Small Group

Heres the Story of how The Middle School Girls Small Group came to be:

During the Summer of 2007 I participated on a mission trip to Helen, GA with my youth group. We partnered with Georgia Mountain Resort ministries for one week. While in Helen we held day camps for kids in the mornings, service learning projects in the afternoons and dramas in the evenings. My best friend and I by the worlds standards shouldn’t be best friends but God has much different plans. We are best friends. We arrived in Helen very late on a Sunday and we had to be up and ready bright and early the next day to begin our week long day camps. We were split up by teams. Before we left the ‘main’ house we were told by the youth minister intern to make sure that we took care of our differences with each other before we began ministry tomorrow because if we did not we wouldn’t be an effective witness for Christ until the differences were settled between us. Upon jumping in the van to head to our house one of the girls immediately said we all needed to talk. We arrived at our house around 11:30 and settled into our rooms. My best friend and I roomed in the basement of our house with two girls who had just completed 7th grade at the time. We had no clue what God would do that week. Every night we went to bed late and woke up early. We talked and talked about everything life was handing us, we talked about the struggles and the triumphs. Little did we know what God was doing in our hearts. We felt a calling that week, my best friend and I, to do something. Upon arriving back in Springfield, GA we immediately talked with our senior pastor. We told him of what God was calling us to do and be apart of. We were supported and a few short weeks later on August 27, 2007 we began one of the dearest things to my heart, The Middle School Girls Small Group. This group was begun out of a heartfelt desire to teach girls younger than us to stand strong in a world where it is so difficult to stand. We wanted these girls to be taught the truth from Gods word. We were fully supported and on our first night we had 13 girls in attendance! We were blown away at how God was using us. We were only juniors in high school…How could he use us??? Over the next few months we learned more and more about how mighty and wondrous our God really is. On September 11, 2007 we met at Veterans Park in Springfield, GA we talked about family that night. We took rocks and wrote our sins against our family on them and then tossed them into the lake. One girl got saved that night. One more sister in Christ. One more won for His kingdom and saved forever from the pits of Hell. Over the course of the next few months many girls came because someone had simply told them about small groups. One night the girl that got saved on September 11, 2007 asked a girl in her Literature class if she was coming to small group. She didn’t know what small group was and after a little explanation she showed up that night at small group! She also gave her life to Christ and turned her life around and began coming to church. Exactly one week later her best friend came to small group (without the girl) and towards the end of our lesson looked to us and said I want what my best friend received last night! We called every pastor at our church that night! We were too excited that these girls were getting it and that we were being used in such ways we had never dreamed of! In 2008 as our first year of small group drew to a close we decided to have a special ceremony for them. We had recently been through the True Love Waits study and had 12 girls make professions to remain pure , in all ways –1 Timothy 4:12 Do not let anyone look down on your because you are young, but set an example to the believers in life, love, speech, faith and purity --- til marriage. So we decided to give them all TLW rings. On banquet night we stood back in awe of what God did the past year. We had 5 girls come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, got to see 5 girls baptized and on Easter Sunday 2008 assisted our youth pastor in the baptism of two girls we led to Christ! God was so good…he did many incredible things the past year...As the summer of 2008 quickly came to a close we had a decision to make. Do we continue this ministry? Or do we give it up? We decided that God was calling us to continue this ministry. So year 2 of The Middle School Girls Small Group began in September of 2008. We are very excited to see these girls growing, asking questions and inviting their friends! We are in the process of praying for two girls to step up and overtake the small group when we head to college in the fall. God willing this ministry will continue for many years to come and will be led and guided by high school girls who have a calling to reach those a few years younger than them! But the ministry never ends as Christ has prepared us to love others we are impacting and preparing others to also love. A couple weeks ago Lauren and I had the opportunity to host a ‘Welcome back 9th grade sleepover’ we just wanted to let our 9th graders know we still love them and wanted to know how they were doing. So we had 6 girls show up and had a blast. Complete with a ‘slew of mystery guest’ (of course they were other youth who wanted to be in on our fun!). We had so much fun with them and miss them since they are now at the high school with us. So to Brandy, Kyndle, Holly, Nicole, Felicia and Kiersten. We care about you and are so glad that God has allowed us to help each of you grow and become our sisters in Christ who are actively reaching out to your friends in the name of Christ! Our prayer is that you always remember where you’ve been and how Amazing the Grace is that God has blessed us with. We love you guys!