“How do you know you’ll be happy with the same guy for the rest of your life?” The bubble senior girl asked over coffee. “You don’t.” I quickly responded. “Marriage isn’t about your happiness.” Part of me grieved because she’d been so influenced by our culture’s decree that happiness is the goal for relationships and life in general. The other part of me grieved because she’d been a part of our youth group since sixth grade, not only as a participant but as a leader and one of our most committed girls. Not to mention she can from a strong family with godly committed parents. Time and time again she’d heard the truth, but some how still believed this lie.

Before that evening, I would have said that she was graduating from our ministry and leaving for college as an example of a student who had been effectively discipled both at home and at church. After that evening, I reevaluated how we were discipling girls. I realized then more than ever that in addition to passing on the basics of what it means to be a Christ follower, we had to be intentionally addressing uniquely feminine issues with the girls in our ministry. They’re thoughts were certainly being shaped by culture about marriage, sexuality, body image, and femininity, so we’d better be teaching them the truth of Scripture on these matters.

In a recent post, Kristin shared a method for girls’ discipleship that I would encourage you to take a look at here. I would echo her challenge to make girls ministry focused on discipleship and add that discipleship in girls ministry must be deliberate in training girls to be godly women who stand in contrast to worldly women.

Below are topics I tried to cover with girls throughout their time in the youth group in order to teach them uniquely feminine truths covered in Scripture and challenges faced in life:

Middle School

In order to effectively disciple girls, I’m striving to teach them these uniquely feminine truths that will challenge them to become godly women.

What do you think we need to be teaching girls?