Posted on

Former Motley Crue Body Guard Now Offers a Message Of Truth To Parents and Daughters

fathertalk

Ephesians 6 1-4

1.Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; 3.That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4.And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I have had the opportunity to see several fathers help their daughters understand their true identity in Christ.

One such father has had a unique background as a bodyguard that has provided him with too many first hand stories that have given him a perspective that not many people have had. I have a great deal of respect for his two daughters and thought it would be interesting to have his input as a father of daughters on this site. Here are some of the snippets he provided me. I have broken it down into two sections. The first section works best for parents and the final section is addressed to daughters. Thanks Ron for sharing with us your story and mostly thanks for modeling for your daughters true love from a father. I recently heard from a father that works with my husband that the job of the daddy is to fill the love tank of the daughter so much that she doesn’t go looking for someone to fill her love tank. You are definitely doing that with your daughters!

And without further ado…here’s Ron:

TO PARENTS:

I have, in the past, had the rare honor of working with some of the top recording acts in the history of music; first as a tour manager and then as bodyguard. In both jobs I was charged with the safety and welfare of the acts to which I was entrusted. It was a passion. It was not a hobby and it was one I was forced to put my life on the line for more than once.

When I started I was not saved by Grace and aware of the boundless attributes of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I lacked instruction in all areas of life. I lived to be a part of the events that shaped music and I thrived on the vast expression and uniqueness of our time.

When my daughter, Angelique, was born I was Vince Neil, the lead singer of Motley Crue’s, (Voice of the Decade of Decadence) body guard,. and we were on tour with Van Halen (Run’in with the Devil). Every night, in every town their where large crowds of rabid fans willing to do anything to see, touch, talk to, or party with the band. They would go to great lengths to show their admiration like climb through heating and air ducts at the arena s, break into hotel rooms, rush the tour buses and limos–you name it and they would try it. Then there were the more sinister and seedy characters associated with the events. People that were jealous, addicted, thieves and scoundrels of every type; people dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. These same people confront our daughters, in our home communities and will be surrounding them when they leave our homes for college and at the work place.

I used and still use the same three principles of protection, providing understanding and staying strong for my artists as I do for my teenage girls –Vigilance, Instruction, Endurance.

Being a writer I spend a great deal of time researching new words. I even look up words I feel comfortable using but want a clearer understanding of their usage. It is the case with the two words that make up the commands for child rearing in Ephesians 6 both words are important and both set the tone and pattern for raising my teenage daughters

Nurture 1. to feed and protect:. to support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster: 3. to bring up; train; educate.

Admonition 1. to caution, advise, or counsel against something. 2. to reprove or scold, esp. in a mild and good-willed manner: 3. to urge to a duty; remind: to admonish them about their obligations.

As a parent of daughters I will endure regardless of the struggle to keep my daughters pure. It may not be popular and you may rail against our authority but in the end you will be glad we cared enough to challenge you into making the right decisions that will allow you to grow with dignity, and respect for yourselves and others and most importantly GOD.

Deuteronomy 6:6-8 6 “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”

Ron continually talks with his daughters about God’s commandments. I asked him to share with us what he would share with his daughters. Here is a snippet he wrote to teenaged daughters everywhere:

TO DAUGHTERS:

Girls if you have seen the movie (chick flick) 27 Dresses (that’s right I have seen it 3 times) there is an amazing GOD moment in it. The heroin is an extraordinary wedding planner who meets the hunky newspaper writer, that is forced to write gooey romanticized articles about marriage for his magazine when in reality he hates the very thought of marriage. When he falls in love with the wedding planner he writes a satirical piece about her 27 theme weddings, that embarrasses her. In the make up scene the writer admits to the wedding planner that there is one part of the wedding ceremony he has always loved, “the moment when the groom looks back at the bride coming down the isle and realizes that is his wife forever.”

GOD paints a similar picture in Isaiah 62:5 As a young man marries a maiden… as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” One of the most beautiful pictures painted for us as believers is the triumphant return of GOD to take to himself his faithful believers in Christ. He looks at us not only as his prize but as HIS for eternity.

