Why we’re doing a Soup n Study

Sep 12, 2011 by Amy-Jo    1 Comment     Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities

Tomorrow night, I will be opening up my home to 6-12th grade girls and women leaders for a new thing we are calling a SOUP n STUDY. CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP BRENTWOOD BAPTIST GIRLS AND QUALITY WOMEN:)
The premise is simple: Come each week for a different soup, a different leader who will be teaching the bible study, and different collections of quality women and girls for a community group.

The reason is because after years of having successful small groups of girls, we’re finding some needs arising for the girls to “mix n’ match” with different women and girls of all ages. We’ve tried to do this at our catalyst events, and we’ve seen it happen best on mission trips, but there still has been a murmuring among our girls to “get to know other girls and leaders”. I couldn’t be more excited! It’s a pretty easy thing to put together really. Every week just assign someone to be responsible for bringing the soup. This week it’s me.
I’m doing my favorite comfort soup. Homemade Tomato Soup and grilled cheese triangles.
Then each week, put out an all call for quality women (background checked and spiritually healthy) in your church to come and hang out. I’ve made it clear that there’s no obligation to come every week, but this would be a great opportunity for them to come and get to know girls and let the girls get to know them. Then secure someone who will be leading the bible study for the week. We’ll see how this goes for September and October. I’ll keep you posted about things we’ve learned. Perhaps this is something your girls ministry has been needing, or perhaps you’ve been doing something like this, but need to incorporate small groups. One thing I know…I’m always learning and I’m open to trying new things. We’ll see how God uses our Soup n Study.

Here’s the recipe I’m using for tomorrow. The picture above is what it looks like in the beginning. I got up early this morning to put it in the crockpot for a trial run. My kitchen smells AH-MAZING currently. Can’t wait to try it out tonight.

Fresh Tomato Soup (Crockpot) Recipe submitted by: CDK Recipe Exchange Jenifer Milton jenifersrecipes
yields 4
8 medium tomatoes
1 medium onion — chopped
2 carrots — peeled and thinly sliced
1 garlic clove — crushed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
3 cups chicken broth or bouillon

Drop tomatoes in a pan of boiling water for 15 to 20 seconds; immediately rinse with cold water. Remove skins. Cut in half crosswise; squeeze out and discard seeds.

Combine in slow-cooker with onions, carrots, garlic, brown sugar, basil, parsley, worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and broth (or bouillon). Cover and cook on LOW 5 to 6 hours or until vegetables are very soft. Puree in blender or food processor fitted with metal blade. Serve in individual bowls.

Cookies: a great recipe for getting to know girls

Feb 20, 2011 by Amy-Jo    1 Comment     Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities, Mentoring, volunteers

This past Sunday two of our 8th grade girls lifegroup leaders put together a Valentine’s eve cookie party. I joined them after the damage had already begun on the kitchen table. You probably heard us sometime during the afternoon. You must have heard us, as those 12 or so 8th grade girls hit decibels that broke the sound barrier at least 5 or 6 times. You know how it goes. You start making cookies. You start giggling. You start singing, and it quickly escalates into a sound barrier breaking rendition of “I am a C. I am a C-H. I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N.” Amazing. And I loved how not only did we make heart cookies, but we had Yoda, Bobba Fett, and a Storm trooper that showed up in our cookie tray as well. Why do we do it? Because in the margins of making cookies, we share more than a recipe. We share time. We share turns getting to hear what’s going on, or what one girls likes, or what one girl doesn’t like. We share laughter. And as a result, we’ve shared life together. Walking into that group on Wednesday night doesn’t seem like a sterile classroom anymore. There’s growth happening even more now because these two lifegroup leaders took time to bring girls to their home and make cookies for an afternoon. I love that our leaders see the importance of doing life outside of our scheduled time on Wednesday. Thanks Kathy and Debbie! And thanks to many other leaders who do this on a regular basis. I just didn’t call attention to you today. BUT it’s coming:)

Prayer experience in a bag

Jan 3, 2011 by     3 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Freebies, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities

Every year for the past 8 years, our girls ministry takes a weekend retreat.  We always have a leadership team that is comprised of high school girls and adult leaders.  I work with the adult leaders to develop a theme and direction for the weekend and then I bring our girls and leaders together for a vision casting and brainstorming planning time.  In the planning meeting we come up with as many fellowship ideas, worship planning ideas, and prayer experiences that go along with our scripture focus and theme.

