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What if your Facebook account disappeared? What would you lose?

Facebook has been a helpful tool in communicating with family, friends, students, and parents. Prior to facebook, it was extremely difficult to capture photos from participants of retreats or mission trips. In fact, often you would need to have a photo event to receive copies. You wouldn’t get your photos until days, weeks, months after the event hype had passed. There was documentation lost forever because you didn’t bring your camera to an event. Now however, within minutes or hours, photos from your events are tagged on facebook. Now there are pro’s and con’s to this instant documentation, but for today’s post I want to focus on the pro’s of having all these photos instantly categorized and made available. But what happens if Mark Zuckerburg decides for some reason to commit worldwide social network suicide for everyone? What happens if someone figures out a way to break facebook and all that info is lost? Well I’m not saying that will happen but I do not put trust in putting all my digital content in one basket. That’s where SocialSafe comes in.

I paid $8 for the premium service but you can access this for free.  SocialSafe has only been with me for a day but so far, it’s a great option to make sure I have my photos (both uploaded and tagged) , friends (it only copies their facebook profile pic and their name), and wall posts secure in a desktop digital journal should something ever happen to my facebook account.

Check it out and see if that something you could use as well.

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GROUPME: a great way to communicate with teams of people via text

One of the  things I have most enjoyed using in 2010 was this real-time group communications tool via my phone called GROUPME.  It’s free and it has been amazing with many different uses.  Our student ministry staff no longer uses text messaging as our means of communicating with each other because this has been so helpful.  We utilize this so that instantly we all receive the message and in real time we can all view each person’s response.  The downside with text messaging is even if your phone can send a message to multiple recipients, the recipients don’t know who else received the message and they can only respond back to you.  With GROUPME, this is not the case. It’s like a little text conversation for a group. It has brought our team even closer as we can celebrate with each other, joke with each other, grieve with each other over bad news, pray with each other, and instantly alert each other so that no one is left out of important information.  We have even used this tool with our leaders for events.  For example, I’ve set up a groupme text group for a pre-teen retreat and our fall retreat.  I’ve entered in all of the volunteers numbers and instantly we have communication in text that links us all together even when we are spread out across a campus.  It is a time saver when we are doing cabin checks or passing out the student meds or getting bible study supplies to students.  It is really handy because someone in bible study group can quickly use groupme to alert us all that a student has yet to show up. We were quickly able to identify that a cabin had overslept and missed their wake-up call instead of having to run all over campus trying to see where the group was.

You can then terminate the group at the end of retreat so that volunteers don’t get annoyed with the ongoing dialogue.  The only downside is that there are only 25 people allowed to a groupme number.  I had to set up 2 groups for our fall retreat.  They also have a feature if you use the GROUPME iphone app to make a conference call and get everyone on the line.  And now you can upload images that all the group can see and respond to.  Very cool.  So how do you get started?  Just go to groupme.com and you’re ready to start.  But before you do, check out some ways we’re using groupme.

Here are some ways I think you could utilize GROUPME in your ministry to girls:

-Use GROUPME with the girls you are discipling.  Just make sure you create some digital boundaries to mute the conversation after a certain hour.  You might also want to bring in another adult onto the GROUPME just for accountability.

-Use GROUPME for a volunteer checkin with your smallgroups and for announcements for the evening or Sunday AM.

-Use GROUPME for your student staff like we have been doing.

What are some other ways you could utilize GROUPME? Share below.

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Using a lead team for a girls event

One of the things that I have really enjoyed over the years is using a lead team for our girls event. I briefly mentioned it in a previous post about the prayer experience in a bag. I’ve recruited girls to serve on the lead team differently over the years.  Now granted, sometimes there are groups that initially I wondered if we would ever accomplish what we were setting out to do.  Sometimes I have thought that this whole lead team thing is for the birds.  But I keep coming back to the end of the event and the teamwork that comes from working with other volunteers and these wonderful teen girls. So today I’m giving you some of the tips I use for putting together a lead team.

