So the most recent social app your students may not be telling you about, is called Snap Chat.  Snap chat is a mobile app that allows the user to take a photo, set a timer of up to 10 seconds, scribble or put text on it, and send it to a friend or group of friends.  This app is catching on like wildfire.  You can imagine the wholesome entertainment this app fosters. (insert sarcasm)

Just check out how Snap chat promotes their app by the following picture.

It’s the perfect environment for “Sexting”.  In fact, check out this ad found on a college site that encourages the use of Snap Chat for sexting:

In an interview with Snap Chat’s CEO, he explained that sexting is not the motivation of the app.

According to Snapchat’s 22-year-old co-founder and CEO, Evan Spiegel, “it doesn’t actually make sense for sexting. Because you see the photo for, what, three seconds?”
Snapchat photos don’t last very long.

Regardless of the cavalier response of CEO Spiegel in regards to the transmission of photos this app is trafficking to it’s users phones, there are several reasons to be concerned with this app.  Snap chat arms immature minors (there are no age restrictions) with an easy way to send photos of themselves and others that could have long lasting consequences past the 1 to 10 second timer on the app.

This app allows you to send risky photos to friends or groups of friends, seemingly without the consequences of regret.  Or is there? Read the snap chat FAQ’s regarding saving images. Also note that the app doesn’t mention that persons can utilize third party devices like camera’s or another person’s phone to capture screenshots without the individual’s knowledge.

FAQ:

Is there any way to view an image after the time has expired?

No, snaps disappear after the timer runs out. You can save snaps that you capture by pressing the save button on the preview screen.

What if I take a screenshot?

Screenshots can be captured if you’re quick. The sender will be notified immediately.

Snap chat is currently sharing more than 10 million images a day.

Questions for students:

WHY SNAP CHAT? 

I’m having a hard time being convinced that there is a good reason to use Snap Chat. I usually can figure out some creative ways to “redeem” a piece of technology for good. I suppose you could take a picture of scripture and send it out to your friends for quick motivation and encouragement. Although they better read it quick or it will be gone in 10 seconds.  Or you could take a quick pic of your favorite “fish face” funny face and send it for a quick laugh…however—that’s not why this app is so popular.  It’s the self-destruct timer that makes this app so appealing.

If you have to put a self-destruct timer on your picture in order for you to want to send it to your friends, then you most likely don’t need to send it.

People have fun applying various “filters” to their pictures on instagram.  I would encourage students to apply some “filters” to this app.

FILTER 1: Would I send this photo if I knew it would survive past my time limit of 1-10 seconds?

FILTER 2: Does sending this photo encourage sexual thoughts in the mind of the receiver?

FILTER 3: Last but definitely not least, let’s make sure we apply the filter of scripture to the activities we are participating in.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 (ESV) For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV) Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Philippians 4:8 (NLV) And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Hopefully this is helpful in equipping you to make a decision on if you or a student you know should participate in Snap chatting.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a moment to write on girlsminister.com. I’ve been busy being a girlsminister, ironically, and haven’t had the chance to put my thoughts into posts. I’ve had several post ideas pop into my heart this week as I had conversation after conversation with students AND leaders. More so than any other summer, I’ve really observed how easily many of the girls in our ministry have given their hearts away. Whether they’ve given their hearts away to crush on a boy band, or to a college guy that led their small group this summer or they’ve given their hearts away to instagram and how many people like their “selfies”. As a result, the theme for this post could best be summarized into three words. GUARD YOUR HEART.

It’s a phrase from scripture that honestly I often heard tossed about by Christian girls to girls that just got dumped. In fact, I think I almost decked a girl once who dropped her advice of guarding my heart too soon after I got dumped in college. As I look back on that, I know she was right, but it was not the right timing. My heart had already been broken in two. It’s like saying to someone who just got robbed, “You should have locked the doors.” It wasn’t the right timing. They needed someone from the Neighborhood Watch to get to them before and let them know the things they could do before a robbery happened. That’s the intent of today’s post. It’s a sisterhood watch, so to speak, before the break in occurs.

Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”
Girls, your heart is your most valuable treasure to guard. Based on the above scripture, what you give your heart to, you will also follow with your whole life. Meaning, where your heart goes—-so go your dreams, your passions, your focus…the very direction that leads you from the now to the future. Your heart, in a sense, is a compass to where you headed.

