In Search of Community: A Place for Our Girls
Our girls are to be cared for, esteemed, sought after, taught, seen, discipled, valued, just as any member of the body of Christ is. If they are believers, just because they are young and maturing does not diminish their value or position in the body of Christ. If they are not yet believers, our prayer is that the authentic, loving, gospel-saturated community they experience in our churches is so compelling that they are drawn to it and one day say, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it…How awesome is this place!
On a cool summer’s evening just a few weeks ago, I witnessed something important. Four teenage girls were squished together on a bench, under a large oak tree in the backyard of one of our church members. I approached them, hoping to get some intel on what they wanted to do together this year in our “Challengers” program, a teen girl discipleship group our church supports. They causally looked up at me and respectfully shrugged their collective shoulders. I asked a few more direct questions, got a little more information, thanked them and slowly walked away. What did I witness in that particular moment? They showed me that all they really wanted this year was to be together.
Maybe it’s always been that way. As one of the leaders of the group, my mind typically is focused on preparing for each week: what we’ll do together, what we’ll study, what service project we’ll tackle. But what they want is to be together. It was a reminder to me why a girls-only ministry matters and why our girls need it.
In our nation today, we are witnessing an assault on our girls. Recently, the CDC reported on the mental health of our youth, finding that almost three in five U.S. teen girls reported feeling sad or hopeless in 2021, the highest level seen in a decade and nearly twice the rate among teenage boys. Nearly a third of girls said they seriously considered attempting suicide, up 60% since 2011.[1] In these critical years, studies say that our girls are uniquely vulnerable and awkward: They found that there was a distinct drop in girl’s self-esteem and sense of self between the ages of 11 and 14. [2] Seventy-four percent of girls say they feel like that must please “everyone” which drives perfectionism and unrealistic expectations leading to mental crisis.[3][4]
Those who have studied this trend tell us that the main culprits are cell phones and social media, through which our fledgling girls have access to an artificial world, designed by “media influencers” who use their sway to define the ideal woman. Their solution to this distressing trend is to limit phone use and access to social media and create more “inclusive communities” where our youth are accepted “as they are.”[5]
They’re not wrong. Limiting phone use and access to social media is a healthy start to staying this trend. And, to their credit, they recognize community is vital to the mental health of our girls. It’s not a new discovery; but what is dawning on many is the significance –and absence –of real community. Girls in our churches are not immune to these trends. When our girls look for acceptance and community, do they find them in our churches?
As Christians, we know that Christ redeemed us to experience real community (1 Pet. 2:9-10). When God calls us to faith in Jesus Christ by His grace alone, we were given the gift of community. Our salvation and adoption are both gifts that are sealed to us by the Holy Spirit and can never be revoked (Eph.1:13-14). He gave us a home in Him and with His people. Furthermore, God has given us everything we need for life and godliness and that includes how to create and sustain thriving covenant communities that glorify God (2 Pet. 1:3). Covenant community is not an option, as if it were a selection from a pull-down menu. We are designed for community within the household of God.
Our girls—as girls—need to experience this God-designed, genuine community in our churches so they can recognize the counterfeit community of the world—and there are plenty of counterfeits who pull our girls from their purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Our daughters were designed to be pillars of strength for the flourishing of families and communities and for the health of nations (Ps. 144:12). Their beautiful, essential identity for the benefit of all of humanity is being lost and devalued. The church must speak louder, love stronger, invest deeper in our girls and lift up their eyes to see their worth in the eyes of their Maker.
If our goal is to see our girls flourish and mature in community (Gal. 4:19, Eph. 4:13), then we need two complimentary approaches in our churches. The first is to welcome and integrate them into the life-giving community of a healthy, gospel-centered church, so they are nourished in truth, godliness, and authentic womanliness. Our girls need to be included – INVITED – to be a part of women’s fellowship, so they can see and experience mature, godly community. Our girls need this. Our women’s ministries must have a multi-generational vision for discipleship of our girls. Womanhood is our ground. We cannot abdicate it to the world. God has entrusted it to us as stewards (Tit. 3:3-5).
Secondly, our churches need to prioritize a girl-only ministries. Setting aside a specific time and space allows them to thrive as girls. Our churches should not wait until they are women to understand this need. Our girls need this ministry during their formative years. What does a girls-only ministry look-like?
