New resource for girls and young women encourages faith conversations
BY LAUREN MARTIN
A new Salvation Army resource for young women and teens is providing a fresh feel for small groups and youth and young adult ministries.
‘Valere’, an eight-week faith-based resource, was launched by the Youth and Young Adults Department earlier this year. It is targeted towards young women aged 15 to young adults and speaks to a wide range of issues that affect women in society, pointing to what the Bible says and reminding participants who they are in Christ.
Lieutenant Sarah Walker said she has been using Valere for the past few weeks with her small group at Parramatta Corps, western Sydney. She says she has a broad range of ages, from high school students, university students and young adults who are working full-time, and that the content has resonated with each of them.
“It is a beautiful looking resource, asthetically, and that certainly appealed to the group,” she said. “They also liked the fact that they can purchase the journal for themselves and take it home to use during the week.”
Sarah said each of the weeks’ content is based on a topic, such as ‘belonging’, or ‘comparison’, with research-backed, thought-provoking information presented, before a series of discussion questions. Creative outlets are also offered, such as colouring and ice-breaker games.
Sarah said the creators of Valere have obviously thought and prayed a lot over the materials, and the dynamics and challenges of small groups. One common thing that sometimes happens with groups is that, at the start of a group, when the facilitator asks how everyone has been since they last met, the question is met with standard responses like, ‘good’, or ‘yeah, going OK’ etc.
Valere seeks to help groups to share at deeper levels.
“There’s this ‘mood wheel’,” said Sarah, “where it gives a set of broad moods and then breaks them down into different types of feelings.
“What we do is that everyone looks at the wheel and they select a word from anywhere, if it’s a broad term, we use the wheel to drill it down, to specify how they are feeling. It enables them to tell the group how they have been feeling [since the last time they met].
“It’s just one of the helpful tools for discussion.”
She said she believes the resource would work well with people who are new, or just exploring faith, as well as small groups among established Christians.
To find out more about Valere, and for resources, click here.