In the past, before we had a Student Lead team that served on Sunday mornings, I would ask Sunday school teachers and lifegroup leaders to submit names of girls they felt should serve on the Snowball lead team.  This way, it helped keep me from appearing like I was “picking” favorites.  Now we have a snowball application that we put online.  We use wufoo forms and post it on a posterous site.  Then we release the link to the Student Lead team and tell them they have a deadline to get their application submitted. Once it’s submitted, then they will be notified that they are on the team if they meet the necessary requirements.

I have found that it’s best to have a team of 10-12th grade girls.  This year, we’re utilizing girls who have already shown a level of commitment by serving every sunday morning as a Student Peer Group table leader.  That means that the girls who apply for Snowball lead team this year are weekly involved with God’s word and help to lead their peers to dig into His word on a weekly basis.   As we gear up for our Snowball lead team planning event, we’ll divide up the team into 3 teams:  Logistics,  Worship, and Fellowship    Each group will be responsible for working on a small group lesson as well.

We’ve done the brainstorming event differently as well. Sometimes we’ve spent the night in a hotel brainstorming and fellowshipping from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning.  Other times we’ve just taken a Sunday afternoon to brainstorm. It sometimes seems like it would be easier to just do it yourself, but I guarantee that in the end, it will be extremely rewarding to everyone involved if you do a little more work on the front end to release the details to teams of students.  You will be amazed at what God does in and through those teams of girls.  What have you seen work when you do a lead team?

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Tips to help your new years resolution for recruiting new volunteers

You may have written some new years resolutions that have to do with finding new volunteers to help out in the girls ministry. If so, today’s post may be helpful to you.

The new year is a great time to look for new leaders and invite them into the girls ministry even if every “slot” (for lack of a better word) is filled.  I have found myself scrambling for leaders at the beginning of a school year, because I wasn’t actively looking for potential leaders in the midst of the previous school year.  The beginning of a new year, is the middle of our small group year so we’re not having to make a mad dash for new leaders. We are simply looking at the groups to see if there are groups ready to multiply and if there are, we need to move leaders into those spaces in order to grow a new group.  So how do you go about recruiting a new leader and growing a group?  This is more than one blog post so today I’ll just post a couple of tips and if it’s helpful, I’ll post some more.

TIPS:

  • At the beginning of a new year I have found that people’s schedules may have changed, so look back through your emails or notes and don’t hesitate to ask someone who originally had been interested months ago but couldn’t due to prior commitments.
  • If you have a retreat coming up, they are great opportunities to invite someone you think would make a great leader to come and just give it a try for a weekend. (Of course you need to ensure that they receive a background check prior to the retreat)  I try to put the new volunteer with a group of girls that may be growing and needs to be multiplied into a new group.  If the volunteer connects with the girls, guess which group she’ll be interested in serving with on a weekly basis—VOILA!
  • At the beginning of a new year, take some time to look at the size of your groups.  If one group is hovering around the 10-15 mark, it’s time to begin moving a new “apprentice” leader into that group.  Once you move a new apprentice leader into that group, it gives the group time to get to know that person before you multiply the group into 2.  It also allows you time to “train” that new leader and they begin to feel comfortable with the girls before they have to officially teach the class.  When the new school rolls around, you have already built in a leader that knows the girls, and “voila” you are ready to birth a new group :).

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Prayer Experience In a Bag

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.


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Time for a girl’s activity

I walked into one of our small groups at the end of December and saw all the girls flipping through calendars and writing each other’s birthdays on the calendars.  They wrote events that they were supposed to remember for the entire year.  I loved what this awesome  leader, Lori Beth, was doing with the girls as an end of the year activity.  This would be an awesome beginning of the year activity with a group of girls you’re mentoring.  Lori Beth shared with me that she had taken a passage to talk with the girls about how they spent their time.  I thought she had told me she used a passage in Hosea but I can’t recall it.  I would use the same activity with:

Psalm 90:12: Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I loved how Lorie Beth  gave each of the girls a calendar to fill up with birthdays of the other girls and leaders.  In addition, you could add things to pray for, you could have the girls mark in certain things throughout the week.  You could obtain some stickers that meant a certain thing for each week and have them apply the stickers for the whole year, like a yellow star  represents when all the girls agree to pray for a certain thing in the group.

Then have them read Psalm 90:12 and talk with them about the importance of numbering our days.

