Girls Ministry Basics: Purposeful Events

A Note from Mary Margaret West: Honestly, I wrote a post with this exact same title, but LOVED the way that Taylor framed everything up so much that I scrapped mine, and now you have hers! I’ve known Taylor for a few years now, and she does a phenomenal job at not just putting on great events, but creating them to have purpose. As you look at the next few months and year, I’d love to challenge you to make sure that everything you have going on has a purpose behind it. I hope you’ll take something away from today’s post! 

If you’re serving middle and high school girls, you’ve probably spent more than a few afternoons trying to plan your next creative and fun girls event. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent hours scouring Pinterest and Instagram only to feel discouraged when you can’t come up with an exciting new idea to engage your girls. Ultimately, while executing an event takes work, we all know that coming up with a good idea is the hardest part!

In my early days of girls ministry, I usually started the event planning process by simply trying to come up with a fun event. Over time, however, I realized that was the wrong place to begin. Instead, the best starting point is purpose. What’s the purpose you’re trying to accomplish when planning a girls event? Start with a need in your ministry and think of an event that can help you meet that need. Do your girls need help cultivating community and connecting with one another or do they need a space to experience prayer in a new way? Do they need to learn to serve their community or do the older girls need an opportunity to lead the younger girls? When you start with identifying needs, it should only take a few minutes to make a long list of areas within your ministry that you’d like to impact. Then, once you pick a purpose, it will be much easier to be creative and plan an intentional event that your girls will love.

However, as you’re planning, don’t feel the need to squeeze it all into one event! It’s not just okay to pick only one area of impact when you plan an event, it’s often the most effective way to successfully accomplish your purpose. For example, if your girls are struggling to make connections with one another, it’s okay to plan an event solely for the purpose of helping them build gospel centered community. You might not have a full service with worship and Bible study, but you’re still ministering to your girls by helping them find godly and uplifting community.

Similarly, if you’re having a prayer and worship night, don’t feel like you have to have a huge dance party or play crazy games to make the event more fun. Instead, focus on coming up with other engaging ways you can keep the focus on your purpose. Ultimately, trying to meet too many needs with one event can lead to a scattered and unintentional event that leaves you right back where you started.

There are plenty of reasons to plan a girls event and these are just a few. Hopefully they give you a good idea of intentional ways to engage your girls and effectively impact your ministry by accomplishing your underlying purpose! I’ve also included some fun pictures from girls events at the bottom!

---

Purpose: Help your girls connect with each other more and cultivate a sense of community and belonging in your girls ministry.

• Have an outdoor movie night
  • Rent or buy an outdoor inflatable screen, then string some lights and pop some popcorn! Come up with creative ways to encourage girls to sit with new friends or come as a small group.
• Host a giant pool party
  • Buy some cute pool inflatables, cut up some watermelon, and play pool games that encourage girls to talk and get to know one another.
• Plan a Girls Weekend
  • An out-of-town or an in-town weekend retreat is a great way to help girls build new relationships with one another while also strengthening the ones the already have.
• Place girls in discussion groups that they wouldn’t normally find themselves in.
  • Consider bringing a group of girls to the Lifeway Girls Conference as a weekend retreat! They’ll build deeper friendships with each other, it will strengthen your personal relationships with them, and you will all hear amazing teaching that will leave you feeling encouraged and challenged.

Purpose: Help your girls deepen their walk with the Lord by focusing on prayer and worship.

• Plan a prayer experience for your girls.
  • This can be as simple as setting up stations that give girls unique prayer prompts like reading a Psalm and then writing a ‘psalm’ of their own or nailing a prayer to the cross. You could have them write prayers on a chalkboard wall or write the name of God on a small stone that they can take home. You can really find a lot of ways to be creative with this type of event.
• Host a Girls Worship Night
  • Ask a female worship leader at your church to lead a night of worship for your girls or ask some of your musically talented girls to help out.

Purpose: Teach your girls how to serve and love others within your community.

• Girls’ Missions Day
• Find a service project that your girls ministry can do together in your community! You could also break them up by grade and do a few projects in one day!

Purpose: Give your older girls an opportunity to lead the younger girls.

• Senior-Led Girls Night
  • Challenge some of your older girls to plan an event that will impact and encourage the younger girls. With your guidance, give them the opportunity to lead and take ownership in the ministry.

Girls’ events can be so beneficial to your ministry and encouraging for your girls when you plan them with a purpose in mind. Once you define your purpose, you’ll find it so much easier to come up with creative and intentional ideas.

Finally, don’t be afraid to reach out to other women who are ministering to girls and ask them what works! We aren’t meant to do ministry alone and there are so many good ideas out there for girls events. Don’t be afraid to adapt a fun idea to fit your ministry.

---

Taylor Cage is a newlywed living in Tulsa, Oklahoma serving students alongside her husband, Baron. After college, she spent three years as a Girls Minister and she’s passionate about building gospel centered community among women of all ages. She’s an avid reader, writer, and caffeine consumer. You can catch her telling cheesy jokes and taking long walks down the aisles at Target.

Connect with Taylor: Instagram