Orange…but no juice.

I really like Orange.

I like the color, I like the fruit, and I liked the conference Orange that we attended last week.  (We, being Blaine otherwise known as Senior Pastor, and Joel, who would be the Children’s guy.)

But I have to say after reflection that the one word I am using to describe to people who ask how our week in the greater ATL went:  Unremarkable.

There were lots of things that I liked.  The check-in procedure was incredibly smooth.  (All macs!)

The stage audio/video was first rate.

Everything had pop, pizzaz, and was done in a fun, yet worshipful way, from the singing to Lanny Donaho, who I saw for the first time in over a decade.

I even like the Orange concept, although it is not the only model, nor do they claim to be, I think.  (It is hard to know, because everything was orange.)  I would even recommend it if someone is looking for a model of ministry.  It has research, and application to back it up.

It was just unremarkable.

Francis Chan was incredible, as always.  Reggie Joiner (the man of Orange) was good in talking about our pictures of family.  I really liked the discussion with Andy Stanley and Perry Noble.  My breakouts has good information.  Nancy Beach tackled the role of women in ministry in a thoughtful way.

But I didn’t really come back with a wow or aha! moment.  And that is what I missed.

Upon further review, no one opened up the Word, and really brought anything out to me that said, Wow! here is something new or fresh from God’s Word.

Reggie looked at Deut 6, and used that as a jumping off point.  His comment about there not being any normal families in scripture was good.

Don’t get me wrong.  Everything was Biblical.  It just wasn’t Bible.  And maybe it didn’t need to be.

But maybe that is why I feel it was unremarkable…