The question for us all is obedience. Are we willing to live holy lives set apart from the fallen world? Including how we talk, act, and here’s a big one girls – how we dress. Again the bible set the standard 1 Peter 3:3 beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes (or few cloths at all). 4.Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5.For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.

In the movie “The Producers” Uma Thurman sings a song “If You Got it Flaunt it.” The gist of this comedic ditty is to “put your assets on display.” Listen this lack of discretion bears consequence. First in how you see yourself, how others see you, and finally and most importantly how GOD sees you. According to an intense Kinsey Institute study, the average man forms a thought about sex approximately every two minutes, and that he generally ponders the thought for about a minute, 50 seconds before letting go of it. When my girls were in middle school being taught about appropriate touching their was a song about the “No-No Zones.” Ladies if your No-No Zones have less that 3-5 inches of fabric between them and the great outdoors, factoring in the data of the Kinsey report, than at school, or on the streets, or at the beach you have been visually violated thousands of time a day.

Now imagine GOD is in your High School this afternoon and comes upon you and sees your lack of discretion. Would you be embarrassed? It is not the way GOD intended you to be.

I go through this discussion every month and I will continue to go through it and not be swayed. I know what bad girls look like. As I said they came into my back stage areas every night Not all of them were intending to be bad. But they dressed revealing as much as possible without being arrested, hung out with girlfriends, who themselves may not have been bad people, but in the areas of appropriate behavior felt going for it was– OK. They almost always ended up in compromising, harmful, and even dangerous situations. We are living in the age of STD’s and AIDS and the consequences of turning from GODS intended plan for you young ladies, our daughters, is devastating. As a parent of daughters I will endure regardless of the struggle to keep my daughters pure. It may not be popular and you may rail against our authority but in the end you will be glad we cared enough to challenge you into making the right decisions that will allow you to grow with dignity, and respect for yourselves and others and most importantly GOD.

Thanks Ron for sharing a little of your heart with us.  Ron Camacho has authored and co-authored several books (Chicken soup for the country soul, From the heart of racing, and The Last Dragon: Tear Falle).  He is a great dad and husband and his daughters are a joy to have in our girls ministry.  I hope you have enjoyed hearing from his heart.  We look forward to bringing some more dads into the girlsminister.com conversation.  And if you are a daddy, may you continue to fill up your daughter’s love tank to overflowing so that she learns first from you what a Godly man is and sets her up to look for that in her own marriage relationship.



Posted on

Girlsminister.com features last freebie song from Sara Beth.

picture-2Today is our last time to feature a new song from Sara Beth Geoghegan .  Sara Beth thanks so much for sharing these songs with us.  If you have enjoyed them on here but want to have them to take with you, then you will rejoice in knowing Sara Beth is on itunes. Click here to launch her itunes page .

Here is Sara Beth one final time to share her heart about one of her new songs:

Other Side of the Cloud:  I was taking a walk with a good friend in New
Orleans at Audubon Park.  It is a beautiful park across the street from my
grandparents house, so it feels like home to me. However, I had just
broken off an engagement and was having a severe crisis of faith and
identity.  I asked my friend Toy if I would ever emerge from the heavy
darkness I had recently entered into.  She told me the story a mentor had
told her when she had been in her own intense darkness, doubting that she
would ever be “normal” again.  There was a bird in the middle of a stormy
cloud.  She was lost.  She was fumbling around for light.  She felt
oppressed by the dark cloud.  She spent some time in the cloud, learning
how to navigate when there wasn’t much visually to see.  Everything felt
confusing and hard, but she kept going.  When she finally reached the end
of the cloud, she burst out into the light.  And the sky was more
beautiful for the time she was in the dark cloud.  She flew higher and the
sun felt warmer, she was ABLE to really experience life as a result of the
dark.  After Toy told me the story, we continued to walk, and I began to
BELIEVE I would emerge on the other side of the cloud…