- Time. Set aside time during the mid-week to have a girls-only fellowship. A girl-only fellowship time gets them away from co-ed distractions; allows them to flourish in their femininity; they learn from one another, guided by godly women who emphasize Christ-centered friendships.
- Activities. Explore Titus 2:4-5 and Proverbs 31:10-31 which give plenty of categories of activities that build character, skill and aptitude for our girls. Activities give opportunity for training in godliness in many areas of interest and ability for the diversity of covenant life.
- Mentorship. Support godly women who have a heart to disciple girls in bible study skills, the power of prayer, the value of our design, the pitfalls of sin, and most importantly the gospel message of redemption and wholeness through Christ alone.
Our girls are to be cared for, esteemed, sought after, taught, seen, discipled, valued, just as any member of the body of Christ is. If they are believers, just because they are young and maturing does not diminish their value or position in the body of Christ. If they are not yet believers, our prayer is that the authentic, loving, gospel-saturated community they experience in our churches is so compelling that they are drawn to it and one day say, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it…How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:1-17).
When I think about those four girls squished together under that tree, my heart yearns that Christ would capture their hearts and they would know their value. Only God can do this, in His time. As women, we’re called to be faithful stewards of His idea of womanhood. They are looking to us as we look to Christ. They need us to show them the true community they were made for. Let’s not let them down.
Sharon Smith Leaman is a member of New Life in Christ Church (PCA) in Fredericksburg, Va.
[1] Teen Girls Report Highest Levels of Sadness and Sexual Violence in a Decade, CDC Says. (2023, February 13). Time. https://time.com/6255143/teen-girls-sadness-sexual-violence-cdc/
[2] Girls Have Much Lower Self-Esteem During their Teen Years, According to New Study. (2021, January 31). Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicebroster/2021/01/31/girls-have-much-lower-self-esteem-during-their-teen-years-according-to-new-study/?sh=7a9b663a5eb7
[3] Barber, H. M. (2019, February 22). Girls feel pressure to please everyone, survey finds. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/education/girls-feel-pressure-to-please-everyone-survey-finds/2006/11
[4] Hinshaw, S. P., & Kranz, R. (2009). The triple bind: Saving our teenage girls from today’s pressures. Ballantine Books.
[5] Center for Disease Control. (2021). Youth Risk Behavior Survey. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf
-
The Gospel-Forward Church
When it comes to our local church becoming a gospel-forward church, it isn’t going to happen unless we pray, individually and collectively, that God will open our eyes, and free up our time. It means we will start planning gospel encounters with the unconverted. What does that look like? You tell me. I think it can begin with asking leading questions of those God puts in front of you daily, the plumber, the hairdresser, the co-worker. Make a list, and then resolve to find out if those people are Christians. (Don’t wait until you get to heaven to find that out. You need to know now.)
A friend once told me about the time he visited his old seminary in Philadelphia. One professor, long retired, had helped to shape his ministry, and he enquired where he might find him. He was given directions to his nearby home, but as he turned onto the street, he stopped short. There, sitting on the sidewalk, surrounded by neighborhood children, sat the venerable Cornelius Van Til, telling Bible stories about Jesus.
What has that got to do with Reformed missions? Everything.
I say that because missions are about the gospel, and if they are not, they will fail. Indeed, the sooner they fail, the better. When the Philippian jailor asked Paul “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), Paul did not explain the doctrine of election, or enter into a discussion about how his ideas about church were superior to those of some of those folks back in Jerusalem. Paul wasn’t there to make sectarian proselytes, he was there to bring the good news. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).
I think the picture of the esteemed professor of Apologetics, down on the sidewalk telling children about Jesus is an excellent reminder about staying on mission. I can’t count the times I have failed miserably to present the gospel, and instead got sidetracked into presenting the superiority of Reformed theology and practice.
Don’t get me wrong. Reformed theology and practice is superior. It can, and should guide our discipleship of new converts, but first there must be new converts. Too often, what we call missions is simply an attempt to attract people who are already converted and, preferably, already Reformed. We are gleaners in the field, not sowers and reapers. So, how do we change that? How do we bring people, not merely to an institution with rules and traditions, but to Christ? Can we really plant Reformed churches this way?
