The Impact of Ministry to Young Ladies By Beth Ann Hurst O


ne of the greatest joys in my life has been serving the middle and high school girls


of First Presbyterian Church, Colum- bia, SC. There are many things that are greatly misunderstood about this group. Most folks believe that what I am doing is “saintly” or even “sac- rificial.” But when I think about this group of ladies, I do not understand why everyone is not as enamored with them! Most people may be intimidat- ed by this age group mainly because they themselves may have had terrible experiences during these years. Personally, when I was in middle


school, the Lord revealed Himself to me and I came to saving faith. The surrounding of youth leaders and Sunday School teachers were criti- cal in my early days of walking with Lord Jesus. Anyone, truly anyone, can be that youth leader for a young lady in middle or high school. Covid season has really exposed our weak areas of serving, and perhaps deplet- ed volunteers for many of our youth


ministries. Many of our girls need good and intentional discipleship during this season. For many of you, your churches may have one staff member so the youth


ladies in your church do not have a vocational youth worker. As brief as I can, I would like to encourage anyone to help start serving this need. First as I said earlier, anyone can be an influence as a leader for these ladies. You may need to ask yourself if you are intimidated by this age range of girls because of your own personal story of growing up. Can we just say this, it is always amazing what the Lord does with people who are vulnerable and real with others? Many of the amazing young ladies are walking through waters that other women have walked as well. How amazing would it be to go and encourage the next generation of women in our churches to stay the course for Christ? And that is just it, it is our next generation of women who will serve our churches in many ways, in fact our middle and high school girls are already serving! Perhaps you sense the Lord opening your heart to this youth ministry to


the young women. What next? In building any relationship, we all know that getting to know someone and their interests are key. Sometimes that looks like listening to music that you may never have wanted to hear. Or it could look like listening to them discuss obscure literature that they love. Whatever it is, it takes time. Covid has for better or worse made this a little trickier. Before, it was easy to just plan to get a group of girls together, but now it is become slightly more challenging. One of the blessings of being in Columbia during Covid has been the ability to be outside as much as possible. Our youth staff has been on many walks with students as our “relational” time. Some of my best conversations with students have happened on our walks outside. There is something safe about spilling your thoughts to someone while on a walk. Another great option is getting a group of girls together to have lunch and do a small Bible study. Up until recently, I had been able to get a few smaller groups of girls together who normally would have been in school during lunch, but due to eLearning, they were able to get together at lunch. Until this season of Covid has passed, outside has been our favorite option. Our middle school ladies enjoy crafting greatly. That is another great option to do while maintaining social distance. Covid has in a lot of ways made all of us truly aware of the needs of our


church families. There are a great number of middle and high school girls go- ing through hard and challenging seasons on top of a pandemic. Life has not frozen for anyone, including those ladies in the most formative years of their adolescence (In my opinion). Titus 2 is still in the scriptures, pandemic, or no pandemic. During this season we have seen some of the greatest desire for dis- cipleship from our girls at FPC, but we have also seen that we need more vol- unteers ready to serve these amazing ladies. I can only imagine how great the need is for each of your churches too.?


Beth Ann Hurst, left, with Margaret Riddle.


Beth Ann Hurst is the Youth Ministry Assistant Director at First Presby- terian Church in Columbia, SC.


Helping Christians Grow May/June 2021 9


Christian Education Ministries


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