Christmas Party!

What a great time of celebration, fellowship & laughter we shared together at our Christmas party this evening! The K. family graciously allowed us to have our party at their restaurant, Dr. Jazz Soda Fountain & Grille.

We began the party with a snack of soda & yummy french fries while teams planned a music presentation. Each group was assigned a style in which they had to present the song "Jingle Bells" in.

These performances were quite entertaining and gained quite a few laughs. :)

After the game, different girls took turns reading portions of the Christmas story to the group.

In between each reading, we sang a selection of Christmas carols.

After that, various girls volunteered to come to the front and share testimonies they had written about this past semester of Bright Lights.

It was wonderful to hear some of the ways the Lord has been working in our group this year and all the commitments that were made.

We ended the party with an hour of ice cream sundaes & fellowship!

It's amazing the silly effect sugar has on young ladies at night. ;-)

It was a great evening of celebrating Christmas together & enjoying spending time with new and old friends. Have a very Merry Christmas! I'll see you all in January!

Standing Alone 12/6/11

We ended our set on holiness this evening with a lesson on standing alone. I explained to the girls that in order to apply everything we learned in this set, we have to be willing to stand alone, be rejected & viewed as foolish in order to stand with our commitment to Christ and His holiness.

I encouraged the girls to live their lives with courage, seeking to walk in the fear of the Lord rather than the fear of man. I also reminded them that in standing alone we are never really alone, for God has promised to always be with us & never forsake us.

During the lesson, we played a game where various girls acted out a character of the Bible who stood alone while I read a description of that character. After the charade & description was finished, the group tried to guess who it was.

The girls were challenged to learn from the example of these Bible characters as they sought to stand firm for Christ.

After small groups, we ended with tea & fellowship! After a semester of meetings, it's exciting to see the new relationships that are beginning to form as well as old friendships strengthening.

Since our group is so large this year, I have been doing a private tea party with three girls each meeting. This provides an opportunity for me to get to know girls a little better. Instead of a "date" we call this little get together a "fig."

The girls I had a "fig" with this meeting.

We hope to see many of you on December 20th for our Christmas party. Otherwise, we'll see everyone on January 10th for our next meeting!

Father Daughter Meeting on Courtship 11/15/11

What a great time we had last night as all the fathers joined us for our Bright Lights meeting!

We started the evening with a game. The fathers blindfolded their daughters and then had to use only their voice to direct them through an obstacle course. Dads couldn't touch their daughters or move obstacles out of the way.

As the girls walked through the course, there were various distractions of extra noise & the voices of other fathers. Girls had to discern which voice was her father's so she knew the right way to go.

Besides being a fun game, the goal was to encourage the girls that they can trust their fathers. Sometimes our dads can see obstacles that we are not aware of & it's important that we learn to heed their advice. Just like the dads weren't going to purposefully run their daughters into a wall, our dads have our best interest in mind and we can trust them when we need advice about various situations in our lives.

The topic for the evening was on boy/girl relationships and encouraging young ladies to make commitments in this area now, before temptation comes. I challenged the girls to desire the best marriage, joyfully submit to the protection and guidance of their fathers, save their hearts for marriage & learn to delight fully in the Lord while they are single.

I used an illustration with paper hearts to explain the dangers of dating and giving your heart away to various young men before you're married.

After the lesson, the dads and daughters split up into two groups. My dad led a discussion time with the other fathers about what it looks like to guard your daughter's heart and other related topics. Although I wasn't there to hear the discussion, from what I heard, everything went well and the dads are hoping to plan another time to gather, pray & fellowship.

While the dads had their time of discussion, I talked to the girls about a couple more things and then they broke up into little groups and prayed for each other.

Eventually, everyone came back together and my dad & I encouraged each of the fathers to take their daughters on a special date to discuss what we talked about during the meeting.

We also shared a few of our favorite resources on the topic.

We ended the meeting with a time of fellowship over hot chocolate, apple cider & other yummy snacks.

Thank you to all the fathers who took time out of their evening to come be a part of this special meeting! It was a joy to have you all there with your daughters! I look forward to seeing all the girls for our last meeting of the semester on December 6th!

This was our funny picture of the evening.. haha. Enjoy. ;)

Polluting Influences 11/8/11

This evening we had yet another blessed Bright Lights meeting! During the lesson I shared about various polluting influences which the enemy uses to trap us and encouraged the girls to search their lives for things that may not honor the Lord.

They were also encouraged to submit to the protection of their parents. We ended the lesson by each girl signing & decorating a special certificate to give to her father.

After the lesson, we did a sword drill with verses related to holiness & our topic for the evening. Girls who looked up verses the fastest, racked up points for their small group & the winning small group (which was the Mary group) got to enjoy M&Ms during their small group time.

After small groups we ended, as usual, with tea & dessert!

We'll see everyone a week from today for our special father/daughter meeting at CBC!

P.S. This shot was too funny not to post. ;)