Category Archives: Girls Ministry

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Tip of the iceberg

Just a little tip I’ve developed for myself to give me an idea of the possible magnitude of a problem or issue that is being talked about among the parents or students we work with. I call it: tip of the iceberg. If I hear feedback from 3 or more people that do not run in the same circles issuing the same concerns, then I know we’ve got an iceberg situation. I know that when the issue finally comes to me, then it’s probably been circulating among circles of parents and students already. So, should you begin to hear issues or concerns based on my tip, it’s time to address it or offer some solutions before it gets to be a barrier.

and if you are an attendee from the Girls Ministry Forum, this is the hidden post. So do your thing in the comment box to get your google voice number.

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4 Triggers Satan Likes To Use In Attacking People and Girls Ministries

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I had a good conversation with Pam Gibbs, Lifeway Girls Ministry Specialist the other day. That’s the joy of being so close to Lifeway—we can just drop in on people.  It was a quick discussion about what was going on in the girls ministry and in my life, and vice versa. She’s getting ready for a girls conference that is being hosted at Lifeway in about a week. Still time to register and i hear there are going to be some great breakout leaders there :). But in the midst of that conversation it linked up with my previous article about The Deceiver, and I started to discuss how recently I had been aware of some of his activity around me as I planned for events and such. We talked about the reality of spiritual warfare. It was a reminder to both of us that Satan is prowling around. We often go about our lives and forget that we truly need to be alert and on guard to Satan’s attacks. Here are 4 quick triggers that I found written in the back of my teenaged bible this past week. It meant a lot to me then to write it down, and when I stumble across it—those 4 words are always great reminders of how Satan likes to prowl and attack.

Satan wants to DEVOUR. (He is not playing around. He will attack with a flesh wound and then go for the juggler.)
What does he try to devour? Reputations. Marriages. Families. Time spent with God. What else have you seen him try to devour?

Satan wants to DISCOURAGE. This is one in particular that he continually uses to bring me down. And what happens when we’re discouraged? We lose confidence. We become focused on us. We lick our wounds and can’t lift our heads to see others.

Satan wants to DIVIDE. I see this happen a lot in our girls ministries and I see it happen among ministries. If Satan can divide, then he has weakened the impact of the team. Also I like to think of it like this, it’s like a paper cut. You may not think the quick cut to the skin will do much damage, but if that division is not mended properly then an infection sets in and well the rest gets pretty gorey but it ends with gangrene.

Satan wants to DIVERT. This one is kinda clever.  This is when we get off-focus and get away from the mission God called us to in the first place. This is when the gospel kind of gets pushed to the corner for someone’s pursuit of themselves or maybe other motives that are not God-centered. This one could have me stepping on toes—mine first though:).

Now a question for you?  Have you seen this going on lately?  Don’t forget to find encouragement in 1 Peter 5:8-11. 🙂

1 Peter 5:8-11 (MSG)

Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.

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11 Verses To Share With Girls To Guard Their Hearts From The Deceiver

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I was deceived yesterday. It’s an awful feeling. I had begun to build some hopes and plans on this “opportunity” I was inquiring about. See, we are trying to sell our home and after almost 5 months of having to be ready at a moment’s notice to get out and let strangers walk through to see if they want to buy the home, I started realizing how stressed it was making me. That’s when I saw this amazing deal on craigslist that offered a luxury apartment for 1/2 price very close to our church that was pretty snazzy as well. I thought we could move there and wait for our home to sell. I contacted the landlord and she was very nice. She emailed me that someone had tried to move in but something fell through so we were the 2nd in line. All we needed to do was fill out a credit report. Well, we didn’t lose any money but we realized yesterday that she had scammed us so that she would get paid for referrals to this credit report site. There was no apartment for sale. OUCH! I was so hurt. I was angry too because I thought I should have seen this coming. But then I grieved a little over the plan I had figured out in my mind. I had been deceived.
As I was going home, I spoke with a mother who was concerned that her daughter was having a problem recognizing her worth and value. As I heard some of what the daughter was saying about herself, I realized that both this daughter and I bumped into the Deceiver. The definition for DECEIVER is: to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.
You realize that’s what Satan is called in scripture right?

Genesis 3:13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” • The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Just like Eve, It was obvious to me that I had been deceived but I started to wonder how often I am deceived.

So let’s look a little bit more into that. What was the lie that Satan told Eve?

Genesis 3:4-5 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. ?For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

What lies am I buying into that I’ve allowed Satan to whisper into my heart? What lies have taken root and caused insecurities and hurt…some that I may not even be able to see?
Satan’s attack was first to get Eve to question God’s truth. As you read what Satan says, it’s sounds very similar in nature to the “How far is too far” question. Second, Satan Denied God’s truth about death. And finally, Satan told Eve something that she didn’t even know she wanted but then before long, she took a bite.

Here is a list of “I AM” statements that remind us of God’s truth. As you read through them, think through lies your girls and leaders may hear from The Deceiver. Which one of these truths is Satan trying to attack and get them to buy into one of his lies?

1 Corinthians 6:20 (You are not your own. you were bought with a price)
Colossians 3:3 (you died and your life is hidden with Christ)
Phil. 1:6 (God will complete the good work He started in me)
Ephesians 1:5 (I am adopted as His Child)
Ephesians 2:10 (We are God’s workmanship created in christ Jesus to do good works…)
Ephesians 2:19 (we are fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household)
Ephesians 3:12 (We may approach God with freedom and confidence)
Ephesians 2:22 (I am a dwelling in which God lives)
Gal. 2:20 (I am crucified with Christ)
2 Cor. 5:17 ( I am a new creation)
Romans 8:2 (set free from sin)

Now I want to hear from you. Why do you think a particular scripture above is key in guarding the hearts of ours and the girls we work with? What lies do you see being conquered as a result of girls truly leaning into the truth of God’s word above?