If you want to get a glimpse of your future, take a look at what you’ve given your heart to and you may be able to see where you’re headed.

The picture here is that you are to guard your heart like a valuable item. Do not make it easy for people, places or things to gain access to your heart. You have a guard standing there at the only entrance into your heart, and you say to people, places and things—you may enter, or you can’t enter.

This is why it’s absurd for you to tell me that it doesn’t matter who you date,it only matters who you marry. This is why it’s absurd for you to tell me that you pursue a guy based on his body and not based on if he’s IN The Body [of Christ].

Whatever you give entrance to your heart—MATTERS! Guard your heart!

How? Glad you asked.
Philippians 4:7-10 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Let me break it down for you.
1. “The peace of God guards hearts and minds”
You are not doing this in your own strength. In other words, when you have struggles with your thought life, pray to God to help guard against the things that are trying to get in. Don’t just give up and entertain the thoughts and feelings. Call attention to The Guard of your heart and mind. Shine light on those thoughts! Ask Him to kick those thoughts out and replace them with things that are worthy of Him.

2. “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS”
It’s not like you go on through your day not thinking and pursuing things with your heart. It’s just that you begin to “THINK ON” whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely…EXCELLENT.”
That means the way you think about guys. And I know you think your thoughts are private…but ladies those thoughts quickly move to action and that’s why you find yourself acting crazy at 1am in the morning with a goofy note that you are trying to send to a college leader.  Then it gets awkward because you’ve given your heart away and it’s out there for someone to simply break.
Is it pure to talk about guys like they are a piece of meat? no.
Is it lovely to to throw yourself at guys and pursue them? no.
Is it commendable to obsess over guys (even One Direction)? No (and a BIG NO)!
As you begin to invite Christ to “search your heart”, and to give you the desire to pursue the things of Christ—you’ll begin to see why treating guys like eye candy is anything but lovely. You’ll begin to see guys as your brothers in Christ. You’ll begin to see them as Christ sees them and treat them as valuable.

These were just some thoughts that have been on my heart. My heart aches for girls and women that give their hearts to guys and things instead of guarding their heart as the treasure it truly is. There is a war for our hearts ladies. Guard them!

Here’s just a few ways to help you guard your heart:
1. Find a group of friends that have the same mission of guarding their heart, and give them a list of heart security questions to ask you on a regular basis.

2. Start your day asking God to give you strength and wisdom regarding what you allow into the treasured heart you possess so that your life that day chases after the things of God and away from The thief of this world.

3. Read from God’s word daily to continue to thirst after the life God gives.

Take away: Just as you could not imagine hearing in the news that Fort Knox was giving it’s security guards the day off,  you yourself cannot walk through the places you live without guarding your heart day in and day out.  Do not trust someone else to guard your heart for you.  It’s your treasure to protect for life.

Have you recently heard the girls you work with talking about One Direction?  Have they whispered about it during Sunday School and you dismissed it thinking “what a great teacher I am. They must be talking about the only direction that matters…following Christ?!” Well you’ve been bamboozled if you thought that…they are talking about the newest boy band sensation.

Confession time:  if you think boy bands are powerless, you are mistaken.  I fell prey to their persuasive allure myself when I was in middle school.  Everyone of my friends had picked out a NOKTB to “love” and I too decided to align myself with one particular member.  I didn’t pick Jordan cuz everyone picked Jordan.  I didn’t pick Jonathan because he was not really a leader.  I didn’t pick Joey because I had the foresight to recognize that baby voice would be changing shortly and his powers of high pitchedness would be gone.  I didn’t pick Danny because well, can you blame me?  I was superficial.  I picked Donnie.

Now to be fair, I owe Donnie a lot.  He got me through the painful wall sit during the Presidential Fitness challenge.  Instead of thinking of the pain, I prayed for Donnie’s soul.  Why did I do this?  Because even as an 8th grader I knew we couldn’t be together unless he too were a Christian.  Now that’s spiritual maturity…or so I thought back then.  The thing is, I know first hand what it feels like to be under the power of a boy band.  It’s rough giving your loyalty to a group that has no idea who you are and will eventually begin to develop male pattern baldness and fall off the scene before you graduate from college.  And as a girls minister who has lived through a few boy bands that have risen and fallen, and watched what they do to the teen girls we work with, I felt like it was time to give some attention to this “One Direction” so you can seem knowledgeable when the topic arises.

