READING
Listening
CATEGORY
Top Ten for the Generations
This November we completed our 16th LifeWay Women Leadership Forum and it was the best ever according to attendees! I always have a blast being with these leaders and hope you will attend next year! Click this link to find out dates.
We asked attendees to share their ministries that have been planned or have already been successful at connecting the generations. I will share those in several blog posts so you can see what is working. Please tell us what you are doing to connect the generations.
Jan shares a great idea for a retreat that small churches can easily do:
At our church, we hold an annual event that includes all denominations, all ages! This was our third year and God has certainly blessed our event over and over again! Our speakers have been Kelly Minter, Lisa Whelchel and Jennifer Rothschild. Next year we have already booked Esther Burroughs. Our first year, we had about 350 ladies on Friday night, last year we had about 450 and this year, we squeezed in almost 700 women…all denominations, all ages! We structured it for our rural area, the women in our area and many others just simply cannot afford the time or money to go somewhere to a large event so we decided to bring something to our area. We charge $10 which includes both sessions, Sat. a.m. also, supper on Friday night and more than a continental breakfast on Sat. It is a huge success because it is God-centered.
We are completely funded by our event. We hold two fundraisers every year, a Faith, Friends and 5K Run/Walk, and a “Crop This House” scrapbooking event, plus we sell t-shirts and custom Bible bags! We are very proud of this event but we give God the credit. If you could hear about our first year and how we got started and funded (our church has no money!) you would realize He has had his hand in this from the very beginning! It is a one-of-a-kind event in our area. We have local speakers, one on Friday night and one on Saturday morning who share something God has done in their lives, we have a wonderful storyteller who writes original material, a story about a woman in the Bible, and then we have an awesome lady who performs Christian drama! All have been on board since the beginning.
We formed our own acapella singing group, Amazed, and that has been inspirational. We have been invited to sing at every church around during the past year! We call our ladies conference Rock This House taken from the Acts 4:31 scripture.
For rural areas, this has to be the coming thing! We start as soon, as the event held in August is over, planning our next event.
Watch for more ideas coming soon!
Helpful Resources:
Women Reaching Women, Revised and Expanded version, Chris Adams
Lost and Found, Stetzer, Stanley & Hayes
Context, Threads by LifeWay
The Millenials, Thom Rainer & Jess Rainer
Respect: Meaningful Ministry with Baby Boomers in your Church and Community, Craig & Gandy
Essential Church, Rainer & Rainer
Simple Church, Rainer & Geiger
www.lifeway.com/womenreachingwomen
The Barna Group on-line, http://barna.org
Gen Trends, http://www.gentrends.com/
Scouting the Divine, Margaret Feinberg
No Other Gods, Kelly Minter
Interrupted, Jen Hatmaker
Sacred Roads, Heather Zempel
The Tough Sayings of Jesus, Michael Kelley
What Do You Do With Your Wait?, Mike Harder
Connect the Dots, Mike Hurt
unChristian, David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons
This November we completed our 16th LifeWay Women Leadership Forum and it was the best ever according to attendees! I always have a blast being with these leaders and hope you will attend next year! Click this link to find out dates.
We asked attendees to share their ministries that have been planned or have already been successful at connecting the generations. I will share those in several blog posts so you can see what is working. Please tell us what you are doing to connect the generations.
Sarah shares this great ideas for connecting women with high school girls:
I've also started the planning for a "Bride of Christ" retreat for the senior high girls in which our adult leaders and ladies of the church will be involved in a ceremony for the girls. I'm creating it around a wedding and approaching it that we should be married to Christ first so that we understand the love of Christ before we even begin to embark on love from a man. The goal is to provide each of the young ladies with a veil at the start of the retreat and before it's over, they get to "walk the aisle" to Christ and receive a "true love waits" ring from one of our adult ladies, and essentially be married to Christ through a commitment ceremony. I have some senior high girls that are helping me plan it as well, and we're going to start it with a wedding shower, and end it with a wedding reception!
And here is a retreat idea from Elena:
Our conference each year has approximately 90 women. We provide a Friday night extravaganza, starting with dinner and some sort of pampering and an early bird break out, general session then dessert. In the morning we start off with a huge home cooked meal, two more breakout sessions and two more general sessions... Lots of music, praise and teaching! To bridge the gap, each year we try to cover a wide range of topics in our breakouts that will specifically speak to each stage of life that our ladies might be going through! Our general sessions do the same. From the tote filled with goodies, food, decorating and fellowship times, we hope each lady walks away feeling special, pampered and spirit filled!
Watch for more ideas coming soon!
