Effective Discipleship for Teens

This is my sister, Kandy Chimento. Years ago, she developed a wonderful discipleship program for teen girls. It was an amazing program and I have asked her to share a little about it. {Originally posted October 7, 2016, on ggmandy dot com}

You can follow Kandy at Gettin’ Back to My Roots

“Women of Virtue”

One of my favorite endeavors is discipleship.  In my own experience, I became convinced that effective discipleship can be more of a life-changer than a hundred sermons.  One of my prime times of spiritual growth came through a small discipleship group I belonged to in my 20’s, and by the on-going mentoring of an older godly woman. When we were youth pastors in Kansas City, I felt led to create a discipleship course for high school girls.

My vision for this course came from Titus 2:3-5,

“The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”

How it Started

I wanted to especially invest in older teen girls who would soon leave the family home and be out on their own, so the group was composed of junior and senior girls in high school.

The only qualifications were that they were

1) believers in Christ who had made a commitment to follow Him, and

2) willing to be mentored by women in the church.

The group met bi-monthly and I designed each meeting to have the spirit of a type of sorority – a sense of belonging and comradery.

Subject Matter

The teachings centered around 3 different areas of life:

• personal discipleship,
• practical homemaking, and
• social outreach.

Though the topics in each area differed throughout the years, they all fell into one of these 3 areas. Different women in our church taught the lessons.  We elected officers and also included scripture memory in our curriculum.

Some topics included

• maintaining a daily devotional time,
• meal planning,
• finding your spiritual gifts,
• raising children,
• scrapbooking and
• marriage, to name a few. 

Various outreaches included

• collecting and delivering needed items for a women’s shelter,
• helping out at Ronald McDonald house,
• and participating in a political event.

We also attended a formal social event together, such as the ballet, and hosted a spring tea for the girls’ mothers.  One woman in our church hosted an annual formal Christmas dinner for the girls.  We ended each school year with a presentation service, highlighting each girl and her gifts.

Commitment and Accountability

The years of this mentoring program are some of my favorite memories. There was a strong level of commitment in each group of girls that developed throughout our year together.  We experienced some wonderful times of bonding, as well as challenging life events which proved to draw us closer together.  But one of the most unexpected discoveries was realizing the gifts and knowledge that dwells in our “more mature” women.  There are naturally some people that we gravitate toward for spiritual wisdom and knowledge, but the Lord also led me to people who had an abundance of other skills and experience that translated well into mentoring young women.  I believe that many of my mature “mentors” also discovered that they had important gifts to share.

Favorite Memories

Consequently, the years of this mentoring program are some of my favorite memories. I believe that these experiences had a lasting effect on the lives of these precious young women as well. 

What are your gifts and how can you share them?

Kandy Chimento

Since this post was published three wonderfully helpful books on mentoring have been published. I have written book reviews, just follow these links.

Adorned by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

Table Mentoring: Blessed to be a Blessing

YOUR TURN

Kandy Chimento

Kandy Chimento and her husband, Tony, live in Liberty Hill, Texas. They have spent many years in ministry together.  Their greatest joys are their two amazing kids; Christa, and Tyler (and his lovely wife, Rebekah), and their two grandsons, Gideon & Jude. Kandy is the Director of Operations at a local Food Pantry & Resource Center, where she enjoys working with the hundreds of volunteers she manages, and the neighbors they assist.

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