I looked across the landscape of my church on Sunday morning. In front of me were teenagers. Behind the organ was a woman with grandchildren. Behind me I could hear a toddler who was obviously unhappy about the need to sit still for more than three seconds. My mind immediately began to think about how to connect these generations together. And then, I immediately thought of our recent Web cast with Amy Pierson as we talked about discipleship and mentoring girls.

Amy Kendrick Pierson, girls’ minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, is a disciple and a discipler. She’s passionate about girls’ ministry but even more passionate about helping girls and young adult women discover and apply God’s Word personally.

We talked about the differences between mentoring and discipleship (you can mentor without discipling, but you can’t disciple without mentoring.) We talked about big ol’ mama CheezIts (you had to be there!) and being real and honest before girls. We even discussed whether girls should be co-discipled by a guy and a girl simultaneously. Interesting stuff.

I came away with a renewed passion for mentoring and discipleship. I came away remembering the people who discipled me. And I came away thinking that I love the fact that the way discipleship works best—among women and between women—is the way God set it up in the first place (Titus 2). I love that about God.

If you weren’t able to join us for that conversation, you can still listen to it and see the presentation online. Just go here.

Let me know if you crave CheezIts after you listen!
 

Top Downloaded Songs:
1.    Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart
2.    B.o.B. - Nothin' On You
3.    Train - Hey, Soul Sister
4.    Rihanna - Rude Boy
5.    Lady Gaga & Beyonce - Telephone
6.    Justin Bieber - Baby
7.    Lady Antebellum - Need You Now
8.    Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be
9.    Ke$ha - Blah Blah Blah
10.    Timbaland - Carry Out

Top Movies:
1.    Alice in Wonderland, $34.5 mil
2.    Diary of a Wimpy Kid, $21.8 mil
3.    The Bounty Hunter, $21 mil
4.    Repo Men, $6.2 mil
5.    She's Out of My League, $6 mil
6.    Green Zone, $6 mil
7.    Shutter Island, $4.8 mil
8.    Avatar, $4 mil
9.    Our Family Wedding, $3.8 mil
10.    Remember Me, $3.3 mil


It’s time to start shopping for that Easter dress, if you haven’t already. This spring, neutrals are big, as well as polka dots and other fun prints.

My sister would have turned 46 years old this year. She died on this day eight years ago, a young woman tormented by labels and haunted the lies she believed about herself. In today's ministry terminology, she would have been called a "fringe kid". I know she felt that way. The middle child who never quite found her place in the world, she attended church infrequently as a teen and young adult, but she just couldn't find a place that would accept a black sheep.

Reflecting on her life and death recently reminded me of several truths about involving those fringe kids, those who stand around the edges of our ministries, heads bowed low in insecurity or fists held high in defiance. My sister was both at one time or another. And I think if she could talk about reaching her, I think she'd say these things:

1. The masks are thick, the walls are high, and the fear is deep. If you genuinely want to reach a girl on the outside, don't take the mask as reality, keep chipping away at the wall with consistent love and concern, and make your church, home, and/or office a safe place. You aren't going to reach a girl like her with one phone call, a text message, or a postcard in the mail. Reaching this kind of girl requires serious commitment and a thick skin. 

2. A fringe kid doesn't need your condemnation. She's already heaped enough on herself for both of you. Judgmental comments about her hairstyle, behaviors (smoking, drinking), or choices will do nothing more than add another brick to her wall and layer to her mask. She knows what she is doing is wrong. She just wants to know if you will genuinely love her when she's at her very worst.

3. A fringe kid wants a place to belong, a place where she can succeed at something. She wants to find a skill, a talent, something, anything to help her feel like she is not the sum total of her mistakes. It may be poetry. It may be art. It may be loving on little kids. It may be playing in a garage band. So when she tells you about any of those things, LISTEN. She is trying to find validation. Find places where she can use her giftedness. Celebrate the good she does.

4. Ministry to a fringe kid is a rollercoaster. Three steps forward, two steps back. Good choices, bad choices. Walls up, walls down. Triumph and miserable failure. And she desperately wants to believe that you'll be there through the thick of it.

I learned most of these truths the hard way as I struggled to do life with her. I hope sharing them with you will honor her memory in some way.

