Easter Prayer Experience Freebie

Mar 31, 2010 by     2 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Freebies, Girls Ministry

Two years ago I had the opportunity to create an Easter Prayer Experience for our student ministry to use in a family friendly worship service on Easter. We utilized this again last year and wanted to pass it along to you if you are looking for a prayer experience…even for perhaps tonight *GASP*. I know sometimes there are weeks that necessitate some last minute planning. No worries—you’re forgiven Enjoy. easter prayer experience

Guest blog from Tiffany part 2: after you return home from summer camp

Mar 24, 2010 by     No Comments    Posted under: Girls Ministry, guest blogger

Today we welcome Tiffany Haynes back for part 2 of her guest blog series on moving students from the Summer Camp High to a practical relationship with Christ in the day to day. If you missed her first post you can find it: here

Overcoming Insanity (the “after” step).

Albert Einstein was a smart cookie. He once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you were a church camper once, you remember it well. Every year you’d go to camp, get hyped up on sugar, pumped up on Jesus, and then pack up and head back to reality. Same thing happens to students today (and that’s not a bad thing!). The bad part is – reality isn’t always fun to come home to (especially when the home life is rocky).
One thing we can do to counteract the post-camp slump is to help our girls develop fresh, godly habits. Routine ruts suck the joy from people. When we sense students falling prey to the “old life” or simply sense a downer day, we can help by introducing them to a new challenge. If you have student resources at your fingertips – scan through some books or material and see if anything jumps out at you to share with your girl, check and see if the camp speaker has podcasts that you could send to remind your girl to stay in the Word, or ask God to show you a verse to share with them. Whatever you do in relation to girls ministry, let God lead and remember that tiny sparks can ignite titanic fires. Be a sparker.

Thanks Tiffany for sharing from your heart this week. A great resource I have been talking about is Haley Dimarco’s “God Girl” and “God Guy”. It would be a great after camp read as it really lays out what it looks like to be a girl or a guy that is abiding in Christ. In addition, to get students into the habit of daily reading get their hands on either the message remix PAUSE or The message remix SOLO.  The pause leads students through the bilical text and then asks them some key questions regarding it. The Solo is a lectio divina tool in getting your students to READ THINK PRAY LIVE the text.  What about you readers?  What are some tools you like to put into the hands of students after a mountain top experience like summer camp?

GUEST BLOGGER: Moving students beyond the God-fling at summer camp

Mar 22, 2010 by     1 Comment     Posted under: Girls Ministry, guest blogger, volunteers

I’ve had the chance to meet Tiffany Haynes on www.mygirlsministry.com which is the social network for those who work with girls in their churches. I asked Tiffany to share a little about herself and this is what she told me:

GUEST BLOGGER: Tiffany Haynes

Experiences are addictive.  Shopping sprees, the latest tech-buy, the emotional rush from your latest crush, a    job    promotion… the list continues! Marketing gurus spend millions creating experiences for consumers to indulge in – just check out the latest advertisements, movies, and television shows.  Pictures of ecstasy are painted so delicately that we often forget the reality of reality.

Summer church camp can be just another experience for our girls if we’re not cautious.  While we want our students to participate in Christian-driven events and set aside time to recharge, we don’t want them to become addicted to the feeling of camp and forget the function.

The big question:  how do we create an environment of knowing God instead of just experiencing Him?  God created warm fuzzies for a purpose and I’ll be the first to admit that the days when I experience those fuzzies are fantabulous; but, most days we just live life.  We wake up, scrutinize ourselves in the mirror while getting ready, head to class (or work), participate in extra-curricular activities (or kiss boo-boos and pay bills), and come home.  In a culture that is drowning in “feel goods”, how can we steer our girls away from craving an experiential high and navigate them towards the God who truly satisfies?

Below is a tip to help you grease those church-camp wheels before summer camps hit and also how to keep them oiled once camps have passed…

Dig Deep Roots (the “before” step).

If you ask girls why they like church camp so much, you’ll probably hear that they like being away from home, the praise and worship is stellar (have you noticed no one ever runs up to the stage when the speaker walks out?), or they like chillaxing with new friends.  But when you crack the shell, it comes down to this:  they love the high.  Jesus does too – He is the Most High, after all.  But He’s also a God of tremendous depth and we need to ensure we’re sufficiently communicating to girls the intimate depth of God’s nature.

