A great idea for your girls' ministry

Today's blog comes from Amy Pierson, the girls' minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. When she told me about this event, I knew it would be a perfect thing to post here. A huge thanks to Amy for writing about it.

I wanted to tell you about a tradition I just started for our girls. We hosted a birthday party for our sweet widows in our church. We wanted to do something to serve them, but we didn’t want to do the typical “clean out their garage” type of service. I sat down with two ladies and they mentioned a birthday party, because their husbands usually brought home flowers or made them feel special, and eating out with their adult kids in a loud restaurant didn’t have the same feel.

Each lady and student sat at tables according her birth month, so we blended generations and everyone was able to make new friends. We decorated each table uniquely and seasonally. The January table had snowmen, the February table had candlelight and chocolates, the August table had back to school books and apples.

As soon as each widow arrived, one student would a nametag (which was seasonal too) on her and escort her to her table. Afterwards, I had so many tell me that they loved to be escorted personally by one student. Several ladies told me that they felt like the guest of honor having a high school girl walk her around to look at the décor and then walking them around to say hello to their friends.

We played a few games. My favorite is the song game. I would say a word and each table had four seconds to come up with a song that contained that word; when I pointed to a table they had to sing it in unison. I laughed for a week about the December table singing "Party Like a Rockstar!"

Then, our students did a ten-minute “dancing through the years.” Four did a tap dance to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and we ended with a huge crowd of students doing Thriller across the stage. The ladies were laughing and gave the girls a standing ovation. We closed with reading verses about God’s promise to care for us throughout life. These older ladies reminded us that our faith really is for a lifetime.
 
I’m so thrilled with how the party turned out, but more I’m so thankful for each one of my moms and girls for serving selflessly and fulfilling James 1:27.

I wanted to tell you about a few things that happened that I was not expecting:

One of our table leaders who has an event décor business donated her time and inventory to decorate. She teared up and continually thanked me because, “she never realized that her gift for decorating could be used for God.”

I sent an email to the “homeschool network” (honestly I didn’t know that existed until 4 months ago.) I asked if any of the girls wanted to help plan this event. Once a month, I met with about 15 girls, leading them in a devotional and then letting them make name tags and help with other preparations. Two families had just moved here, one from Houston and one from California. They had not found churches yet. They started coming to the meetings, then I got them to come on Saturday nights and both have joined the church!

One sweet lady in her late 80s said that now she knows how to pray for our students when they go on choir mission trip.

One sweet lady in her mid 70s asked if she could help us with sign-in at my next girls event because “she was so encouraged seeing their sweet smiles.”

One student who just graduated said, “I didn’t know that ministry in our church to our church could be so fun.”

One lady had been married to her husband for 64 years, and he passed away 2 weeks before the party. Her daughter made her come because she did not have any friends. She left with phone numbers from her table, lunch plans with them for the next week, and said it was the first time she’d laughed since he passed.

I have seen several of the women since then and they all LOVED every minute adding that this was the first party in years they didn’t have to cook anything for!

Anyone could do an event like this. For the seasonal décor, ask that one aunt (or cousin or mom) whose house is completely transformed every month with seasonal décor (we all have one). Or, ask teachers or family friends to let you borrow pieces for unique cernterpieces. For the meal, see if a restaurant will donate or get moms to bring items for potluck. In our case, instead of a cake, each mom brought a dozen cupcakes and each lady had a cupcake at her place setting.
 
We were able to let our ladies feel special. Our students learned that they could care for others--not just down the road or in another city or country, but on their same pew. This is the easiest and by far the most rewarding service opportunity our girls have experienced!

What other service activities have you done with your girls?