Thanks Sara Beth!  I know there are times when it is hard to imagine that the cloud will pass in our lives.  I know that in my life the cloud was darkest when my father passed away.  In the midst of the cloud, I think I even felt like God had cut Himself off from me even though I knew that was not possible.  Still I just began to get angry with Him and numb towards everything else, until the day the cloud began to have rays of sunshine break through.  It was almost 5 months of the cloud, and then I simply spoke to God about how angry I was.  That was the first step.  Then the healing began.  The warmth of better days called to me and I knew there was still life to be lived.  And now looking back, this side of the cloud is much brighter, more vivid, and my understanding of God’s love and healing more felt—more real—more needed.  Thanks Sara Beth for helping put music to a powerful picture of healing and moving forward in life.  You are  a blessing.
[mp3]https://girlsminister.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/04-other-side-of-the-cloud1.mp3[/mp3]Click on the player to hear Sara Beth Geoghegan’s song “Other Side of The Cloud”.

Posted on

Dora the explorer grows up…what’s she looking for now?

dora-little

Have you heard recently about Dora the Explorer getting a new look?

Dora the Explorer is growing up. The bilingual pre-school favorite is getting a tween makeover thanks to Mattel and Nickelodeon. Besides having a new line of toys and products to sell, Mattel wants Dora to age with her audience and “experience the new things” fans are going through.

I know that there have been a lot discussions among the mom networks about if the teen Dora is dressed provacatively.  I have other questions about the intent of a teen Dora. I know as an Aunt, my nieces both watch Dora.  I have thought it was great for them to allow Dora to take them on an exploration of her world and culture. They have learned and have been entertained. I just hope for their sake that teen Dora doesn’t take them on an exploration to help her look for her Identity, Significance, and Purpose.  It will be interesting to see what Nickelodeon decides to use Teen Dora to help viewers explore.  It’s kinda sad that even the animated world of girldom apparently is being asked to grow up.  Poor Dora…I just hope she doesn’t start hanging out with The Bratz dolls or start watching Gossip Girl. Interested to see what your thoughts on a Teen Dora might be.

Posted on

Girls Ministry Mom moment: Walking the last few weeks with your Senior Girl…

grad

This past week I had the opportunity to have a special conversation with a mom of one of our senior girls.  I had the conversation while I was visiting at my childhood home and as we talked about some of the emotions and conversations and words that had been exchanged between parents and the soon-to-be-grad, I couldn’t help but remember some of those words come from my own mouth within the walls of the house I was sitting in.   As I continued to listen and share with my friend over the phone, I remembered some key things about how I perceived those pre-graduation weeks.  I had the unique privilege of talking this through with my mom as an adult and I think what we reflected on could be helpful to some moms that are preparing to let their little girl graduate from High School in the next couple of weeks.

Priorities are in the eye of the beholder. Remember that while you are taking in all the days of their life and trying to soak up the remaining moments you have with them, that they are not fully grasping the big picture like you are.  There are so many decisions, last moments, celebrations, and school projects that they are experiencing sensory overload.  For my mother and I, we reflected on what was priority for me and what was priority for her in those last few months before I left for college.

For the mother: She wanted to make sure she covered the basics of life and more so she tried to cleverly “invite” me into some projects that she thought I needed to learn.  For example, usually during the 5 o’clock hour if I was at home—I used that time to “chillax”.  My mom recognized this need in me over the years and would let me unwind by just vedging in front of the tv until dinner was ready.  However, as I neared Graduation day, I found that she “interrupted” this time with sentences like, “Hey Amy-Jo, can you come here for a second. I want you to help me with this ______(insert project).”  I didn’t see what she was really doing.  She was rushing to make sure that I got as many opportunities to learn things for the “real world” as she could cram into those days.  She never said this was what she was doing, so it was just irritating to me at times.  I didn’t know that sometimes she was feeling like she was failing me by not teaching me how to do some tasks like making mashed potatoes from scratch.