Here are the top movies from this past weekend:

1.    Alice in Wonderland, $62 mil (I’ve heard mixed reviews. The colors and costuming and makeup are all impressive, but as it’s a classic Tim Burton film, it’s kind of dark. Definitely not one for the little girls to see.)
2.    Green Zone, $14.5 mil
3.    She's Out of My League, $9.6 mil
4.    Remember Me, $8.3 mil
5.    Shutter Island, $8.1 mil
6.    Our Family Wedding, $7.6 mil
7.    Avatar, $6.6 mil
8.    Brooklyn's Finest, $4.3 mil
9.    Cop Out, $4.2 mil
10.  The Crazies, $3.7 mil

Top Songs on the Radio (as of Tuesday)

1.    Lady Gaga - Telephone
2.    Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be
3.    Orianthi - According To You
4.    Ke$ha - Tik Tok
5.    Young Money - Bedrock
6.    Jason DeRulo - In My Head
7.    Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
8.    Lady Antebellum - Need You Now
9.    Timbaland - Carry Out
10.  Chris Allen - Like Like We're Dying

Top Internet searches (as of yesterday)

1.    Dow Jones Index (hard to believe this is number 1!)
2.    NCAA Basketball (March Madness, anyone?)
3.    Lady Gaga
4.    Kara DioGuardi (American idol judge . . . I haven’t seen the show this week; did she do something crazy?)
5.    IRS (Tax time! I can bet you teenagers aren’t the ones searching for the IRS Web site.)
6.    Jessica Simpson
7.    Michael Jackson (new album(s) coming out)
8.    Erin Andrews (the pretty ESPN sportscaster who was stalked through her hotel peephole)
9.    Hulu (really?! People can’t figure out that the web address is hulu.com and have to search for it through a search engine?)
10.  Carey Mulligan (the up-and-coming actress [you might have seen her in 2005’s Pride and Prejudice] who’s dating Shia LaBeouf)


In a LifeWay “culture” update, can I just tell you that our team has been getting True Princess ready for y’all to use with your girls, and I’m so excited about it? Girls will be challenged to not only dig into Scripture through this study, but to totally reject the self-serving nature of their society. Erin Davis knocked this one out of the park, in my opinion. I can’t wait to get it into your hands so you can be blown away by it, too. Get ready for it . . . it’s coming this summer!

 

What in the world is chat roulette?

Glad you asked. It's a relatively new (September 2009) social media connection with a Web cam. Simply sign in, click on a button, and you are instantly connected via video to anyone, anywhere in the world. No names, age verification, registration, or background information is required. Just live pictures between you and your newest friend—a complete stranger.

As an adult, it's easy to see the dangers inherent in this media melding. But girls may not have any idea. So how do you educate girls? If you're hearing them talk about it, it's time for you talk too.

1. Talk about what draws them to chat roulette. Most of them like the thrill of meeting someone across the continent to learn about other cultures and discover what other teens their age are doing in different countries. Think of it as pen pals for the 21st century.

2. Talk through the dangers of chat roulette: Many teens, especially younger ones, are naive in thinking that they are simply connecting with a new friend. Most don't think through the consequences—internet predators being the largest. In researching for this blog, I couldn't even log onto the site because it contained "adult content". Comments I read about chat roulette included things like "most of it is pretty obesence, and they're like, if they are not being obscene, they will ask us to do things..."

3. Encourage them spend less time in front of the computers and more time connecting with real friends they already have. Today's teen relationships are a mile wide and an inch deep. They are the most connected generation ever technologically, but relationally they are the most disconnected generation in history. If they need a place just to hang out and build relationships, invite them over to your house. Don't set an agenda, but have games lying around for them to play. (And try to avoid video games—it defeats the purpose of their connecting with each other.) They'll discover and embrace the fun of games.

4. Make sure you inform parents of this issue. Encourage web cam usage only in common areas, such as the living room or the den. Also encourage them to purchase software that monitors and restricts where a user can surf online.

What have you heard your girls talking about in relation to chat roulette?

“Will you disciple me?” 
“Will you mentor me?” 
“Can we meet and maybe you can show me how to read my Bible like you do?” 
“Can you teach me how to hear from God?” 

If you’ve been in ministry very long, you’ve probably heard these questions—or a variation of them. The concept of mentoring or discipling is not a new one. In fact, it’s been around since biblical times (check out Titus 2!). Scripture sets forth our mandate for discipling others.

But here’s the big question: what does discipleship look like in girls’ ministry? How do you differentiate (or do you?) between discipleship and mentoring? Or even counseling? The terms are thrown around, but with such different concepts in mind, we need to get on the same page, with the same direction and the same vision.

