A generation that needs our help

Do you know any teenage girls? You only have to walk through any town on a Saturday night to know some of the pressures these girls face. Or flick through their magazines, listen to their music, check out their Facebook pages… Every day they are bombarded with the world's messages – the right makeup, clothes, boyfriend, music, parties. The desire to be special; but the need to fit in.

It's tough being a teenager, and potentially even more so if you're a Christian. What does it mean to live for Christ in a world that ignores him? How can a girl be godly, and what does that look like anyway? Where are the role models to help them see what a "real woman" – a woman of God – looks like?

Our new resource, Real Women, written by Sarah Bradley, is designed to help teenage girls who are caught up in this situation. It's a great tool to help Christian women meet up with teenage girls to explore together what living as a woman of God looks like.

The book contains seven one-to-one Bible studies for women and girls to do together, either one-to-one or one-to-two. And in-between each meeting, there's a study for the girl to do on her own. The fourteen sessions in total take a teenager through the book of Colossians. On the way they'll discover how awesome Jesus is, how important it is to be rooted in him and how to live as the person they were created to be.

All fourteen Bible studies are laid out in the book, along with jargon busters, real-life scenarios, issues to think through, and plenty of questions to help girls dig into the text for themselves. There's also an online leader's guide to help women who haven't done something like this before.

So…

• if you're a woman*, I'd love to encourage you to have a think about a teenage girl (or two) you could invest some time in
• if you're a pastor, is this something you could suggest to your congregation?

I'll leave the last word to Lizzy Smallwood, the chair of the London Women's Convention:

There is a battle raging for the hearts and minds of our teenage girls. These simple yet profound studies in Colossians demonstrate clearly how Christ is all we need. Sarah Bradley writes: "There is no one better, no one greater. Stay rooted in him, built up in him. You were dead and he has made you alive." That's what I want my teenage daughter to be convinced of and I'm really looking forward to using these studies with the young women in our church.

*and if you're a man, check out the guy's version of this book: Real Men