You are needed! Will you answer the call?

My friends, you are NEEDED!

Yes, YOU!

If you are a woman,

the next generation is crying out for you!

Please take time to read this loooonnnngggg post
and pray about this call to become Titus 2.

Yes, you might think you're nothing special, but that is completely not true! On the contrary, you are incredibly valuable and needed by God for an unquantifiable, unexplainable, unimaginable joy:

To become a mentor to the next generation of young women.

Did you know that you don’t need to be “old” or “older” to fulfill the Titus 2:4 call to invest in the lives of younger women? Nope. Not at all. You simply need to find a gal younger than you and begin today in a mentoring role by encouraging, listening, teaching, admonishing, and nurturing her with the "little" or "lot" you have to offer.

I know it is hard to put yourself out there. Maybe you’ll be rejected. Maybe you’ll feel out of touch. But the truth is this, the call to care for the next generation has nothing at all to do with what you (or I) will get out of it. It has everything to do with what we have to give as we serve the Lord. We are serving Him in obedience to God’s Word as an expression of our love for the Lord (John 14:21) .

I’ve had the privilege of living with and mentoring teenage girls for over a dozen years. I started as a young college graduate, helping out at youth group, which gently prepared me for moving to a boarding school as a newlywed. I’ve been in conversations with teen gals every since.

Do you want to know a secret?

My conversations with teen gals are nearly the same today as they were all those years ago. The only thing that has changed are the pretty faces, the challenges of the culture today, and the extra wisdom the Lord has provided me as I’ve grown in understanding of the Word (through a few tumbles of my own). These young ladies are incredibly grateful simply to have an older woman listen to their heart and love them to Jesus and be humble enough to admit, "I'm not sure about...but let's see if we can find an answer in Scripture or from a gal older than both of us."

Friends, I know it might be a step (or giant leap) of faith for you to choose to invest in a relationship with a younger woman, but it is such a high calling of great value to the Lord. He will equip you fully!

May I suggest four simple steps to get started...
Mentoring One-on-One:

1. Pray for God to lead you to the gals that needs you, or for them to coming find you! Let the Lord know you are willing and He will make the way. This might be a teenage woman, or simply another gal whose spiritual younger than you.
   
   
2. Share your heart and time with whomever the Lord puts in your path! Age, personality, background, doesn't matter. Treat her the way you would want to be treated! Find something in common and grow together. Let it start over a cup of tea and share your heart, your story first. Next time, ask her to share hers.
   
   
3. Draw on Wisdom from the Word! Don't feel like you need to have all the answers. You don't. Let every piece of advice be accounted for in Scripture. If you don't have an answer, search the Word together until you find one and seek an older woman, whose committed to Word, to offer her two cents!
   
   
4. Pray some more! Ask God to keep you humble and hungry for this call. Ask for wisdom! Ask for creativity! Ask for help, if need be. And thank God for the opportunity to serve Him so sweetly!
   

Can it get any simpler?

But there is also another FANTASTIC way to go about Becoming a Titus 2 woman: Start an ETC. group of your own...













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<center><a href="http://refreshplace.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh102/extragrace/etclogonew.png" /></a><br /></center><br /><br /><br />



ETC. stands for “Evening Tea & Chat,” is one AMAZING way to mentor teen girls in a group situation. Here’s how it works:

• Gather together girls from your neighborhood, church, daughter's friends. You can send an invitation indicating date and time (one hour works great!), with plans to host again each week for at least a month or two. It takes times to build momentum and trust.

• Have lots of hot water ready to go and a selection of tea and hot chocolate. Keep it simple! Use paper cups for a large gathering or break out the china if you’ll only have a few gals attending.
  

• Meet for one hour. Have a basket of index cards and pens in the center of the room. Encourage girls to write down their questions about guys, girls, and God. Open in prayer once everyone has arrived. Offer some type of short instruction or devotional, literally 5 minutes on a particular topic. Feel free to email me at extragrace at gmail dot com, if you want to use my lesson plans and handouts. Or you could glean some ideas from a message I’ve shared, such as CROSSroad challenge. Encourage the girls to be filling out their cards while you talk.

• Collect the cards and pick questions to answer based on:
  

1. if you know verses that will support or demonstrate your answer
   
2. how many you think it applies to
   
3. how basic it is to Christian life

The key for this type of Q&A format to be successful is two-fold: the girls feeling safe enough to ask the question via the index cards and your ability to share an answer based on Scripture and with transparency. That being said, answers should not be based on your personal experience alone. They must be rooted in the Word! If you don’t know the Word well enough to answer off the top of your head, you need to do two things:

1. start studying Scripture every day through Bible study and personal time
2. get a partner, who knows the Word well, to help you in hosting etc.

You can also view our ETC. questions and answers at Refresh!

Hosting ETC. has been a wonderful experience! I want this for you! But even more so, I want this for the teen gals living in your neighborhoods and attending your churches. They have simple questions and need basic answers to worries we all share. You have the answers and the courage to find them in the Word!

Please, my friends, on behalf of the next generation, please hear this call. You are needed, woman of God, call to be a the influence on the next generation -- to share the truth and to touch such tender hearts with the love of Christ.
If you have any questions, thoughts, or just need to talk about this whole possibility, please do email me! I’m more than happy to share my passion and encourage you in any way!

Feel free to grab the ETC. graphic above to use in your own group! Be sure to let me know, so that I can pray for you, too! Also, don't forget to check out Refresh! You'll find a wealth of resources there!

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<center><a href="http://refreshplace.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh102/extragrace/refreshnewbutton.png" /></a><br /></center><br /><br /><br />

You can learn even more about mentoring, here!

By His Grace & Mighty Power,