Girls in Rangers

This topic split off from the Outpost specific thread "GIR Update"


Our church is going through some rotation in membership, and the leader of the Wednesday Night Girls Program left.

About 3 weeks ago, the Church Administrator (lady) took over the Girls' Class.  Then 2 weeks ago, she asked that the girls be allowed to attend with Rangers that week, because she had been short on time.  No Problem.

Last week, my third-grade niece was in the Ranger Room with me prior to class, and the girls' class didn't come to their meeting room, so I invited her to be with the Rangers.

It wound up that the girls DID meet, but they were down in the Church Kitchen, and we didn't know about it.

So this week, my niece rode to church with me.  I turned her over to the Girls' class, and I asked, "So how did you like being with Rangers?"

She said, "Bor-ing".

I asked why she said that, and she replied, "All they did was start fires with flints and sharpen knives".

I guess that I cannot compete with coloring pictures of flowers and ponies.

I am a G.I.R. Failure!

One opinion is not a trend. Its also a matter of fitting in with an all boys group.

I mentioned to GIR to our former youth pastor that was up here today for a wedding I attended. He sounded excited about that idea.

Claymore wrote:.... I am a G.I.R. Failure!

Failure is not measured by just one outpost meeting, but when one give into situation.

My church faces some "forces" too when we included girls in RR (during my trailblazer days....), the boys then even have a name for the girls "Royal Girlies". The girls simply do not understand why they need to be in uniform, what are all the jargon we are using, etc.... It does take time for them to begin to see the whole program, the advancement path they are actually doing.

Thanks to my Commander than to stop us from "naming" and enforcing the points in weekly program, especially games that slowly integrate the both girls and guys together (Guys realised that at times, the girls are pretty strong to win some of the games and contributed intriguing questions or pointers during Spirit Challenge.), respect was won over time.

Why is it that being different is a bad thing? What's wrong with being unique? I know some people struggle with the whole "different yet equal" concept, but I believe that it's important to get a hold of. We have a whole society with an increasing "gender disidentification" complex. It goes against the concept of the "body of Christ". Many parts, yet one body. Each equal in value, yet different in purpose. Our society wants to make everyone the same to gain equality. It's man's way of trying to fix a problem. IMO, the problem stems from the fact that men haven't loved their wives as Christ loved the church. They want women to submit to their authority as the the high priest of the home without laying down their life for the family, like Jesus said they should.

I'm not saying that girls shouldn't have outdoor activities, or never associate with boys. That's a ludicrous deduction of the opposite extreme. But I do think there needs to be "boy" time and "girl" time. There needs to be times during development that is gender specific. Times to share in life experiences without the "issues" imposed by the presence of the opposite sex. Put another way, time to be themselves without feeling the need to act a certain way. Boys need to be able to be goofy, mocho, and all the other things that our society says is "bad" nowadays. And girls need to be able to be.... whatever it is that little girls need to be and do.  

I understand that there are times and situations where the lack of available leadership creates a requirement for them to be combined, but I don't agree with simply throwing them together (as the normal deal) as a social experiment to "prove" some ambiguous humanistic point concerning gender equality.

Firstly, gender specific mentoring begins at home with a father and mother setting an example. That is where the misidentification occurs. Too many absent dads (think Courageous movie). Too many women going it alone. As well as men leading there needs to be Godly women not fighting us, disrespecting us in front of their girlfriends, or throwing up every little failure. All it takes to kill a man is not an AR-15, that might be preferable to being humiliated or immasculated is to destroy his ego. We sometimes on both ends of a marriage say, "I'll do this if he does that" or "I'll love her more if she respected my choices, didn't nag me, or run me down in front of her girlfriends". Each side is like cold war style US vs USSR where neither wanted to give up anything for fear of being seen as weak.

I personally, don't see the failure in the churches as much as in the homes these kids come from. We tend be more of a trauma triage (keep the patient alive and move on) then trying to make something good be greater. In one program it would require separate bible studies sometimes and even some events be boys and girls only. I am for that kind of Royal Rangers if i comes to it. I am even up for the church to decide on a case by case basis. Royal Rangers and Royal Rangerettes would work for some. Girls earning GMA shouldn't affect us.

Interesting, that Singapore wasn't always coed. Did you use Missionettes before combining?  How is gender relations in your country?

I was obviously being a bit facetious when I said that I was a “G.I.R. Failure.”  My Niece is 8 years old, and going through a bit of a sassy phase.

In our Modern Society, men & women are losing their unique role identities.  Just 75 years ago, men needed women and women needed men to live comfortably.

Women did not have the physical strength to do the jobs that brought in good income.  Also, because children did not come when you planned them, many women had “jobs” that kept them from getting “careers”.

