, but leave a comment on this blog post about what you like about K! Magazine and what we could do to make it even better going into 2009. Each comment will be shared in our next editors meeting. So, will you help us right now? Tell us what you like and what we could do to be better. Thanks!

It’s been such a blessing to hear from you every day about K! Magazine. Our staff loves to read your emails and notes of encouragement. Here are a few we have received the past several days:

“I got the first issue of the magazine. You put it over the fence and out of the park!” Bob

“Just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how INCREDIBLE the mag is. I love the clean lines. It is simple, easy to read and full of relevant info for children’s ministry people.” Dienna

“The magazine looks fabulous! I knew it would, but it is so different to actually hold it and look at it.” Pat

“Thanks for your hard work in putting together a useful and inspiring tool!” Dave

“Love the magazine! Just got it today and have been reading. It is so professional and full of info!” Tracy

“Just received the premier issue of K! It exceeded my expectations. Excellent product, Ryan. Thanks for steering the course on this major undertaking.” Mark

“This morning I was thrilled to arrive at the office and find my K! magazine! It looks awesome and I’ve read my way through part of it, flipped through it all and it is REMARKABLE!” Jeremy

“I just got my copy and I LOVE it! The best CM Mag I’ve read. Thanks for all you do!” Valerie

Yes, that’s right.  I’ve got a copy of the January/February issue of K! in my hands right now.  This thing is so completely awesome in so many ways, I can’t even begin to express it in words.  You’ll just have to subscribe to the magazine to find out.

The magazine has so many great articles in it from tons of great ministry leaders (including, but not limited to, Roger Fields of Kidz Blitz, Jim Wideman, and of course,  yours truly, ha ha).  We can’t wait to hear from you as to what you think about it.  You should be getting it in the mail very soon.  It’s our Christmas gift to you

Just looking back over the last few months is crazy.  In July, Ryan came to me with another one of his crazy ideas.  He has a lot of those.  However, I felt like this one was especially insane.  We knew nothing about publishing a magazine.  Even important stuff, like writers, editors, designers, printer, postal laws (which are quite an adventure, as I’m told), and lots of other exciting stuff like that.  By September, we had held our first editorial meeting.  Now, we hold the very first issue in our hands and are about to send it to you.  That’s exciting, and nothing short of amazing.

Look ahead to see more about the next issue, as well as more exciting things coming down the pipe from KidzMatter and The Way We See It.   Have a wonderful Christmas and happy new year!