Answering your questions from the TCW article
November 7, 2007 | T. Suzanne Eller
I want to apologize for taking so long to get back to each of you. I was swamped with e-mails after the Rise of Raunch article in Today’s Christian Woman.
I am excited about how passionate you each are, and the questions that you asked. Rather than send out 100 e-mails, I’ll try to answer your questions here. If you need more info, please feel free to contact me. Okay? I’m encouraged that so many are interested in reaching our girls in this society.
QUESTIONS
- Do you work with girls on a long-term basis?
I work with teens on a regular basis in different ways. For years I served as a youth staff member (volunteer) in my home church. I taught discipleship, worked with small cell groups. went to camp, and simply loved teens. I stopped two years ago because I was traveling to speak.
I write books for teens. I have two books out right now for teens: Making It Real: Whose Faith Is It Anyway? (discipleship/intimacy with God) and Real Teens, Real Stories, Real Life (God isn’t afraid of the tough stuff book for teens with questions).
I have a blog that reaches about 3,000 teens a month at http://realteenfaith.com.
I speak to teens and parents of teens at conferences all over the nation.
However, the thing I love doing best is that I’m a community mentor for freshman teen girls in four area high schools. I’m one of 30 women who connect with teens through speaking in high schools, doing community projects with the girls, and sponsoring scholarship essays, etc. It’s not faith-based, but it’s amazing, and I’m privileged to be a small part of this group of strong, caring women.
- What can I do?
What I hope is that each women who read this article and felt that tug will get involved in some way:
That can be serving as a spiritual mom to a teen who loves God, but whose family aren’t believers, or getting involved with a community effort that reaches teens (even if it’s not faith-based, because God’s big enough to walk in with you in a gentle manner), or opening your home to your kids’ friends a couple times a month, or mentoring one girl through a mentoring program or maybe through your church or perhaps just taking that one girl under your wing that is searching for direction.
It’s not important what it looks like, near as much as that we all do one thing that makes a difference in one girl’s life.
- How do you start a program like Community 2010 and become a part of a high school without getting shut out because of faith?
That’s a great question. First, the 2011 Challenge isn’t a faith-based program. The women I work with are a diverse group. Some are believers. Some are not. It’s a mentoring program, and that is how it is presented and carried out.
We work with four area high schools who were very eager to work with us. We presented a program — one hour period speaking once a month on a specific topic for freshmen girls, as well as one quarterly community project.
The women are a mix of professional women, full-time moms, etc. from the community. We meet once a week to brainstorm, plan, and keep the program working well. Each women brings her own specific strengths to the program. For example, I’m a speaker, so I speak in four schools for one hour each month. Others facilitate, other’s raise funds for scholarships, others administrate, etc.
The first year was a challenge, but this second year is amazing. The teens know we are here to stay and trust us. They love the community projects. They love the monthly topics. Last year’s word was ADVENTURE (Acknowledge, Dream, Vision, Enthusiasm, Nurture, Truth, Unique, etc.). This year’s word is CHOICES. We just started the letter “H” for this month, which is Health and used several professional women in the health field to speak to the girls.
The most awesome parts to this program is: 1) relationships with girls outside the church, and 2) the girls know who I am (an author) and that I’m a Christian. They are free to talk with me outside the school, say they see me in the mall, and ask all the questions they wish. This has been very cool.
- I’m only in my twenties. What can I do?
Any of the above that I mentioned. Girls are so open to you.
- The girls should know better. I’m tired of teens being raunchy.
It’s important that we understand two things: 1) a 14-year-old has just a little over a decade of a life span. Her definition of “normalcy” is developed by the culture of those few years. What has our media, our culture, etc. shown as normal?
2) It’s not the teens making the decisions about available fashion, entertainment, etc. It’s adults in the boardrooms who have painted a large target on the heart of our teens, and whose interest is solely dollars.
We can try to FIX teens, or we can show them a different perspective. What I have found is that teens do want to hear what we have to say, as long as we don’t come in with judgment or an attitude that says, “you wear this, so you must be a bad person”.
I just recently did an interview on the radio on this topic. The host kept steering the conversation back to this “dysfunctional generation” and their sleazy clothes. I tried to explain that if we focused on the heart issues: faith, confidence, knowing who they are as God’s girls, etc. that the outside would follow, but if we focused on the outside only then we miss the point. This is an amazing, intelligent generation looking for women to have real conversations with them, and to show the way in a manner that they can follow.
- Will you come speak to my church/school/women’s group/youth group/etc?
E-mail me with the details, and let’s talk. Okay? It normally requires a plane ticket, lodging at an inexpensive hotel, transportation to the event, and an honorarium that is within your groups’ budget. I usually spend a week preparing for an event, and would love to hear the needs of your group.
I hope this info is helpful. I also plan to post it on my web at http://daretobelieve.org.
Thank you ladies so much for caring. You rock.
T. Suzanne Eller (Suzie)
http://daretobelieve.org
http://realteenfaith.com
http://boomerbabesrock.com/blog
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Your book has improved my faith and brought me closer to God and I want to help young women now more than ever thank you for being such a blessing to the world.
December 13th, 2007 at 2:27 am