Author: Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

Resources for Teen Girl Bible Studies on Dating and Marriage

Resources for Teen Girl Bible Studies on Dating and Marriage - Parenting Like Hannah This summer I participated in a Bible study with teen girls. We met once a week in a local charity coffee shop for about eight weeks. I allotted an hour and a half for each study, but many nights we were there much longer than that.

Each night I tried to focus on one or more Bible stories that illustrated the topic for the night. For example when we discussed how to spot a “frog”, we read the story of Abigail and her “frog” husband, Nabal. One week we discussed who would be a “prince” and discussed Boaz and Joseph (Jesus’ Joseph).

The rest of the time we spent relating personal experiences and studying material from various books and web articles. The main book the girls studied for most of the summer was the Dana Gresh book, Get Lost: Your Guide to Finding True Love. There is probably enough material in the book to use only that one source, but I wanted to cover other topics so I pulled in other volumes as well.

Whether you want to study with your own daughter or are leading a class or small group on dating and marriage, you may find these other resources helpful, too. This list is by no means exhaustive, but are some of my personal favorites on the topics.

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Why Parents and Teachers Should Sacrifice Perfection

In third grade, my daughter had a project where they had to design and build a city. When we took her project to school, I could not believe how many professional caliber architects and engineers were in her class. Actually, many of the cities looked as if they were professionally done, because they were. The parents had swooped in to “help” and had done the project for their children.

You probably know all of the reasons for not being the parent who does their child’s schoolwork, but have you ever stopped to think about how much you do for children so it “looks right”? Even churches don’t give it a second thought as they make children’s productions look like Broadway shows. When we step in and take over in the search for “perfection” we are robbing our children of some very important lessons God may want them to learn.

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Creative Ways to Integrate the Bible and School Lessons

Do you homeschool? Do you try to do educational activities with your children in the summer? Do you have pre-schoolers? Have you ever tried to combine Bible lessons and secular subjects into one lesson? It’s easier than you think.

Today we went out to work with some immigrant children in a poor area of our city. Many of these children are struggling in school. My time with them is limited, so I wanted to connect the things they need to practice for school with a Bible lesson.

The result? We explored Noah and the Ark while integrating the Bible lesson with various school subjects. What did Noah need to build the Ark? Gopher wood, but how much? Math was easily reviewed as we discussed the size of the Ark and concepts of measurement like inches, feet, yards and cubits. We discovered how important it is to have standard measurements.

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Kids, Common Courtesy, and Sharing Your Faith

The New Testament is full of reminders for Christians to be careful how they lived their lives. The writers (and God) knew that non-Christians watch Christians carefully. Sure, some do it to find an excuse not to believe, but many are looking in hopes of seeing the light and love of God in our lives. Reflecting God’s love to others is what draws them to Him and His Words.

If you have children for very long, you soon become swept up in birthday parties, volunteer commitments and a whole new world of people who may previously have been strangers. Hopefully, these people will soon learn from you and your children that your family worships God faithfully.

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For Parents Struggling With Their Own Childhoods

One of the parenting mistakes I see the most is parents not taking the time to really listen to what their children have to say. For Christian parents, getting to know your child through listening, is especially crucial. What they tell you and share with you will give you glimpses into their hearts. As Christian parents, it is really the heart we are trying to mold towards God. It is almost impossible to mold what we don’t know.

One of the reasons parents don’t really listen to their children is that they don’t know how. Many current parents were not heard by their own parents. In fact, there are still many people alive today who believe “children should be seen and not heard”. If your parents never really listened to you or you were raised in a dysfunctional or abusive environment, how do you learn what to do differently?

Milan and Kay Merkovich may just have the help you need in their book, How We Love Our Kids. (You can read the first chapter here for free.) They have analyzed parents and have discovered five main types of parenting styles. Each of the styles has its own ways of not giving children the attention and real listening they need. Sadly, the children are often blamed for the resulting conflicts when it is the parenting style that is causing many of the issues.

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