For the daughter: priorities were to have closure with my friends and family—but mostly friends.   In fact it didn’t fully hit me that I would be leaving home (mom and dad) and the comforts/amenities/ familiarities that this home had provided for 18 years.  It didn’t hit until I was on a mission trip in The Virgin Islands on the night before we left to come home.  My summer was just about to end, and I knew things were never going to be the same.  I wept on the floor of that bathroom in my hotel room until about 2am.  I wept again the next day when I found my old beatup high school car had gotten a sun-roof installed because my dad wanted to make sure there was enough ventilation for me as I drove to college.  Emotions were roller coasters for me those weeks before graduation and leaving for college.  Sometimes they ranged from anger at my parents not realizing how independent and grown-up I was.  Then quickly they would plummet to almost child-like needs.

I couldn’t get enough time with my friends.  I think it’s because I wanted to be with people that knew me…knew inside jokes…and were going through the same emotional transformations I was.  Because of this need…this pull…I sometimes chose friends over family more than I probably should have.  The night I left for college my friends sat on my stairs in my home talking, giggling, and remembering as my mom and I loaded up the car.  They stayed until about 3am the morning we left. I was the first to go to college.  It was almost like a wake for them.

Priorities are different for the mom and the daughter during this time.

  • Mom may focus on “daughter time” and “holding on” as well as trying to train daughter in those last minute skills.
  • Daughter is clinging to friends and trying to claim her independence all at the same time as trying to say goodbye to things that she has known her whole life. There is often a whiplash between nostalgia and a need to grow up.


This post has gotten exceedingly longer than I had intended so I will sum it up with some key thoughts for moms and dads that may read this:

Your daughter is not a monster. She will exhibit some unusual emotional outbursts during this time.  My mother and I reflected on such a moment this past weekend.  I do not remember what prompted my response but I was evidently not happy with my mother.  I printed out a computer paper banner complete with cheesy graphics that stated boldly:  FREEDOM ON JUNE 9th!  (That was graduation day)  I stapled it to my ceiling.  My mother’s response for this outburst was simply to look at it and say nothing.  She never told me to remove it.  In fact, that banner remained until after I was married.  Then she very quietly pointed to it upon a visit home from seminary and said:  ” Do you think we can take this down now?”

I asked her why she responded with letting that outburst happen and not saying anything for so many years.  She said—“You pick your battles.”  She did later confess that I had no idea how badly that hurt but she knew I was having an outburst that was uncharacteristic of me.

Remember should you meet the wrath of your Senior in a way that seems foreign to you: It’s not you—-it’s just a lot for her to take in.  She doesn’t always have words to use for all that is going on in her head and her heart.  She’s excited about the future. She’s scared about the future. She’s grieving the passing of her high school experience. She’s ready for the passing of her high school experience. She’s contemplated big decisions like what does she want to do with her life.  She also’s contemplating little things like…will she be able to figure out how to drive home from college after you drop her off.  She’s worried about her roomate.  She’s excited about the new friends she will meet.  These are all raging inside of her and sometimes she wants to talk about it and sometimes she wishes she could just hit the pause buttton and make things normal.

What you can do during this time:

  • write her notes to remind her you love her. She will probably save these and look at them over and over again as she gets older.
  • Send her a text message when you pray for her.
  • Have some moments where you don’t talk “grad” stuff.  You could declare them “grad-free” nights where you just do something she wants to do without discussing senior topics.
  • Encourage her other family members to write some encouraging notes to her as well.
  • Pray together over the fears she may be expressing.
  • REMEMBER: This is a natural part of this stage. You are not alone…other moms/daughters are experiencing some of the same outbursts and emotional roller coasters.
  • Find someone to be YOUR prayer partner during these times.  Your heart is too tender to handle this roller coaster alone.

A Prayer for you…

In closing, let me pray for you as I know these days are precious and also painful…

Dear Heavenly Father…growing up is necessary, but growing up is hard.  Give these mothers and fathers Your peace and comfort as they continue to walk  alongside of their graduate and as they celebrate their accomplishments.  Help these parents to know when to say something and when to be still.  Guard their hearts as sometimes their daughters may say things in the the moment that they are unable to measure the impact those words will have.  Create space for these mothers and daughters to have in the crazy days to come.  And most importantly, draw these families closer to each other as they draw closer to You.