Helpful Resources:
Women Reaching Women, Revised and Expanded version, Chris Adams
Lost and Found, Stetzer, Stanley & Hayes
Context, Threads by LifeWay
The Millenials, Thom Rainer & Jess Rainer
Respect: Meaningful Ministry with Baby Boomers in your Church and Community, Craig & Gandy
Essential Church, Rainer & Rainer
Simple Church, Rainer & Geiger
www.lifeway.com/womenreachingwomen
The Barna Group on-line, http://barna.org
Gen Trends, http://www.gentrends.com/
Scouting the Divine, Margaret Feinberg
No Other Gods, Kelly Minter
Interrupted, Jen Hatmaker
Sacred Roads, Heather Zempel
The Tough Sayings of Jesus, Michael Kelley
What Do You Do With Your Wait?, Mike Harder
Connect the Dots, Mike Hurt
unChristian, David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons
Jimmie Davis, is the director of girls’ ministry at First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, NC. She is also author of Girls’ Ministry Handbook and Girls’ Ministry Idea Book. She has spent years working with girls and raising up leaders among the teen girls she has invested in. I will give you her top ten ideas and add some comment to each.
Listen to her thoughts about growing girls into godly women:
Today's postmodern teenage girls face a variety of issues and pressures from the world, but how are churches influencing them to become godly women? Women's and youth leaders are stepping up to the plate to address that need through girls' ministry. Girls' enrichment ministry is an intentional and organized method to spiritually transform the lives of teenage girls, moving them from large open groups to smaller closed groups, while equipping them to be godly women. Many times it's couched as a sub-ministry under student ministry, women's ministry, or both.
Girls' ministry is a proactive way to instill godly values in young women while addressing the needs and issues they are facing. It can also be seen as a preventative type of ministry. When girls establish their identities and values on God's Word as teens, they are well on their way to becoming godly women and avoiding the pitfalls (and consequences) so many of their peers may fall into as adults.
Before you consider expanding your church's women's ministry to include a girls' ministry, look at the needs of today's postmodern teenage girls:1. Self-Image
Girls today are prone to low self-esteem. Some are pressured into promiscuity and alcohol or drug use. Many find themselves dealing with eating disorders, self-mutilation, pregnancy, unhealthy Internet relationships, even confusion over sexual orientation.
2. Decision-Making
Teenage girls need to learn how to make wise decisions as they become women. Much of women's ministry today is crisis intervention. Many crises are brought on by unwise decisions made during the teenage and college years. Girls are maturing earlier, being exposed to temptations earlier, and losing their innocence earlier than in past generations; therefore, we must reach them for Christ earlier.
3. Application of Scripture
Girls need to know the truth of God's Word and how it applies to their lives as women. By impressing on them the importance of reading, studying, memorizing, and applying God's Word to their lives at a young age, you will help them move along the path to becoming a godly woman.
While these three aren't exhaustive of all the needs of girls, many can be traced back to these essentials. Girls' ministry may also provide for these other needs:
· close-knit relationships with other girls,
· female role models,
· validation of feelings,
· affirmation,
· awareness of hormonal issues,
· emotional security,
· physical security,
· understanding of the male mind,
· acceptance,
· genuine love,
· boundaries, and
· help in working through problems (such as abuse, eating disorders, unwanted pregnancy, and STDs).
As you pray about how your church might reach teenage girls, take time to talk to other youth and women's leaders. Research trends and habits among teenage girls. Ask God to show you how He'd have you proceed, whether that means simply organizing a youth girls' event or if it means launching a full-blown ministry. With God paving the way, a girls' ministry can be a powerful tool in His Kingdom.
Other Helpful resources for Girls’ Ministry:
Check out these two new books:
At a recent YOULead training event, this question was raised: “It is the heart’s desire of our women’s leadership team to have intergenerational mentoring groups (spiritual and practical) available to the women or our congregation.” Then she listed the following 3 questions which I will respond to with some ideas.
1) What would be a good starting age for the young women/girls to participate in such a group? I think if you ask our LifeWay Girls ministry specialist Pam Gibbs, she would say YOUNG! If girls grow up understanding Titus 2:3-5 and have experienced it from middle school on, they will be more likely to mentor others as well. Why not encourage the older women to mentor college and 20 somethings, the college to mentor the high school girls about to enter college, the high school girls mentor middle school girls about to enter high school. They can share things that prepare for that next step, things to avoid, resources to help them as they enter that new phase of life. All of us are called to mentor, and be mentored no matter the age. Start instilling that principle at a young age, and it will become a natural part of growing as a woman and as a daughter of the King.
