Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Book Review: Growing Godly Women


Growing Godly Women: A Christian Woman's Guide to Mentoring Teenage Girls
by Donna Greene

Tonight I finished reading Growing Godly Women. I was in LifeWay a few months ago just browsing around the books and stumbled across this one. I didn't know anything about it, but thought it looked interesting, so I picked it up. I have a heart for women's ministry, as God has obviously made me a female and has given us the specific charge to teach and train younger women.

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored." 
Titus 2:3-5

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Proverbs 22:6

"Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."
1 Timothy 4:12

I love the practice of mentoring and disciple-making. I love pouring my life into young girls and women and watching them learn and grow in godliness. And I love being poured into by other godly women as well! So when I saw this book, it peaked my interest.

Growing Godly Women is a fairly quick and easy read. After reading the book, I can't say it's one of my favorites, but it's still a decent read. Donna writes about her experiences starting and leading a very successful girls Bible study and mentoring ministry. There are many jewels of wisdom in this book, but I felt like Donna just barely touched on the subjects rather than really diving into them. You get a few pages worth of meat and then a lot of stories to show the application. A lot of the stories and applications were a little dated, but they still got the point across. Overall, I would keep this as a shelf read, but wouldn't really recommend it for anyone wanting to learn Biblical principals and methods for mentoring and discipling young girls.

As an end note, throughout the reading of this book, I was really interested in the girl's ministry Donna started. It made me think and dream about the possibilities of small group discipleship and a holistic approach to it, where girls are biblically taught how to grow mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially.

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." 
Luke 2:52

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Snow Day!


Today it snowed in Alabama! And on top of that, it's Stephen and I's year and a half anniversary! Woohoo :-) We found out church was cancelled as we were getting in the car to leave, and so we had breakfast with family, played in the snow some, and then spent another lazy Sunday afternoon at home. That seems to be a pattern lately and I must say I don't mind it at all. Here's a few pics I took today of our house and around the yard. Enjoy!