From there, the girls are assigned a leader to help develop and make these ideas come to reality.  It’s always exciting to see what our teams come up with and I love working together with them to bring their ideas to life.  I am knee deep in planning for our retreat this year and as I was putting together materials and ideas to help guide and direct our brainstorming time, I remembered that I had never shared one of our prayer experiences that was created by our Snowball lead team last year.

One of the ideas that came to life at our girls retreat was a prayer experience in a baggie that helped reinforce our theme that we are “complete in Christ”.  We were studying about relationships in our small groups utilizing Hayley Dimarco’s PB&J dating book, but during our worship times we focused on how the only relationship that completes us is our relationship with Christ.

The prayer experience in a baggie contained 5 cards that guided each girl individually through an interactive and meditative scripture study to prepare her heart for worship that evening.

Each baggie also contained a pen, a stick of gum, a blank nametag, and an additional card that contained words that God could write about us on our nametag.

We had music softly playing from our worship leader, and as the prayer experience drew to a close, we moved into our time of worship without a break or a word.  It was a powerful time for us sisters in Christ to read His word and then respond to Him in worship.  If this prayer experience can be utilized by your girls ministry, then we are thankful for the opportunity to share.  Please take the opportunity to paste the bottom creative commons use sentence onto the prayer experience so credit can be retained as this freebie is distributed. Thanks!

Special thanks to the girls who helped write it from Brentwood Baptist Church and to Liz Gregory who designed the template and compiled the written prayers. Thanks to Jean Crosby, JoEllen Taylor, Amber Echols, Kathy Alwahab, and Chris Veca for serving on the leadership team that helped make Snowball a special weekend once again.

Girlsminister.com talks Halloween + costumes+ girls= ???

Oct 27, 2010 by     5 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities, Pop Culture

Cady’s thoughts: in the real world Halloween was a time for little kids to dress up in scary costumes. in girl world it was the one night a year a girl could dress like a total slut and no other girls could say anything about it. The hard core girls just wore lingerie and some form of animal ears. unfortunately no one told me this rule so i showed up like this.

I remember the first time that I first heard this quote from Mean Girls and thought, “Wow. Someone really captured what I have been seeing over the years.” I remember our church had an alternative halloween event for youth where you had to dress as your favorite biblical character. Of course 98% of the girls chose Esther, but then there was always that one girl who chose to really live on the edge and don a bathrobe portraying Bathsheba. Nope—that wasn’t me. I always liked to pick the obscure people like Rhoda the servant girl. (look her up–she’s real.)

My church leaders never began a top 5 list of biblical costumes that girls should not be allowed to show up to do the apple dunk in. Just for kicks,this is what I think that list would have looked like:
5. Rahab
4. Bathsheba
3. Woman at the well
2. Potiphar’s wife
1. Eve before the fall

I hope that our readers will choose to speak into the lives of girls this Halloween to begin some conversations regarding their costume choices. Or perhaps we can just hope the coolest girl in school latches on to my 2010 secret Halloween viral campaigns:

“Hazmat suits = the new bunny costume”
“covered head to toe is the way to go”
“mummies & modest monsters= eye candy”

Or maybe the following web badges will start spreading onto the “cool girl’s” facebook profile pics:

But in all seriousness, here’s an activity you can do with some of the girls you mentor to begin talking about Halloween Costumes:
Have girls use markers, pencils, glue, and old magazines to design a halloween costume for each member of their family—including pets.
Use those drawings to begin to talk about why they chose those costumes.
ASK: Did those costumes represent something about that person?
What do you think your costume represents about you?
Why do you think girls choose to wear costumes that are often innapropriate?
What do you think the message is regarding those costume choices?
How does Ephesians 3:5 impact the costume we may choose to wear?

cool idea for an after school activity

Jan 11, 2010 by     No Comments    Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities, Moms

I’m always looking for some creative activities to do with girls at our retreats or to pass on to lifegroup leaders. I stumbled across this recipe at skiptomylou.org Go there for the wonderful pictures. I cut and paste the recipe here. I think this would be a fun activity for a slumber party or a retreat weekend. The possibilities of gummy candy is endless:) Hope someone can use this idea.