2) How many girls/women should be in a group? There is not one answer here. I think mentoring should be a part of anything we are doing with women and girls, whether a Sunday morning Bible study or a small group to teach them a practical skill like baking a cake. It really depends on the plan and on the purpose for that particular pair or group. But even if you mentor in a group, you need plenty of “older” women, or shall we say “wiser” women to be available to connect one on one. We are about to start something at LifeWay, designed by the younger women, to connect our generations of female employees for prayer and mentoring. I will keep you posted and I’ll let you know how it goes!
3) What are some resources for planning, facilitating, leading such a group? If you desire a formal mentoring program such as Woman to Woman Mentoring, designed for more one on one time together, that would normally include two women, possibly 3. If you want to teach a group of women how to cook or some other skill, consider, Apples of Gold, a six week nurturing ministry or Apple Seeds for younger girls.
For more help regarding women’s ministry and mentoring see these resources and articles:
Transformed Lives: Taking Women’s Ministry to the Next Level
The Need for Mentoring in Today's Church article
What are you doing to promote mentoring relationships in your church? Share them with us in the comments.
As a women’s leader, do you struggle to figure out what will reach and motivate all women? Have you discovered that what works for one generation, probably WON’T work for another one? How do we connect all ages of women for spiritual growth and ministry? We have tried to help you understand all the generations through our Top Ten series. Last week, we hosted a live web cast and discussed this further in a panel discussion of leadership women. We shared what we have experienced in training and what we desire as we discover ways to reach and connect each generation from preteen girls to senior women. Click here to view the recording of this Generations. The Unbroken Chain: Ministry Through the Ages with Chris Adams, Lead Women’s Ministry Specialist, Pam Gibbs, Girls’ Ministry Specialist & Betsy Langmade, Women’s Event Coordinator.
We ran out of time before we could share some of the comments made by older and younger women. The assignment was for the older women (they could decide which was which!) to share one thing they would want a younger woman to know. The younger women shared one thing they would like to know from an older woman. The responses were so touching and showed how easy it really is to invest in and mentor other women.
Comments to an older from a younger woman:
I would like to know what your secret is to having a happy marriage. What made you so close?
I would like to know how old you were when you became real, took off your mask and made a difference? Did you ever go through times when you felt spiritually blank, but you knew you were full of the Holy Spirit?
I want to have your grace and wisdom and to know how you let patience have its perfect work when your heart was full of longing, when it ached and sorrow seemed your only friend. How did you battle fear?
How did you know God loved you and how did you know you loved Him back?
I want to have someone I can vent to. I love my mom but sometimes info just doesn’t get through to me. I want someone that I can cry on their shoulder, or yell, or just bounce ideas off of. Someone that will show me and help me learn how to study the Bible. Just another person I can talk to that will love me no matter what, just like my mom.
What do you see when you look back on life that was not as important as you thought it was when you were younger, and what did you disregard that you realize now is a very important part of life?
Comments from an older to a younger woman:
This is such a violent world. What is it like for you to navigate through.
Do you wonder about kids, your kids? What comfort do you need right now?
What do you wish someone would tell you? If you could influence one change,
where would you invest?
Go with God, no matter what it costs you!! Serve an audience of one—The Lord, and stop trying to please everyone around you. Remember that every decision that you make is seed that you are sowing. Your first ministry is to your family. Trust the Lord., wait on Him and He will direct your path.
My desire for you is that you would share with me the joys and delights of your life as well as your sorrows and cares. I would love to be involved in walking with you as you raise your children. I would enjoy spending time with you and sharing my heart with you about the wonderful love of Christ and ways His Word can transform you into the woman He always intended you to be!
What I would like to know about younger women is what I can do to help
and share the trials and tribulations I have been through and what I can do to
love and share Jesus with them, and what they need from me.
I want to know if I can love you and be your mentor.
To show a genuine and real person, and to let you know I truly care about you.
I would like what I, as a baby boomer, can say or do to earn your respected trust.
Prayerfully read these scriptures and share them with the women in your church as you seek to connect all generations of women for spiritual growth and service:
One generation will declare Your works to the next and will proclaim Your mighty acts. I will speak of your glorious splendor and Your wonderful works. They will proclaim the power of Your awe-inspiring works, and I will declare Your greatness. They will give a testimony of Your great goodness and will joyfully sing of Your righteousness. Psalm 145:4-7
Descendants will serve Him; the next generation will be told about the Lord.
They will come and tell a people yet to be born about His righteousness—what He has done. Psalm 22:30–31
Even when I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me. Then I will proclaim Your power
to [another] generation, Your strength to all who are to come. Psalm 71:18
This will be written for a later generation, and a newly created people will praise the LORD. Psalm 102:18
Titus 2:3–5
Share with us your ideas for connecting the generations.