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Interview from EEA21.eu regarding girlsministry!

Last week I had the serendipitous moment of meeting with Colin Piper from Europe. Colin is Youth Adviser to the European Evangelical Alliance, and a co-ordinator of EEA21, which is a community of those passionate about reaching young Europeans for Christ. www.eea21.eu is the site that he manages to connect people across Europe that work with students. We were connected through a mutual friend and he asked if he could interview me regarding girlsminister.com to be available to those who were looking for girls ministry resources in Europe. I was delighted to do so. Here is the interview and check out www.eea21.eu for more resources and information.

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Getting girls to click into your student ministry…

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I remember the first day on the job as a girlsminister. It was our fall retreat! I was surrounded by cliques of girls and I couldn’t figure out how to get inside of one of those circles. They all seemed to be looking at me—the new girl—and sizing me up. Didn’t they realize I was an adult and the girls minister?! I think I thought there would be instant connection like there was when I worked summers at the large Christian camps. Just because I was camp staffer, I often had students come up and start talking with me about some pretty heavy things. But, this was not how it was on my first day on the job. There were some sweet people that tried to come over and introduce themselves but mostly it was cliques. Then on Sundays and Wednesdays there was the hallway that I renamed “The Gauntlet”. It was a horrible hallway because you had to walk down it to get into the sunday school room and lining every square inch of wallspace were groups of girls that weren’t talking to me but to each other. Very intimidating! I’m very thankful for the gauntlet and for that first fall retreat because it reminds me of what it feels like to be new in our student ministry. It’s scary!
That’s why I worked with some leaders and some girls to have a strategy to receive new girls into our student ministry. The idea is the 1-2-3 CLICK! method.  Now understand that we don’t just go around saying “hey new girl…this is how we’re going to get you connected in three clicks.” This is just something that I have used to explain to students or leaders to help them understand how to continue reaching out to new people that have been introduced to our student ministry.

Here’s the basic premise:
1. Meet  a girl who is unconnected and introduce her to her peer group.
2. Take her to coffee or introduce her to a peer or leader which will take her to coffee to get to know her.
3. Get her connected to a lifegroup of girls who have hung out with her or introduce her to a relationship building catalyst like Snowball Girls Retreat.  AND CLICK! She’s in.

I have observed that typically after 3 intentional relationship connections from you the leader, to a healthy peer group, to a bonding event or small group and the student will click into a place they feel welcomed and known within your student ministry. How do you get girls connected and help them feel safe, loved and known in your student ministry?

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2010 Girls Ministry Forum For Leaders and Girls

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I’m excited to be leading a conference for the Girls Ministry Forum at Lifeway in February 26-27. I would love to take some students and leaders from our church with me.  If you are interested in attending, let me know.  If you don’t go to Brentwood Baptist and are interested—you need to be there. I know Shelley Johnson is a great worship leader—not to mention there are some other great conference leaders to help facilitate some great conversations if you are wanting encouragement as a leader who works with girls or if you are a student leader. That’s the neat thing about this event—it’s for both adult leaders and girls who are leaders to their peers.  So I hope that you will make it a priority to be in Nashville for this event.  Click on the link below to register or if you are a Brentwood Baptist leader…send me an email or reply to this post and we’ll see if we can get a group together.

Lifeway Girls Ministry Forum

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Our featured artist gets a spot on Threadsmedia.com

Several months ago, we introduced you to Sara Beth and her songs.  She’s continuing to be involved in some new projects. Keep your eyes on the lookout for this one, and get to know her a little bit better. She’s an amazing worship leader! P.S Sara Beth…are you available for Snowball this year—it’s March 5-7.

Sara Beth Geoghegan EPK from Jeff Venable on Vimeo.

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Happy New Year: Girlsminister.com gets an upgrade!

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That’s right…the above picture is a splice of the new toolbar that is embedded on girlsminister.com.  This plugin allows readers to talk with each other and engage with girlsminister.com in ways we’ve not been able to do before.  Some of the features you need to check out:

  • Click on the Translate button and see what the site looks like in any of the 11 languages available.
  • Click on facebook community. This is one feature I am very excited about. When you use facebook connect, you can stay on the site and utilize facebook to talk with readers from girlsminister.com in a very cool way.
  • In addition, we will be using twitter and facebook to announce when we will be live chatting from the site.  You can check out the chat room by clicking on Join Chat.

So many new ways to connect! We’re very excited that now this site can offer some immediate ways for the community to talk straight from this site. Of course you will want to join mygirlsministry.com for more indepth networking features.  mygirlsministry.com offers a real time e-store and the first girls ministry social network for those who work with teen girls and their families.  It’s free so if you enjoy the networking here….make sure to check it out!  Oh and Happy New Year!

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Pixable: Your Girls Ministry’s best friend for memory keeping

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It’s amazing how facebook has revolutionized our ability to save, comment on, celebrate, and keep in touch with memories through the facebook photo tagging abilities.  I know that within hours of an event, I have instant feedback from our students and leaders as they upload their photos to photo albums on facebook and tag me in on the fun.  Sometimes this can be my worst nightmare as we try to educate our students about what should be uploaded and what should not. However, today I just want to live in a naive world and pretend that all pictures are good pictures. You with me?  So wouldn’t it be great to somehow have tangible albums that can be printed off, even passed out the week after an event?  Let me introduce you to Pixable!  It’s pretty simple.      You have all the photographers (ie your students and leaders) now here’s how you can aggregate those into an amazing memory book or calendar.  Image the possibilities! Meet your new best scrapbooking friend. I can’t explain it better then them…so here is Pixable.com!

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