  • What does numbering our days help us to do?
  • When we begin to cherish the days we have been given, how does that impact the purpose and intent of those days?
  • How should our days look different when we follow Christ with our lives?

What beginning of the year activities have you seen work?

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What happens when we begin to taste God’s word for ourselves…

I stumbled across a jewel of a resource in my office this week that I absolutely love and wish was re-published.  It’s called:

Spiritual Journey Notebook.  (wow crazy creative title)  It’s truly a great resource though for discipleship and has some very helpful tools called Theographs, and charts, and —GOSH I love this journal!  (I hear the chants of my elementary friends saying, “Well why don’t you marry it?!) Well I’ve gushed about it enough, but it is a tool that can help in your very important covenant with your Saviour.  It can be legalistic if you allow it to become a checklist instead of a tool, but the theographs are a great guide for discipleship.  If you can find one…get it!

It was written by Milt Hughes.  Here is the information you can use to look for it on the internet.

But the main reason I am passing this along to you is because of the theograph that discusses the level of responses to Scripture.

It’s a great reminder of why we need to journey with scripture continually so that we literally  are moved into action and not just stopping at receiving.

1. HEAR: Romans 10:17  Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

2. READ:  Luke 4:16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,

3. STUDY: Acts 17:11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

4. MEMORIZE: Psalm 119:11,13 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.   With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.

5. MEDITATE: Psalm 119:148 My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,
that I may meditate on your promises.

6. DO: James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

I love that each response is more of a taste of God’s word than the response before.  I love that we see that once you start sampling God’s word, you can’t stop yourself from getting more.

I think if we looked at this more and stopped long enough to get a bite of God’s word, we would find ourselves truly longing to saturate our lives with it.  Surely if more of our students and families followed this, we’d have different stats than Barna’s book: Index of leading Spiritual indicators which says—34% of U.S. adults claim to open the bible once a week outside of church.  7.5% claim to read it daily.

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When tribes don’t mix…

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who is also a leader of one of our girl groups. She has great insight and also some of the most unique ways of looking at a situation. It was our desire to have a get together for an entire grade, instead of just lifegroups. As we discussed it, the following illustration was used:

maybe this is like “back in our history” when  you knew certain indian tribes didn’t get along. And if they ended up in the same space, war would take place between the two and scalping would be the evidence of the battle.

I absolutely agreed that if we mixed these two groups, that we’d see history repeat itself and these groups may try everything including scalping each other. Each group is a different organism with different personalities, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. I believe that it is important to continue to build healthy all-grade opportunities of fellowship, but be aware that for some middle school groups, it may be “best for the rest” to keep them in their small group habitat until around 9th grade.  If you have observed that two groups don’t mix well and you’ve tried it unsuccessfully then move into different strategies.

  • Talk to them about being sisters in Christ with other girls through some bible study series on friends and relationships.
  • Help them to become other’s focused through service projects.
  • Look for girls who can be a bridge into the other group.
  • Teach them to pray for the other group, by ending every lesson and having the group pray for a specific girl from that group each week.

These are some of the things we’ve seen happen for some girl tribes that didn’t mix well at first. Remember that this is like a spiritual lab.  Don’t get frustrated, but take heart in knowing that you have the opportunity to help girls know what to do when they don’t like someone.  Help them to look for value in that person and help them to know that God changes our hearts towards people by changing our heart about people. What about you? What have you seen work or not work with tribes?

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Those days happen in ministry…