Imagine my surprise when two guys named Rhett and Link whom I just discovered on youtube and jellytelly.com yesterday (thanks to my husband @dgirardier), decided to cover this topic on their morning webcast.  It’s just a humorous look at the 5 guys that make up the band, but it is informative if you’ve never heard of One Direction. 

QUICK TIP FROM GIRLSMINISTER.COM ON WHAT TO DO WITH BOY BAND OBSESSIONS:
One thing’s for certain…boy band obsessions are a reality. Just like Beiber Fever breaking out, you’ll have girls swooning over One Direction. If you do have a serious case of unreality setting in for a middle school girl who really aligns herself with one person in the band, you may need to help her play the movie forward and realize that the only direction she’ll be headed with this obsession is Dissapointmentville: population 1.

1. Begin to help her “tell a better story” with her life, than the one of obsessing over every detail of this boy band.
2. Do some dreaming with her about how she can make a difference right now with her life.
3. Partner her with a girl who is older than her and inoculated from the boy band virus. It may distract her long enough from her obsession to be mentored by a cool older girl who knows what she’s doing with her life.
4. Start an ongoing challenge with her called “no boy band trivia challenge”. If she provides you with boy band trivia, she has to do ____________. But if she makes it 48 hours without looking at, talking about, or listening to said boy band then she gets to do _________.
5. Memorize Colossians 3:2 together. Ask her what difference it would make to “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Just some tips.

I’ve been home a week now from the hospital since having Baby G added to the family.  One of the books that we read commented on how the mom should continue to wear the hospital tags as a reminder to herself and her family that she is still recovering and still a patient.  My husband encouraged me to do that this week, and we’ve had fun with it.  It’s actually been a reminder to me not to be some superwoman who tries to do everything.  For me, there were physical limitations that I truly am not able to do, and several times I or my husband would stop and remind me that I was still a patient. Through this experience,  I was thinking about our role as ministers to girls.  Sometimes these girls we love on look more adult than they really are.  We forget that they are still learning, growing, and needing specialized care during these formative years.  I have to stop and remind myself sometimes what it was to be that age, and then I have an AH HA moment that recalls the drama of girl friendships, or not getting asked to a dance, or etc etc.

So today I want you to pretend that each girl you minister to has a “hospital tag” on their wrist.  I want you to remember that you have been placed in their life to help them grow in Christlikeness.  The job you are doing is worth more than you know.  1 Timothy 4:8 says: while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

What are ways you can help the girls God has placed in your life to be trained in godliness?   If you have only been having “girl talks” with no intentional margin to bring God into the conversation, I urge you to begin to pray about how you can do just this with the girl or girls you know. Maybe you don’t even know where they are in their walk with Christ…FIND OUT.  Begin there.

From that point on, begin praying for the teen girl God has placed in your life and see what God is calling you to do in their life to help them grow into a healthy young woman who knows her identity and purpose in Christ first and foremost.

A couple of weeks ago, girlsminister.com experienced a hacker breaking into the site. Thankfully, I was in the site when the break-in occurred which allowed me to work with my IT guy, (also known as my husband) to regain control of my site. Thankfully when we got back into the site, we found that all of my content was still active. However, it had all been moved into the trash can. Most of my photos that accompany each article had been deleted, but we were able to save all the posts. Unfortunately, it has been a tedious clean-up job. I am thankful that we were able to save the site, but I wanted to inform you why some articles are missing pictures and appear broken. It was a weird feeling to have someone working behind the scenes to sabotage the site. It has been a reminder that in our ministry to girls and families, we are up against a much more dangerous hacker who regularly is setting up schemes and trying to hack his way into our everyday stories. So today, be on guard. When you least expect it—the deceiver shows up. Go to this article for ways that Satan tries to hack us and our ministry to girls and families: The Deceiver
As for us, we’ll keep updating and renovating the site until it’s back to it’s old self.

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.