Men were capable of earning money, but it took 45 minutes to cook a meal and 20 minutes to clean up after it.  Today, a man can say, “I can put a Beef Pot Pie in the Microwave and have it in 5 minutes, with no cleanup.  Who needs you, woman?”

A woman can say, “I can earn as much money being a computer programmer as you can being a brick mason.  Who needs you, man?”

And so in the last 75 years, we have found a "better" way to live than we did for the previous 2,925 years.

You sprinkle in the welfare system that encourages broken homes, premarital cohabitation, and splits when they "empower" women telling them if you weren't married or if you had more kids out of marriage you can get more $.

I have also heard a theory that due to slavery where "married" black men and women slaves could be sold a part. Thus creating generations of broken families. When sold they would move onto another. Seems reasonable that would have an effect on the culture. Kids could be split up too and fathers didn't really provide since they were all owned. I don't think all are like this but it is a major problem for them.

I'm sure all this relates to issues boys and girls face in today's world but if we want to split the topic we could. Far be it from to go down a rabbit trail...

RRCmdrBennett wrote:.... Did you use Missionettes before combining?  How is gender relations in your country?

Yup, girls used to be in Missionettes before they joined us. I cant comment much on my country, but from my outpost, it seems pretty well.

You started like us. When did your Royal Rangers and M'ettes begin?

As this discussion was becoming about girls in Rangers in general,I have split it off from my Outpost specific topic

Mark posted as I was splitting the topic...so it did not get moved over when I split it.

Mark Jones wrote:This last weekend my son's girl friend came along with us. She loves backpacking, camping, kayaking, caving and is every bit a pretty girly girl. She is amazing. When we did this 10 mile hike it was a pretty good hike. Went up some pretty good inclines and down through some stuff. The girls can handle it just fine.

All we have to do is address the moral issues and make sure they are with in boundries. For years I didn't see a need for girls in Rangers. Yet working with the young men and ladies of youth age 18 to 22 they enjoy the activites just as much as I do at age 54.

They are learning good stuff and God's in it and He is pointed to quite often.

I have seen the mpact girls come in setup camp and tear it all down faster then the boys did several years in a row.

It does take the right leadership. That is key.

Mark Jones

Interesting discussion.  

As I have "an iron" in this fire I will chime in too.  

Having worked with boy and girl Rangers for the last 3 years, I can tell you that most girls love the activity level in Rangers & are able to excel in the program. Some of our best Rangers & Jr Leaders have been girls.


I do not buy the notion that we HAVE to have "gender specific mentoring".

Does a male Pastor mentor only the men in the congregation?

Does a female Children's Pastor mentor only girls?

Does a male Youth Pastor mentor only the boys?


to me the answer to all 3 is no!

So (to me) the idea that we have to have men & only men to mentor boys is flawed.

Now before you shout FOUL!  let me expand further.

Is there value in having some "boys/men" time?  (or girls/women time) Absolutely!

But that doesn't mean we have to have separate ministries to handle that. coed ed groups can split off for gender specific session if there is enough male & female leaders.

One of my goals in running a coed group is to split boys & girls up at Bible study time so they have that time.
(Alas, that has been so far stymied by not having enough staff  )

As Mark talked about-it all comes down to having the right leaders (and enough leaders)

ccm2361 wrote:Interesting discussion.  

As I have "an iron" in this fire I will chime in too.  

Having worked with boy and girl Rangers for the last 3 years, I can tell you that most girls love the activity level in Rangers & are able to excel in the program. Some of our best Rangers & Jr Leaders have been girls.


I do not buy the notion that we HAVE to have "gender specific mentoring".

Does a male Pastor mentor only the men in the congregation?

Does a female Children's Pastor mentor only girls?

Does a male Youth Pastor mentor only the boys?


to me the answer to all 3 is no!

So (to me) the idea that we have to have men & only men to mentor boys is flawed.

Now before you shout FOUL!  let me expand further.

Is there value in having some "boys/men" time?  (or girls/women time) Absolutely!

But that doesn't mean we have to have separate ministries to handle that. coed ed groups can split off for gender specific session if there is enough male & female leaders.

One of my goals in running a coed group is to split boys & girls up at Bible study time so they have that time.
(Alas, that has been so far stymied by not having enough staff  )

As Mark talked about-it all comes down to having the right leaders (and enough leaders)

Amen

I'm reminded of Timothy who was "mentored" by his Jewess mother and grandmother who taught him the scriptures while his father was Greek. He turned out to be an exceptionally fine young man. So fine he attained pastorship at a young age which made others despise him.

While I do believe its critical there should be male role models around the mere presence of a female will not destroy his masculinity. The only issue I see could be men stepping aside and letting women run the whole show. We need balance. How do we within Rangers teach a boy to respect girls and women if we seemingly show contempt for their presence?