So let’s talk about it—on Tuesday, March 23rd at noon, through a Web cast.

Amy Kendrick Pierson, girls’ minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, will be joining us soon to discuss this topic. She a disciple and a discipler. She’s passionate about girls’ ministry but even more passionate about helping girls and young adult women discover and apply God’s Word for ourselves.

Want to join us? Good. Click on WebCast and sign up.

This past weekend, our girls’ ministry at church trekked into the mountains for our annual retreat. We stayed in awesome cabins, had worship on a literal mountaintop, ate good food, did a little modified geocaching (you should try it sometime!), and studied relationships. As most teenage girls are either pining for a relationship, navigating their way through the one they’re currently in, or recovering from a past one, it’s a topic near and dear to the hearts of girls.

And boy, did we dig in deep.

We used Haley DiMarco’s PB&J study on relationships, and what impressed me most about the curriculum was its bluntness. Whereas most studies on this topic tiptoe around the shame-inducing stuff, this book didn’t mince words. (The definition and treatment of fornication produced a light bulb moment for my group of juniors and seniors—and made me wish I’d had it laid out as clearly as a high school student!) I also loved and appreciated that this study took us straight to the Word, and that’s where we stayed. Our Bibles got a workout, and my girls remarked that they really liked that about the study. (Further proof that they were an AWESOME group of young ladies!)

So I walked away from this past weekend with the knowledge that girls want us to be straightforward with them. We can’t assume that they know what we’re talking about when we use veiled terms to refer to sex and sex acts. Be blunt. Be honest. And involve their parents. Our girls’ minister did a fantastic job of letting parents know what we’d be studying and sent them follow-up discussion questions and ideas to use with their daughters after they returned home from the retreat. Yes, the parents should be the primary spiritual developer in their child’s life, so we shouldn’t be tackling this on our own with the girls. But we all know that not all parents are adequately involved in their daughter’s spiritual development . . . but I’ll avoid getting on that soapbox.
 

I also learned a few more things about teenage girls:
• Keds are back in style. (My second-grade self is pleased.)
• There are some really cute one-piece bathing suits available these days.
• Girls can survive (and even thrive) at a retreat where no soft drinks are available.
• Girls are really good at keeping cell phones out of sight when they’re considered contraband. I thought I was dealing with the best bunch of rule-followers ever until our bus was going to be three hours late and we needed to let parents know. Boy, did those cell phones fly out of their hiding places!
• Girls aren’t as likely to get nauseous on windy mountain roads as their adult leaders are.  

If it's true that we as leaders of girls must help stem the tide of sexual immorality in our culture and even in the church, how do we do that? While it may seem like an overwhelming and daunting and scary task, instilling the vision of purity in teenagers is possible.

1. Keep the message alive. You may think to yourself, "we had a True Love Waits ceremony last year," or "we had this discussion a few months ago, we don't need to talk about it again."  Yes, you do. The culture bombards girls with anti-purity messages every day. We must be a constant, consistent, compelling voice as well. We can't stop talking about it because we think our message is dated or unpopular or redundant.

2. Think of journey, not event. Purity is an on-going process, not just a one-time choice. Use a teen girl's natural journey through your ministry to reinforce and talk about purity—when she enters the youth group; when she goes on her first group date; when she goes to prom; when she graduates. Each of these milestones is an opportunity to talk about how those changes impact and influence purity.

3. Make the message comprehensive. It's not just enough to say, "don't do it." Talk about why purity matters. Share the consequences of giving your heart and your body away. Highlight the rewards of not having a sordid sexual history. Reinforce this message with mentors and role models who have lived where girls are and yet made good and godly choices. Talk about how you maintain your own purity—even if you're married.

4. Make the topic approachable. While it may be uncomfortable to talk about sex, girls generally don't have the same inhibitions. If you're not willing to answer tough questions in honesty (within boundaries), then girls will find their answers elsewhere.

5. Partner with parents. Girls are facing serious issues that many parents don't think their children are being exposed to (pardon the horrible pun). It's not your job to be a parent, but it is your job to equip parents. Take surveys within your girls' ministry and let parents know the findings (without revealing individual responses, of course). Give them the statistics. Arm them with books and Web sites that will help them talk about the subject. And prepare them for times you will talk about sex. 

What tips do you have for discussing purity with teen girls?