So this month marks the completion of my 8th year as a girls minister at Brentwood Baptist. Within those years I’ve learned so much. I’m planning on doing a post just on some of the things I’ve learned over the last 8 years. But regardless of the years or the classes I’ve taken, I’m still sometimes taken aback by girls in various situations. Sometimes I’m caught off guard in a positive way, sometimes in a negative way. Sometimes it’s the perfect storm and their unstable emotions collide with my high expectations for them to act my age…
So in an attempt to offer a real glimpse into girls ministry, I’ll share a perfect storm moment from the other day.
We have seen over the years that our saturday recreation event:Gender specific Flag football, has exploded in popularity. I think people start putting together their teams as soon as our Fall retreat ends to begin preparing for the next year. Ironically, this fall retreat recreation option was the brainchild of myself and our then intern Brian who now is our student pastor at our Station Hill campus. It truly is a fun event, but I no longer coach as my involvement was causing teams of girls to not see me as a girls minister but as the coach of the team that they lost to. So this has been the 5th year I have not coached. Other than coaching, there has been this unofficial t-shirt making frenzy that has evolved. Girls now bring t-shirts to their small groups to decorate them for their Football team. It’s a great fellowship idea but…
I was subbing this past Wednesday and stepped into a group that has already gotten the t-shirts and glitter paint out. They were determining what their t-shirt numbers would be. I was getting ready for them to begin their lesson. I told them that we would do the lesson and then spend the last half decorating shirts. They agreed. It wasn’t until the middle of my lesson that I discovered they were still secretly using hand signals to communicate who would be what number, and some girls were secretly painting their shirts behind me. Now these girls and I know each other. I love them. BUT I lost it! I wanted them to crave the lesson which was on hiding God’s word in your heart. I had gone to the trouble of getting special verses for each one to begin to memorize this week. I was so disappointed. Why didn’t they value biblestudy and pick an alternative time to do their girl fellowship? Why didn’t they recognize that this was the purpose of the evening?
We ended our lesson with prayer that was requested by one of the girls.  There were good things that happened outside of the group, but my hopes for that lesson were dashed. I couldn’t help but laugh when another group of girls ran up so proud to show me their “cupcake” football tshirts. So other groups were doing this too. Awesome! (note heavy sarcasm)

So here’s my take-away…The girls were pouring every ounce of their energy into making those beautiful t-shirts that they were missing out of hearing from God’s word.  I wonder for myself what’s my distraction that I am pouring all of my attention to, that is causing me to miss out on hearing something from God’s word?

The other thing I thought of is that next year I’m making a t-shirt decorating event for students to get their shirts designed so that it won’t take up the time allotted for bible study. 🙂
Those are my thoughts…and those kind of things happen.

What about you?

I know the above story may seem like a pretty tame day to you.  It’s definitely not the worst day in ministry…but it was just a frustrating day in ministry.  So what about you?  What middle-of-the-road experience have you had lately that just honestly frustrated you, but God allowed you to see something about yourself…or gave you an idea…or maybe it’s still to be seen what could happen from the story?  Share below.  It’d be good to know I’m not alone in having these kind of ministry days.

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Support & Encourage Girls Ministry – A Guys View

Today we have a guest contribution from the guy’s perspective. You might say we found a guy student minister to give us a piece of his mind:) Okay, but I am excited about today’s article. I love getting to meet and share new blog friends. And Josh is someone  I’ve been meaning to introduce to the girlsminister.com community for awhile. Josh Cosineau is The Youth Pastor of East Auburn Baptist Church in Auburn, Maine. He also is a Youth speaker & teacher. He has a beautiful wife named Anna and they have two sons. I asked Josh to share some insight from a guy’s perspective to help guys who work with girls and for us to hear some encouragement from a male student minister. He did an amazing job so I hope this will be one you read and pass on. Thanks Josh for taking the time to share with us today and on behalf of girl leaders everywhere—thanks for helping us to gain a little bit of a guy’s perspective and truly partnering with us as sisters in Christ. We are so thankful! Don’t forget to check out the questions that Josh gave us at the end of us article. Hopefully it will be something you can use to begin or continue some much needed dialogue between your other gendered co-laborers.

By Josh Cousineau
http://joshcousineau.com

Support & Encourage Girls Ministry – A Guys View

As a male youth pastor I am constantly faced with the challenge of attempting to minister to teens of the opposite sex. I am very blessed to have great female leaders on my team and most likely do not thank them enough for the work they put into the ministry. One key component to any youth ministry is addressing the different issues that guys and girls will face. If your ministry is a ‘one-size fits all’, you may need to rethink your approach. If you don’t see or understand the difference between guys and girls, then you’re definitely not married, and most likely need to evaluate your methods of ministry. It is in these differences that we see the wonders of God’s creation. They also make clear our dire need for a great leadership team that is comprised of not only godly men, but also women who love Jesus and want to serve Him. Our reaction to the female leaders, how we see their authority and leadership, will have great impact upon the girls and guys within our ministry.