We can, and we must. It starts by being gospel-forward. That means, we stop trying to convert people to the church, and focus, instead, on the conversion of the lost to Christ. There will be a lifetime of discipleship to deal with everything else. Also, unlike the disgruntled visitors from the church down the street, they will have the new convert’s eagerness to submit to Word and Sacraments.
If we would be gospel-forward, that means bringing the good news to the unconverted. How will this change what our mission works look like? Obviously, we will spend less time trying to find that new Reformed family that just moved to town, and a lot more time talking to everyone else. But how, exactly, do we do that? It is obvious that we cannot teach ourselves what we do not know, but we do have sister denominations that are having success planting new churches. We need to study what they are doing, attend their missions conferences, and ask the Lord to open our eyes. I spoke to one missions director who told me they look for church plant opportunities where they can build a congregation of “three to five hundred.” What’s more, “we want that new church to have church-planting DNA,” meaning that church would plant others. It’s obvious that there is more at work here than just gathering in the already-converted.
But wait, should not our existing churches also be gospel-forward? Are we also just waiting for that new Reformed family in town to find us?
Read More
Related Posts: -
Providential Opportunities
Where are you today? Is someone quarreling with you? Are you experiencing someone’s hatred? As hard as it is to hear, you are being given opportunities for faithfulness. Don’t shrink back from them. Don’t wish them away. Don’t curl up in the fetal position and engage in self-pity. See these moments as opportunities to be faithful knowing that the Lord who is faithful is with you.
I was recently struck anew by reading Genesis 26. It’s the story of Isaac dwelling in Gerar. The story is familiar. We might read it in “like father, like son” fashion. As Abraham told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister, Isaac did the same. Yes, we sometimes learn from our parents. Even the patriarchs passed on what was not good. But that’s not what struck me.
There was a famine in the land and the Lord told Isaac not to go down to Egypt but to dwell in the land of Canaan. There is direction and wisdom here. In other words, Egypt was forbidden by divine precept, but the land of Promise remained open before Abaraham’s heir. So, he thought it wise to go to Gerar. While there he prospered but also encountered conflict. The Philistines were quarreling with him and displacing him. They chased him from water, which was needed in the best of times but especially during famine. But eventually we read in Genesis 26:22,
And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”
Read More
Related Posts: -
What’s in Your Mind, Believer?
Yes, we fail, we sin, and we are not yet finally delivered from the indwelling corruption that always sees and feels the Law as enemy and condemner. But a radical change has taken place. The law of God is once again the delight of God’s sons, bringing liberty to us. So what is the place of the Law in the life of the Christian? Simply this: We are no longer under the Law to be condemned by it, we are now “in-lawed” to it because of our betrothal to Christ! He has written the Law, and love for it, into our hearts!
Since the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the question has been asked endlessly: “What is the role of the law of God in light of the gospel?” The Apostle Paul found himself asking it (for example, Gal. 3:19: “What purpose then does the law serve?” NKJV). He had a profound sense of the place of the Law in the history of redemption and in the covenant purposes of God. But he also answered the question in terms of the life of the believer (for example, in Romans 8:3–4). Ever since, Christians have faced the challenge of walking the thin red biblical line that avoids the dangers of legalism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other.
The anonymous author of Hebrews was fascinated by the relationship between the Law and the gospel. He explained how the Mosaic administration was like a shadow cast backwards into the old covenant period by the work of Christ in the new covenant (Heb. 8:5). Now that the new covenant has been forged in the blood of Christ, the old is revealed for what it always was, shadow rather than reality. Now it is “obsolete” (8:13).
Using the word “obsolete” about the Law makes some Christians nervous! So here, first of all, is something to think about: Unless I can say loudly enough for others to hear: “In Christ, God has made the Mosaic covenant obsolete” I must cease reading Hebrews, or at least stop reading it before I get to chapter 8, verse 13! The ability to absorb into one’s mental and spiritual constitution the full force of what is being said here is surely a hallmark of true New Testament liberty.
The author of Hebrews (a pastoral theology genius if ever there was one) resolves our problem in a remarkable way. The new covenant renders the old obsolete. And one of the ways God renders it so is this: “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33, cited in Heb. 8:10; 10:16).
Read More