If you haven't heard the news, a company in Switzerland is producing extra-small condoms for teens as young as 12.  According to the article, these youngsters were having unprotected sex. So in typical fashion, the cultural response was to provide a safe way to do something wrong. As if that were the only logical response. (It seems about as logical as providing them with pharmaceutical-grade cocaine so they can be safe abusers.) 

This article was another slap in the face and another stark reminder to me that we as adults need to be speaking a broader message...a message that says True Love still Waits.

I'm not advocating a message of "just say no." That sort of Sunday School response to a major issue doesn't help teen girls or guys in the midst of temptation. Yes, teens need to say no to temptation. But equally as important, they need to say yes to something greater and better. Teens need to understand that purity isn't just an issue of what they do Friday night after the football game. You and I need to help them understand that purity is a lifestyle. It's an issue of the heart and the mind and the speech.

Part 2 of this post will include a discussion of how to communicate that purity message.

The biggest thing in pop culture this weekend will be the Oscars®. Some doozies have been nominated this year, including an unprecedented 10 films for Best Picture. If you’re planning an Oscars event for your girls this weekend, go here for the official ballot. And even if you weren’t planning to stay up late and watch them until the bitter end, make it a point to watch the stars walk the red carpet and the opening segment of the show.

Here are the top movies this past weekend:
1. Shutter Island, $22.2 mil (this one looked so scary, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the previews!)
2. Valentine's Day, $18.6 mil
3. Avatar, $16.5 mil
4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, $14 mil
5. The Wolfman, $9.8 mil
6. Dear John, $9.5 mil
7. Tooth Fairy, $5 mil
8. Crazy Heart, $4.1 mil
9. From Paris With Love, $3.5 mil
10. Edge of Darkness, $2.5 mil


Top Songs on the Radio
1. Ke$ha - Tik Tok (will this song ever leave the airways?!)
2. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
3. David Guetta - Sexy Chick
4. Orianthi - According To You
5. Lady Gaga – Telephone (ugh. My least favorite of LG’s offerings. It's boring and more repetitive than usual.)
6. Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be (It's a good thing the radio has to edit music. I think my ears might be offended by the unedited version of this one, as the one on the radio seems to have lots of blank space without words where I’m assuming curse words have been taken out.)
7. Jay Sean - Do You Remember
8. Boys Like Girls - Two Is Better Than One
9. Iyaz - Replay
10. Young Money – Bedrock

The Olympics dominated the airwaves, leaving only American Idol and Undercover Boss (a GREAT show, if you haven’t seen it already) with it in the top ten TV shows last week. Speaking of TV shows, did anyone see The Marriage Ref after the closing ceremonies of the Olympics last Sunday? I personally thought it was funny, but what struck me as most promising was the tagline at the end, "Marriage is worth fighting for." It comes on again tonight on NBC, so I'll be watching it to see what direction they're going to take this show—hopefully one that portrays marriage in a positive light.

I’m going on a retreat with the girls in our student ministry this weekend, so I hope to have lots of new trends, fads, and random girl-culture to report back to you next week!
 

Over the weekend LifeWay hosted our first ever Girls' Ministry Forum. We had roughly 200 people CONVERGE on Nashville Friday and Saturday for this training event! It was an incredible weekend as we spent time in seminars, worship, and networking with one another.

One element that we tried at this event was a "spontaneous breakout time" where participants could gather around tables and discuss issues they were dealing with in their girls' ministries. We promised to use the Inside Girls' Ministry blog as a place to share information gleaned from those spontaneous breakouts, as well as, add more content or suggest reliable resources related to those topics.

Here is a list of the spontaneous breakouts that emerged from the Girls' Ministry Forum (remember some of these topics were put forth by High School girls):

• Issues my friends are dealing with
• Questions I have
• Dealing with mean girls
• How to start a girls' ministry
• Being His Instrument
• Working with volunteers
• Culture and race in girls' ministry
• Girls and homosexuality
• Missions projects
• Being in a private or Christian school
• Super COOL Questions
• Trying to unite small groups
• Being missional in girls' ministry
• Setting boundries with girls
• Being homeschooled
• Ways I've tried to share my faith
• Unanswered questions
• Great devotions and books I'm reading
• Dealing with parents
• I wish I could find a Bible study on...
• Pornography in Girls
• Using events with Girls' Ministry

So, where do YOU want us to start? Which topics from this list grab your attention? Are there other topics you would like to see addressed related to girls' ministry?