I ask this in Your Holy and Precious name…Amen.

Posted on

Girlsminister.com wishes mom’s everywhere a happy mother’s day!

mom

We would be remiss if we forgot to wish mom’s everywhere a Happy Mother’s day because afterall at Girlsminister.com we believe that the first Girls minister should be the mother.  I had some time this Friday to spend with my mom. I’m hoping to introduce you to her later on this month as I think she has some great thoughts to share with this community.  It was a blessing to walk around a park I attended preschool in, and have some time to reflect on the past, share about the present, and dream the future with my mom—my best friend.  She has taught me so much and to her I am greatly thankful.  I hope you have had some time to spend with your mom today or if you are a mom, I hope you were celebrated with everything from breakfast in bed—to scribbled cards—to sticky kisses—-and perhaps a fancy dinner.

Today also is a great day to say something to the other women that God placed in your lives that have served as spiritual mothers.  Today I was told “Happy Mother’s day” about 15 times.  I am not currently a mother and this was the first year I received such greetings so I was a bit shocked at first.  Then I realized that some of them were just automatic accidental reciprocal greetings.  But there were some teenaged girls that came up and embraced me with Happy Mother’s day greetings. I reminded them that although a sweet gesture, I was not a mom.  I quickly asked what they had done for their mothers and these girls told me of different beautiful and/or creative or thoughtful acts of love they were planning to honor their moms with.  Later at the end of the conversation, one of the girls said—“you know you are like a surrogate mom to us.  You have journeyed through these teenaged years and taught us about Christ, so we can say Happy Mother’s day to you.”  It caused me to take pause and remember also the women that God has brought into my life who have been spiritual mothers to me.

I hope today you have been celebrated as either a birth mom or a spiritual mom….I hope you have taken the time to seek out those whom God has placed in your life to raise you and shape you both physically and spiritually—And I praise God that He allows us to pour our lives into other women and nurture them with His truth, His love, and His guidance.  Happy Mother’s day from all of us at girlsminister.com!

Posted on

A Girls Ministry top 5 “need to know” list:

top5list

Every once in awhile we will be posting some list posts that we think you need to know about in regards to girls ministry. Today’s list post is for women leaders in your church that are trying to figure out how to raise these young women to take their places.

So here it is: 5 things women leaders need to know in order to raise young women to take their places.

1. Pray for girls in your church. Remember what it was like to be a girl, and know that even with all the technology and advancement that these girls are familiar with—they still need the same basic things you did when you were their age. They need to belong. They need to be loved. They need to know God has a plan for their lives even when they don’t have the attention of the cool crowd or the boy they are crushing on. They need to know their identity, significance, and purpose through Christ. Before you say one thing to mentor a girl, speak her name in prayer to God—and commit to continuing to be her secret prayer warrior.

2. To commit themselves to walk along-side of girls in your church for a consistent amount of their teen-aged journey.
The reasons that I am doing what I am doing now is a direct result of the influence of my mother, and 3 key women leaders who committed to walk alongside of me through life, speak God’s truth into my life, and encourage me while challenging me to be the woman God was calling me to be.

3. Give them opportunities. When you spend time with girls, you will begin to see characteristics and gifts beginning to emerge that may seem rough at first, but if they are given opportunities to lead and try out those gifts, they can begin to see how God made them that way for a purpose. It saddens me greatly that some of our schools allow students more opportunities than our churches. Sure they will mess up, but don’t we? Sure they will need direction, but so do we. If we can build leaders now, they will be able to seize opportunities on their own upon graduation and beyond.

4. Invite them into your world. Do not be afraid of these girls, or belittle yourself because of your age. They need you! I cannot tell you how many girls have told me that they want to hang out with another older woman so that they can see what a Christian home looks like, or to hang out with a solid Christian College student so they can figure out how to live boldly on their campus when they get ready to go to college, or to spend time with a Career woman who is a Christian. They want to know what to prepare for. They want role models, and we need to be those for them or else they will find them in worldly examples.