Like Chris said there can be times with the right amount of staff you can do split events or bible study. There is biblical instruction for men teaching boys and the older women teaching younger women too.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:You started like us. When did your Royal Rangers and M'ettes begin?

Our outpost has just turned 20 this year and M'ettes was much older than Rangers (which i do not know the exact date).

ccm2361 wrote:Interesting discussion.  

.... I do not buy the notion that we HAVE to have "gender specific mentoring".

Does a male Pastor mentor only the men in the congregation?

Does a female Children's Pastor mentor only girls?

Does a male Youth Pastor mentor only the boys?


to me the answer to all 3 is no!

So (to me) the idea that we have to have men & only men to mentor boys is flawed.

Now before you shout FOUL!  let me expand further.

Is there value in having some "boys/men" time?  (or girls/women time) Absolutely!

But that doesn't mean we have to have separate ministries to handle that. coed ed groups can split off for gender specific session if there is enough male & female leaders.

One of my goals in running a coed group is to split boys & girls up at Bible study time so they have that time.
(Alas, that has been so far stymied by not having enough staff  )

As Mark talked about-it all comes down to having the right leaders (and enough leaders)

In my the group that i'm in charged of, ER, the commanders has agreed to form mixed gender patrols. But we too, ensured that there will be at least a Male and Female Cmdr each overseeing individual patrol, just so that if there is gender specific issues or topic to adress we can split it up.

Our church's rangers and m'ettes is over 30 years old.

Our M'ettes are going through some changes. Its more a one room schoolhouse. They are opting to not do monthly club focuses in the main sanctuary. As I mentioned before my CE Director was delighted at the idea of many RRI nations running Royal Rangers coed.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Our church's rangers and m'ettes is over 30 years old.

Our M'ettes are going through some changes. Its more a one room schoolhouse. They are opting to not do monthly club focuses in the main sanctuary. As I mentioned before my CE Director was delighted at the idea of many RRI nations running Royal Rangers coed.

Resources will be concentrated, fund can be used for more focus work,... there are so many reasons to do it. Will be waiting for the official announcement from you!

Camping here.

It would probably be no sooner than Sept 2014. I don't think blending during the middle of a year would be a wise course of action. We take off summers after first Wed of June. That would give my leaders and the women time to figure out how we would do it.

Of course I'm all for coed events in the meantime.

This is an older thread that needs updated input.

Here in Montana, the summer "pow wow" is going co-ed for the first time. The theme is Adventure Together. For a few years, the boys and girls have had back-to-back, but separate campouts. But probably due to declining numbers of kids and leaders, the district is going this route now. Our state only has one registered outpost left, which is led by the district commander.

Although we haven't had an outpost for years, I'd consider going. But my wife won't use an outhouse, no matter how nice they are. And the road's too rough for our trailer. Sigh.

We have two young lady German Exchange Students at our Church: one residing in my home.

Although we are not allowed to demand that the girls attend church, we asked them, and they are there; pretty willingly. They are both once-a-year Catholics. They like our small Pentecostal Church, and one is really impressed that anyone can go to the front of the church for prayer, and that the Pastor will join them. She also refers to our Pastor as "Father Rick".

They like to harass me, and one of the first subjects that they fired at me was not having girls in Rangers. I told them that my boys act stupid enough, without having a couple of pretty girls to impress.

Their reply was, "Well, WE should not be punished, just because you cannot handle your boys.....".

Claymore wrote: We have two young lady German Exchange Students at our Church: one residing in my home.

When in high school, I took a class in German, since our family thought that was our ancestry. (Turns out we're actually Polish.) Our teacher had a very heavy accent and we thought it pretty cool that we were learning the language from someone from the mother country. After a couple of weeks, we found out he was from Boston.

Didn't expect to see an update in this thread

Must be interesting having an exchange student in your home. A friend of ours has a girl from Sweden in thier house

I was glad to see that our Southeastern Regional Royal Ranger Conference in Orlando will address this topic.  I am ready to find out what the "official" view is.  I am cautiously optimistic that leadership won't just punt this issue down the road but rather provide some resources or ideas to make this situation fruitful.  And for what it is worth, the girls in my church who have elected to participate in a Ranger activity don't need any help in competing.  They are capable and proud of their abilities.

RangerJeff wrote:I was glad to see that our Southeastern Regional Royal Ranger Conference in Orlando will address this topic.  I am ready to find out what the "official" view is.  I am cautiously optimistic that leadership won't just punt this issue down the road but rather provide some resources or ideas to make this situation fruitful.

Good, glad to hear they are working on it. So many smaller churches just down have the personnel to run 2 seperate kids ministries.

RangerJeff wrote: And for what it is worth, the girls in my church who have elected to participate in a Ranger activity don't need any help in competing.  They are capable and proud of their abilities.

That was my experience too. Our girl Rangers did very well