I remember my first days as a girl’s minister. It was a struggle at first. I had leaders clamoring for a minute of my time so they could point out the broken girls who really needed mentoring. Other leaders were asking me to set up traditions because students already had lived through five other student ministers before me. There was a lot of work to be done, and I was overwhelmed. It sent me on an inner search to discover what it meant to serve in this new role. I went back to my roots and spent the weekend with my mother who had served as my first mentor. We had a lot of heart talks. I read through the one sporadic journal I kept during middle school. I laughed as I read how, as an eighth grader, I dreamed of becoming the first female Christian rapper. I teared up as I read the words of a younger me who shared about broken relationships. I got inspired again as I remembered how young I was when my heart began to break for the lost. As I processed these memories, I began to ask some questions. How was I shaped? How did I grow into the woman I am now?

After talking with my mom, I determined there were some foundational moments that shaped me into the woman I am today. I became a follower of Christ as a young girl. That decision impacted everything else, including the questions I had been asking. Finally, I was beginning to have a framework for who I was and why I was created. I began to trust God to complete the good work He started in me, especially through those awkward years. I didn’t have Pinterest back then, so my hair and makeup tips came from my sixth grade best friend who played beauty shop with me as we rode to school on the bus. Unfortunately, that period is documented forever in my sixth grade school picture. Not only did becoming a follower of Christ impact how I treasured myself, but it impacted my heart for the lost and my call to influence a dying world through sharing the love of the gospel.

As I processed my teenage years, I remembered Ginny Olsen’s book Teenage Girls. In the first chapter, she offers three questions that give a framework for the answers I already had:
• Who am I?
• Do I matter?
• Why am I here? and Where am I going?

So as a youth minister, when I went back to begin to structure an environment specifically for teen girls, I knew that more than giving them dating tips, fashion advice or a sex talk that what they needed was a place where they could understand those questions from a godly perspective. They needed to be able to see evidence that a life rooted in Christ is the only way they can find a life that gives true identity, significance and purpose.

Raising the Bar
I’ve been at my current church for 11 years, long enough to see almost two complete cycles of students through from sixth grade to 12th grade. As I have served students, I’ve learned the reality of something I have heard from friends who’ve explained student ministry as an opportunity to create well-worn paths for students to travel. I like that analogy, but as I think about the student ministry I lead, I wonder: How do we create well-worn paths in the midst of other messages they are hearing from peers and other influences?

Several years ago, our student ministry team sat down and prayed about the questions students were asking at significant points in their lives. We wrote down more pointed questions regarding their identity, significance and purpose. As a student journeys through our student ministry, we wanted to ensure they understood key biblical truths and were able make them make sense in their own lives.

We discovered that our students were starved for biblical community. We developed a strategy for students to learn from a facilitator who used the Bible to answer these key questions as they affected their place in life. As we began to take students down these well-worn paths, we found they needed to be challenged to truly embrace it as their purpose. We also raised our expectations for leadership and missions. We launched a leadership team that called students to a higher level of accountability and to facilitate some of these same conversations with their peers on a Sunday morning. I wondered in our first year of implementation how many students would qualify—or want to participate in this level of leadership. We are now in our third year of this shift in our mission preparation, and our trips are full. Too often, the church tries to make it too easy for people to do church stuff, while we hide the difficult kingdom building for a later time. What do we fear, and why are we afraid? Students are being challenged with really difficult content and choices in school. Meanwhile, the church has watered down what it truly means to be a disciple.

Inviting Parents to Join You
As I spoke with my mom, we talked about the youth ministers I had when I was a youth. One in particular was and still is involved in my life. In fact, though she serves as a single missionary in a closed country, she still managed to deliver a Mother’s Day gift to me. She and my mother are friends and developed their friendship as I grew up from young girl. God has used that model in my own ministry to teen girls.

Here’s what I’ve learned from them about partnering with moms in ministry to girls:
• Reinforce the values the godly parent is trying to encourage within her daughter.
I never received mixed messages from my mentors or my mom. They were on the same page. It made such a difference to hear something my mom had said to me showing up naturally in conversation with my mentor. I knew they were in agreement about things that truly mattered.
• Hang out together with the mom and daughter.
Sometimes we shy away from hanging out with students and their parents. However, if you are able, schedule some girl time with the daughter and the mom. It can be a healthy time of modeling a Christian friendship for the daughter to witness. I loved hanging out with my mom and my mentors. It wasn’t often, but we sometimes would invite them to lunch or dinner after a church event.
• Be present, not possessive.
The women who mentored me listened to what was going on in our family. They didn’t overstep their bounds, and my mother never was threatened by their presence in my life. I think that came from their ability to listen and be present without being possessive. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew I was their girl, and I am shaped today by their influence. Still, they did not try to replace my mother. Instead, they worked alongside her in a harmonious way that allowed me to see different role models during my formative years.
• Call out the good things you see God doing.
The women who mentored me have been amazing not only at encouraging me and calling out the good things they see God doing in me, but also doing the same with my mom. I know they loved us both. It was important for me especially because I had a difficult relationship with my father who really didn’t know how to use his words to encourage. To hear my mentors talk to my mom about what they saw in me was so encouraging. To hear them say positive things about my mother only reinforced the value of my mom in my eyes.
• Create space for moms to come alongside you in ministering to girls.
As I have served as a girls’ minister, I have enjoyed bringing moms along to minister with me not only to their daughters, but also others. It has been an intentional shift to ensure that in every small group and at every event we have, there are moms leading alongside me. For the majority of my past ministry, I was not a mother…but I knew the importance of the home and still celebrated this role for our girls and moms.

The identities of the girls who are in our youth ministries are precious. How will you influence their perspective of their identities, significance and sense of purpose? It’s our job to speak against the messages they hear, and help them craft who they are in Christ.

Amy-Jo Girardier recently authored Faithful One: A Bible Study of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians for Teen Girls (LifeWay). She is the founding editor of GirlsMinister.com, a site created to connect and resource girls ministers, moms and youth workers.