5. Equip their mothers. Find ways to support and encourage the mothers of girls, long before the girls become teenagers. When they do become mothers of teenagers, connect them with a mother who has been there/done that for support. Pray for the moms as this is the primary Girls Minister.

Posted on

A song for rough days…

Today was a day that you don’t want to have in ministry. Today was a day when our student ministry received news concerning a 16 year old student who passed away after a battle with leukemia. Today was a day when about 170 students and leaders found their way to church to make sense of all that was going on. Today was a day where hope was spoken of often as tears ran down faces. Today was a day of celebrating that the one who had passed was no longer in pain and was in the presence of God in Heaven. But today was a rough day…a tough day. I heard some of my friends say to each other…”I can’t imagine having to go through this day without having the hope of Christ at work in all of this.” And even though I don’t have all the answers for the tough days…I do know that Christ is the hope and power that is at work in all of this.
It felt like the right time to share another one of Sara Beth’s songs. It’s called “Ooh, We Need Jesus”
Here’s what she has to say about it:

I was taking a walk in my neighborhood and looking at all the trees. It was early fall so the leaves were just beginning to change color. I started thinking of life as seasons. And the thought: “I’m living in the fall, the fall of us all” came into my brain, using the word fall as both a season and the fall of man. I was eager to get home because I wanted to start writing this song. When I finally got back, I picked up my guitar and wrote the whole thing. It’s a song about the gospel, and it’s not complicated. It’s just truth. We Need Jesus.

[mp3]https://girlsminister.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/03-ooh-we-need-jesus.mp3[/mp3]Click on the arrow to hear Sara Beth Geoghegan’s song “Oooh, We need Jesus”.

Posted on

Girls Minister on the road: The Twilight Episode


Girls Minister on the Road: The Twilight edition pt 1 from Amy Jo Girardier on Vimeo.
This is a brief and not complete synopsis of the twilight book 1 for dads, youth ministers, and moms that don’t have time to read the book. I do encourage you to read the book so you can talk with your daughter or girls in your ministry about it because I think it will allow for some awesome conversations. If you need some insight, go to our twilight discussion guide post and read the post about the twilight discussion for moms and daughters I posted on there to go along with this video. This will just tell you the main plot. I have left out the ushy gushy love scenes and just cut to the meat of the story. Enjoy!

Posted on

GIRLS MINISTER POP CULTURE MOMENT: if you seek amy, you won’t find her.

images2Well Britney has done it again. It was earlier this month that I was working out at the gym with my bootcamp friends and our trainer turned on a song.  Chris, one of the guys, commented on the song to divert us from the pain we were experiencing during our weight lifting.  He said—“what does this song even mean, and why is she looking for amy?”.  At that moment, Christy gasped and said “OH…this is that song with the secret vulgar message in the chorus.”  She told us to repeat the chorus “If you seek Amy” rapidly over and over again and we would know what Britney was wanting us to hear.  It was a sentence expressing a sexual advance.  The chorus doesn’t make sense—all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek amy.  (The F bomb+ me is the hint if you still are at a loss.)

Britney has gotten a lot of flack and also some praise with her witty hide and seek lyric game.  Britney has gone through a lot and so this post is not an attempt to slam her.  I do think that it is interesting that while her songs and antics continue to get her attention, she is still playing her own hide and seek game with her identity.  She hasn’t found it in a career. She hasn’t found it in a relationship.  She hasn’t found it in being a mother.  All of those things can be good things, but for anyone these good things will unravel if we put our identity into them.  I love what St. Augustine says:

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

It is my prayer that for Britney and girls everywhere, that they will find rest and completeness when they place their hearts in God’s care.  It is my prayer that they will seek their Identity, Significance, and Purpose through His eyes and not fill their lives with empty relationships, dreams, and throw-away moments.

Check out Vicki Courtney’s post about this song and more.

Posted on

Girls Minister Takes Girls Ministry On the Road Webisode: Episode 2

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.