Below I attempt to answer two questions that will help us think through these two drastically different areas of our ministry. These lists are far from exhaustive, but my hope is that they will help you think through the role of girl’s ministry in your youth group.

  • How to support and encourage girl’s ministries.
  • Have female leaders – I know it may sound simple but to really minister to the girls in your youth group you must have great girl leaders. It is more natural for us as men to draw men and work with men than to draw and work with woman. Nonetheless, bringing women leaders on-board is vital to the health and growth of your ministry and the girls within our ministry.
  • Treat them like your sister – If our view of the women leaders and the girls in our ministry is anything less than that of a sister, it is un-biblical (1 Tim. 5.2). Don’t fool yourself; men constantly fail because of the lust of our flesh. We have an improper view of the girls in our ministries, both leaders and students. The Bible calls us to view them as sisters. If you struggle in this area GET HELP!!! A great place to start is a little booklet called Sexual Detox. If you can’t afford it message me I will get it for you.
  • Treat them as Jesus did – All throughout the Bible Jesus not only had women serve Him, but He also served them. He did not use them nor abuse them. On the contrary, He loved them, cared for them and saw their worth and value in His ministry. How much more of an example do we need than to treat them as Jesus did? Here are a couple passages that point out the great care and love Jesus had for women and His earthly ministry.

1. Matt. 26.6-12
2. Mark. 15.40-41
3. Luke. 10.37-42
4. John. 4.1-45
5. John. 7.53-8.11
6. John. 19.25-27
7. John. 20.14-18

  • Point them towards Jesus – Our goal is not to impress them, to show them we know how to do it, or to be the end all. No, we are to point them to Jesus. Our love, care, support and encouragement as we treat them like a sister will help lead them towards Jesus. Pray for them, speak the gospel to them, and above all point them towards the only man in life that really matters, Jesus.
  • Their worth is in Jesus – We need all our students, parents and leaders to understand their standing with Jesus as opposed to their standing with us. This is even more true with the females on our team. They are loved by Jesus, accepted by Jesus and adopted by Jesus. We are merely to point them towards this understanding of Jesus.
  • Stay away – When all is said and done we need to just stay away. This does not mean that we are to never talk to girls, but trust me guys, girls want their space. Get great female leaders, treat them as Jesus did, love them and point them to Jesus. Then trust the Spirit and stay away!

The second part of this is; (2)  How can women help us?

The truth is that most of us guys just don’t get women. Regardless of age, we have a hard time understanding them. That is why it is vital to the ministry of the gospel within youth ministries to have female leaders who love Jesus above all and want to serve the girls in your ministry. Here are a couple things you as a female leader can do to help us men.

  • Make it clear – We may need a flannel-graph to better understand it, but please help us understand what you need, how we can support you, and how to pray for you. Even if you say it, we may not get it (yeah, we are that numb).
  • Pray for us – Please pray that God will work in our lives to help us support you. Deep down we are all a little scared. Picture the junior-high dance where the boys are on one side and girls on the other, yeah that is still us. We are timid and need the Spirit to help us.
  • Tell us the truth – We need to know not only what you’re saying, but how we are doing. Women have a great way of seeing the real us. Please let us know when we are too blunt, too weak, or whatever else it may be. We need to know what it is that girls struggle with, and how we can help you through struggles, and help you support the girls in the ministry.

My hope for this list is not that it will address everything that comes into play within a youth ministry with regards to guys/girls ministry, but that it will start a conversation. Here are a couple questions that may help spark dialog.

Guy Leaders to Girl Leaders – [ask these questions in a group setting]

* How can I help point you to Jesus?
* Do I treat you and the girls in the ministry like sisters?
* Are there any areas in my ministry/life that may make a girl feel uncomfortable?
o If so how can I address these?
* Where am I numb when it comes to girls?

Girl Leaders to Guy Leaders – [ask these questions in a group setting]

* Are there actions or behaviors that the female leaders or girl teens do within the ministry that cause you to stumble or issues we can address?
* Am I doing anything inappropriate towards the leaders or teen guys?
* Do you feel supported in my role as a female leader?