Homemade Gummi Candy recipe!

All we needed was 1 -3 oz box of flavored gelatin and 2 – 1/4 oz packages of unflavored gelatin, water and candy molds. (we used two candy molds)

Place 1/3 cup water in a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the Jello and unflavored gelatin over the water. Let sit 5 – 10 minutes. (If you like chewier gummi candy add in another packet of unflavored gelatin.)

Place sauce pan over medium heat and stir until gelatin is dissolved, about 2-5 minutes. When mixture is liquid and all gelatin has dissolved, remove from heat. Let cool a minute and then pour into a container that is easy to pour from. I use a small ceramic creamer pitcher.

Fill molds. If you save the inside of the advent calendar for projects like do, it works perfect! The sheet of star molds worked a bit better than the bears because they are a bit deeper. However, I must say we were just needing an activity so our standards were pretty low— we thought they all turned out great!

Allow to cool completely, about 20 minutes. They may be placed in a refrigerator for about 10 minutes if the kids are eager.

Once cool, the backs can be lightly dusted with corn starch, if desired.

Peel the gummi candy out of the molds. Don’t be shy, you won’t hurt them when peeling them from the molds. No need to oil the molds!

Enjoy!
Make homemade stickers with the unused unflavored gelatin packets.

Notes: we  felt the blue ones weren’t flavorful enough. Next time we will try 2 boxes Jello, 3 packages of unflavored gelatin and 1/2 cup water.

FREEBIE: An encouragement activity

Jul 8, 2009 by     No Comments    Posted under: Freebies, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities

Here’s an idea for you to do with your girls if they are needing some help with encouraging one another.

For the script that is used in this video go to: LYLAS Girls Night

Girls minister takes girls ministry on the road webisode: Episode 2

Apr 28, 2009 by     No Comments    Posted under: Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities, Videos, webisodes

GIRLS MINISTER ON THE ROAD WEBISODE: Episode 2

GIRLS MINISTER ON THE ROAD: Episode 2 from Amy Jo Girardier on Vimeo.

Just an everyday ordinary girls minister who used a gorilla pod to hold a flip cam in her car to record her thoughts and sometimes guest interviews who happen to ride with her.  Don’t worry—it’s a short ride, but maybe just maybe you’ll get a snapshot of what girls ministry is about.

Join the social beta community at www.mygirlsministry.com

Apr 28, 2009 by     No Comments    Posted under: Featured, Freebies, Girls Ministry, Girls Ministry Activities, Twilight, www.mygirlsministry.com

We are so excited at girlsminister.com to announce the launch of our beta girls ministry social network. We hope that this place will continue to grow with people like you who pour into the lives of teenaged girls. We invite you to come connect, swap stories and resources. We’ve even installed an opportunity for you to connect live via web cam through a tokbox program.
If you want to connect with a girls minister or a mom or a counselor who contributes to our site, you can request a meet-up through this online community. We also are creating a resource swapbox where you can get ideas and give ideas. Got some great ideas for some girl nights? Great—share them here. Got a great idea for a biblestudy that discusses purity? Awesome—share it with the community. Need to see if there are some forms for starting that mentoring program—yep they are already there. So what are you waiting for—REQUEST TO JOIN THE SOCIAL at www.mygirlsministry.com.
See you there.

L.Y.L.A.S Girl night activity

Apr 7, 2009 by     2 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Freebies, Girls Ministry Activities

Click the link that follows for a instruction download for a L.Y.L.A.S girl party!
lylas_sister_party_idea

Remember back in the day when you would sign each other’s yearbooks in letters like L.Y.L.A.S (Love ya like a sister)? Well we’re bring it back here at girlsminister.com. We are offering you a tried and true hour long activity that you can use for girls in your student ministry. We encourage you to randomly select girls from ages 6-12 and create “sisterhood clusters” that go through these activities together. It creates some memorable moments that girls in a girlsministry I know are still talking about. ENJOY and let us know how you revised it or share your own ideas. Feel free to email me your activities and we can submit them on here for others to use as well!