Well, it's late and I cannot sleep. My roommate
slumbers away while I toss and turn, my mind wild with ideas. I decided
instead of fighting sleep, which may partly be due to the iced coffee this
afternoon, I would be productive. I have many thoughts and I wish to
document them for future use, as well as to share them with you.
I suppose I should update you on big changes coming
from "Tales in Arkadelphia". In a few short months, shorter
than I care to count, this small town college girl will be a college graduate
bound for the large suburbs once again. I plan to pursue graduate school,
but most importantly (at least to me...) I have the most fortunate position of
starting a girls minister position at a church in Frisco. (I do not think
the position is public yet, hence why I leave details out.) This excites
me to no end! The youth pastor and I have been praying about this
possible opportunity since this last summer, and God is faithful and the
position is coming to fruition! The closer May comes the more excited I am
about it. I suppose I will need a new name for this sporadically kept
blog. Suggestions are certainly welcome.
My thoughts tonight resonate with a conversation that
I have been having with myself for the past few weeks and which climaxed
tonight during a phone call from my dad. How encouraging and wonderful to
have a father who is so supportive of my future plans! I cannot express how
full my heart is because of this. Despite how difficult this semester has
been due to challenging classes and other life things, my days seem
increasingly filled with girls ministry happenings here in Arkansas. We
are beginning to plan girls retreat and I cannot wait for the weekend to get
here! The conversation, due to this "all-things-girls-ministry"
mindset, that has arisen has been "What is girls ministry??"
I have begun to realize in the four years that I have
been a part of the youth ministry at Park Hill and as I seek to define my
future ministry that there are not many resources in the world for girls
ministry. This is a relatively new field, which means scarce resources.
There are plenty of ministries that travel around and host girls retreats[1],
but what I seek is for full-time girls ministers. I applaud the
ministries that exist, however these ministries come in for a weekend and
preach good truth to girls and then leave. The Sunday school teachers and
ministers are the ones who do life with the girls. I want with
such zeal for young women to know the love of Christ and what it truly means to
be women of the Word, after God's heart, sanctified for Him. There are so
many things that I want to share with teenage ladies, but I'm not sure exactly
how to go about it. Thus, I am on a quest!
I have begun to search for other girls ministers
(because they are out there) and to see how they are doing ministry. What
I have mostly found is that girls ministry seems to be a subset of the
overarching youth ministry. In a sense it should be. However, I
propose that there is more. I have found that the department of
girls ministry has grown more in the past few years because ministers are
realizing that girls are different from boys. Whoa, I know that may have just
blown your mind, but hang with me. Most youth ministries are led by
men. Which is great for many reasons, but I think that men are realizing
that they cannot adequately minister to girls because they are different.
A 35 year old male cannot possibly know what it is like to be a middle school
girl that is insecure of her figure, how well she fits in, or trying to find
out who she is. Boys go through adolescence on a different degree
scale. God made us this way, and it is good, because He made it so.
And because of these differences girls ministers are being hired, but what is
our purpose?
I have read many godly women's blogs[2]
about how they are doing girls ministries and I am so thankful to be surrounded
by saints with a heart that echoes my own for young women. But what I
have found is that girls ministry, for many, looks exactly like youth ministry
except only girls are coming, and there is a lot more nail polish and fewer
footballs. I have seen as a common theme that on a large scale, girls
ministry consists of a girls retreat in the spring, maybe some events just for
fun, and some Bible studies that only ladies come to. All of these things
are good.[3]
However, as I have been thinking and talking with my dad, my girls ministry
needs to be something more than an extension of youth ministry. It should
not replace youth ministry, but there is a specific purpose for this. I
think that it should make ministers of our students[4],
it should include mentorship-both for girls and by girls, it should be a year round
program, it should be biblical, and should make women out of girls. I'm not fully sure of what this means specifically
yet, and I think that it will be a continual quest.
So, as I jealously seek to know how to best minister
to the ladies that have been and will be entrusted to me, and as I seek to
redirect this blog, I plan to spend the next few weeks hashing out what I find
to be girls ministry. Any advice is welcomed, and all prayers are craved
as I search Scripture and try to find God's heart for us as women.
InJoy,
Brittany
[1] http://www.sageministries.org/, http://idministries.com/, http://revolvetour.com/ are just a few.
[3] Well,
I must say that I have a problem with the word events, but I think that is a
different topic. I see too often that youth ministers fill their time with events
and miss the point of making disciples and building relationships. I can literally set myself on fire and call it an
event and attract 200 students, but what good does that do for the gospel? How
have students left knowing what it looks like to live as God commands us? The
word event in my mind suggests a onetime deal, a spiritual high, and leaving
people on their own to figure out life. As a rule, I try to stay away from just
an event. I digress.
[4]
For a full expansion of this idea, see Greg Ogden’s book, Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministryto the People of God.
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