It’s crazy to think that this October marks my 7th year as a professional girls minister.  I remember my first days on the job. In fact my very first day on the job was Fall Retreat 2002.  The buses were waiting outside to take me to a campground where I would meet students for the first time.  I walked away from the weekend excited and scared stiff of the new task I had taken on.  I remember conversations ranging from people pointing out to me the girls who had eating disorders and needed counseling…all the way to leaders who were depending on me to make some traditions for some girls that had already experienced too many changes to mention in their high school career.  I remember not being invited into many conversations with girls, but having to figure out a way to get into their world.  My fall-back phrase at the retreat when I couldn’t figure out a way to start a conversation was: “Hey do you know where I can get a soda around here?”.  When I left that retreat, It wasn’t long after that I took a 6 hour drive back to my teenaged roots and spent some time with my 1st girls minister who happened to be my mom.

I read a journal I had written as an 8th grader and I prayed that God would give me direction.  I talked with my mom and we prayed as God began to reveal to us what were some key elements of my spiritual growth as a teen girl.  We wrote down a list that was able to be summarized in 3 categories.  As I spent the first year as a girls minister, I met with every grade of girls, with the leaders of those girls, and with some of the parents.  Each time I would ask them what they believed a girls ministry should be about, their responses would hit on those 3 categories.   As I observed what resources were being created for girls at that time, I found it interesting that there were different categories being offered to teenaged girls.  I began to see the same categories over and over again.  I needed a phrase to capture what I was seeing so that I could talk with moms and other leaders regarding this phenomenom, so in the fall of 2003 it hit me.  DATING, DIETING, AND DRESS were the 3 topics that were constantly being discussed in resources and events for girls.  I began to coin the phrase: “The 3-d’s of girls ministry” and was excited to hear it was helpful to other ministry leaders as well.  Since that time, I have continued to hear friends in girls ministry use my description of the often talked about topics but I would like to clarify what we should be offering instead.   The 3 categories that God confirmed with my mom and I and later among the girls ministry I work with were what I am calling “The 3 G’s”.  We began our girls ministry by clearly defining what we would be about. We would not be about “The 3 D’S”.  We would be about the 3 G’s.  Those 3 G’s are what makes up our girls ministry name:  Grl3: Girl to girl, girl to God, and Girl to go

Those 3 G’s were key elements to helping me grow into the Christian woman I am today.

Girl to girl is : connecting girls to Godly relationships with girls of all ages.

Girl to God is: connecting girls to grow in their pursuit of God

Girl to go is: connecting girls to their world to shine God’s love.

I am excited to begin writing more about how the 3G’s impacts girls ministry and how the 3d’s impacts girls ministry. Both have an impact, but unfortunately one leads towards a self-less journey and the other leads deeper into the Self-ish mindset.

Stay tuned for more info as I work on the future book: Tossing my tiara.