Relationships. The one word that sticks with me after three months with Orange Thread Media.

This summer I joined the team officially as the intern. My role in the business was to oversee Playback Drive operations, support live events, and be available for whatever was thrown my way. To be honest, I don’t want to talk about any of that.

Although I’ve learned way more than I expected, the business side of things is not even what I’ve really gained from this experience. It’s been the people and the countless times I’ve enjoyed a meal, a drink, or even a short conversation because of Orange Thread. People are inadvertently stressed to be the most important part of this business; It wasn’t the countless hours of copying data to drives, taping boxes, driving 11 hours to Texas, or the constant encouragement from Johnny ). People have made this summer the reason I will remember it for years to come.

Mid-summer we traveled to Dallas for the Echo Conference and what followed blew my mind! I manned the Playback booth and had the honor of meeting tons of people in the church media sphere. Through three days of fruitful conversations, I gained a new love for the people in church media. I found a community of believers functioning in a realm that I didn’t know existed. Here I am trying to tell people about the Playback Drive and all I want to do is continue to talk to these people for hours because we share the same interests and immediately understand each other. Many relationships were birthed from that adventure in Dallas and I am forever grateful for it.

To echo (no pun intended) what Luke McElroy has always tried to convey to me: relationships are the meat of life. Don’t take them for granted and don’t forget they should be the center of all you do, no matter what you do for a living.

So simply put:

Relationships matter.

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