One way we can approach this is simply by asking students, one-on-one, what God is revealing to them.  If they mutter the typical, “I dunno.” then they are either too shy to respond, have no flippin’ clue, or aren’t sitting still long enough to actually discover what God might be saying.  Regardless of the reason, you can apply these steps:

1. Make note of their response.  Either jot down a note on a piece of paper, use your handy-dandy iPhone, or text yourself.   That way you’ll remember their name and their response.
2. Pray for them.  Try as we may, we cannot do the job of the Holy Spirit.  Meaning, we can’t create in others an appetite for God’s word; however, we can consistently pray the Holy Spirit work in that student’s life and that we be used to sharpen them (Proverbs 27:17).
3. Follow-up.  Invest in several follow-ups with your girl.  It could simply be an encouraging Facebook posting letting them know you’re praying for them, a note you slip into their Bible during small group, or just sitting down with them over a Slurpee and talking between the brain freezes.  Whatever route you choose, be consistent and ask open-ended questions like, “So, last week you said you were having trouble getting along with _____.  How’s that going?”

By applying these steps over time (one hit wonders won’t work, by the way), you’ll build a stronger relationship with your girl and have the privilege of watching them bloom as they lay open their heart to you.

Tune in later this week for Tiffany’s continued thoughts on moving students from an experience to a practical relationship in the everyday rhythms of life after summer camp.

Girls Ministry top picks in resources

Mar 17, 2010 by     No Comments    Posted under: Girls Ministry

I’m gearing up to lead a conference this weekend in Gatlinburg for TN WMU and another friend of mine @bruceedwardstn asked me for what resources I tend to use within our girlsministry. So here is a quick place to send people: www.shelfari.com/amyjogirardier There are some other resources I use that aren’t on shelfari right now: Jimmie Davis’s Girls ministry book from Lifeway is a great resource and she is a great friend. But you can find several books that I use on a regular basis on that site. So here is my bookshelf favorites. And you can go to www.shelfari.com/amyjogirardier to see my other book lists as well. Let me know what’s on your “shelf” in the comments.

Guest bloggers for girlsminister.com

Mar 9, 2010 by     No Comments    Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, interview

I am looking for some guest bloggers to be a part of girlsminister.com. If you are interested, I’ve put together a document to give some guidelines and direction to help in determining if your content is best for this site. Feel free to download it and give me a shout out if this is something you would be interested in being a part of. CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK: girlsministercom-content-guide

Tigertext: helping teens and adults cover their tracks

Mar 8, 2010 by     No Comments    Posted under: Girls Ministry, technology

This is a new app only available on iphones right now but it allows a person to erase texts you’ve sent on another person’s cell phone. Interestingly named Tigertext.  The company that released it promises that it was not named after Tiger Woods but ironically it would have been a program he would’ve benefitted from.  I think this is not something that teaches teens how to use their phones. It bypasses consequences and moves straight to covering up their actions. I will never have this on my phone because I try to create boundaries in my phone useage that would never put me in a place that would cause me to send something I would want to have retracted.  Not using my text messaging past certain hours. My question is: can this really delete poor texting decisions a teen or adult makes? Does the text still get documented somewhere that the authorities could trace it down. I would like to know more information—otherwise we will now have more Sexters unaccountable for their actions.  Shane Hipps makes mention that when you bring in a technology into your life, you gain and you lose.  What do you see the advantages of this technology being and what do you see the disadvantage of this technology being if it were to be introduced into your life or the life of your teens?

Visual Prayer reminders for our girls retreat

Mar 1, 2010 by     1 Comment     Posted under: Girls Ministry

Prayer is important. I want to remember that as I get caught up in the details of planning for Snowball. So I took the time to make some visual prayer reminders on my hands. I see my hands all the time, and I want to remember to “be still (stop striving) and know that He is God.”  So what have I written on my hands?  (Do you like my “wonder twins-unite” picture that displays my prayer reminders?)

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

What prayer reminders do you need to cling to in the midst of the week?