Secret Keeper Girl

Posted By Dannah Gresh Connecting can be so hard. I mean, there’s “let’s-swap-sugar-cookies” connecting, and then there’s “wow-I-feel-your-heart connecting. The second kind only comes from God’s Spirit uniting our hearts. I crave that kind of connecting…especially with my two girls. Today, I got some of it with one of my favorite people in the whole world: Erin Davis. She’s a great author and teen Bible teacher. (She’s also the host of Lies Young Women Believe (dot) com.) Best of all, she’s the first teenage girl that I mentored…way back when. We’re speaking together in a few weeks at True Woman. God’s been really radically re-directing what I’m planning to say there. Radically! So, I thought I should tell my co-teacher that there was a shift happening. Guess what? Her too! God has been speaking the same thing into her heart. Don’t you love it when he does that? Well, you can guess that I’m feeling like he’s going to do some radical things amongst use when we gather in a few weeks, so you might just want to consider that these two events might be a place where you could 1.)refuel yourself, and 2.)reconnect with your teen daughter! Here’s are some photos from our spring event in Chattanooga! My favorite is this one of a few of  the girls laying hands on me to pray for me right before I taught from God’s word!

Oh, OK. This one’s hard to make second. It’s a favorite, too. This is me holding Erin’s brand spankin’ new baby boy while she talks about how much she loves being a wife and mom…something we encourage in the teen girls during a time when society says those are second rate positions. (God tends to disagree!)

There’s lots of laughter through out the day, as we use a game-show-meets-talk-show format and invite special guests in for coffee shop banter. Here’s a good giggle from Kristyn Getty (of Keith and Kristyn Getty) as her husband that the way he protected her purity was to “marry her fast!”

The girls really do press into the Biblical teaching on lies about guys, beauty and the future (being a wife and mom). And, we follow a trail right to the Truth that sets them free.

Now, that’s not where the mother/daughter connecting happens. It happens in the main sessions where you hear from Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Janet Parshall, Joni Tada, Kay Arther and more! I even made an appearance there last spring in my fuzzy slippers (shown below as I explain them to FamilyLife’s Bob Lepine.)

And on the main stage panel discussion with some of my favorite girls!

Are you looking for a great way to connect to your teen this fall? Why not come spend a weekend with me, Nancy Leigh DeMoss and the entire True Woman team. For more information, click here!

Posted by Melanie Cherland, from the Secret Keeper Girl Tour Team This weekend was my very first visit to the state of Maryland, as well as our very second Secret Keeper Girl LIVE: Pajama Party Tour event. It was also the second time Secret Keeper Girl has appeared at Cornerstone Church in Bowie! Many moms and daughters returned, thinking they knew what to expect, and found themselves unexpectedly in a sling shot blasting zone, or bopping along to the Brady Bunch theme song. They also found themselves curled up in each others arms sharing and praying against insecurities and lies they had been believing.The absolute best part of the night was not the confetti cannons (surprisingly), or the fashion shows (shockingly) or even prizes being slung into the back of the sanctuary! It was seeing TWO DOZEN girls decide to let God be the King of their life! I am so awed to have been a part of so many girls falling in love with Christ- Hallelujah!! Be sure to check out the sweet salvation tears in one of the photos below.

Posted by Melanie Cherland, SKG Cast Member Wow! I just got back from the WORLD PREMIER of Secret Keeper Girl LIVE: The Pajama Party Tour! This Tuesday Nittany Christian School graciously hosted us as we unveiled some exciting new surprises like the world’s largest sling shot! Hilarious Aunt Zelde! And guest appearances by the likes of Jane Jetson, Claire Huxtable and more! We even spotted some celebrities without their makeup!

We also got the incredible opportunity to talk to girls and moms (and a surprising number of dads) about feeling pressure from friends, and what God’s word has to say about the labels that we put on ourselves. Since the event was held in our hometown we had the privilege of having ALL of our cast members on stage during this event! It was amazing to hear the response when these girls realized that the images they see in the magazines look VERY different than the actual celebrities.

And if that wasn’t enough, the icing on the cake for me was seeing one very special girl come up to the front and pray that God would be her father and her King- now she’s a real, live princess!!

Posted by Melanie Cherland 

This past Saturday night was a very special afternoon show in Ashland, Ohio. It was our very last stop for the ‘09/’10 Secret Keeper Girl show! As you can see displayed in the pictures below this tour finished with a bang!

We were able to really connect with the girls and moms and share with them how beautiful God says they are. Ashland was a great reminder that Secret Keeper Girl is such an amazing place for mothers and their daughters as well as aunts with nieces, grandmas with granddaughters, big sisters with younger sisters, mentors with mentees, and the list goes on… It was great to see so many “second mom”s bring their surrogate daughters to the event. In fact, one of our give away winners was an aunt/niece duo! Speaking of aunts and nieces, this show was also special because Janet (our lead facilitator of the night) was able to share it with her niece, Anna-Marie. (You can see a picture of the two of them at the bottom)

From the moment we arrived we knew we were in loving, capable hands. The volunteers were an incredible help with setting up the stage and blowing up a zillion balloons, stacking the book tables high with resources and even managing to feed us lunch and dinner! Our stage volunteers were exceptional as well, our models, dancers and story tellers were great at getting the audience revved up and excited!

THANKS everyone for wowing us with your incredible work ethic!

Massachusetts Moms & Daughters Will Be First To See The Show & Meet Dannah!

More than kudos go out to the two moms and daughters who are road-tripping it from Massachusetts to State College, PA for the debut of the all-new Secret Keeper Girl stage show. We just mailed back-stage passes to them for the valiant effort of attending from out-of-state. The four of them will meet Dannah at a special Sweet Treat Reception prior to show time as Secret Keeper Girl Live: The Pajama Party Tour debuts August 17, introducing a new partnership with the beloved VeggieTales brand.

Created as a relationship-building event for moms and their tween daughters (typically ages 8-12), the all-new pajama party-themed two and a half hour event features DRAMATIZED stories about meaningful friendships, FUN fashion shows that demonstrate modesty, INCREDIBLE balloon sculptures, BOUNCING beach ball competitions, MOTHER/DAUGHTER conversation time & COLORFUL confetti cannons.   A handful of moms are featured with their own hilarious fashion show in the new “Totally Tubular TV Mom’s Show,” a look at the fashion of some of TV’s favorite moms—and a great chance to talk about peer pressure! Five special girls from the area have been pre-selected as models for the tour’s hallmark, a seasonal tween fashion show featuring Gresh’s Truth or Bare Modesty Tests.  Everything is designed to encourage discussions about modesty, peer pressure and true inner beauty. (Moms and daughters will even be treated to some photos of celebs without make-up to prove just how fake the beauty on the cover of a magazine can be!)

 A special feature of the new show is a partnership with VeggieTales. Bob and Larry, the tomato and cucumber made famous for their silly videos with great messages, are introducing a new character to their family in August, SweetPea. SweetPea Beauty’s goal is to teach little girls that inner beauty counts more than what’s celebrated on the fallacious covers of beauty magazines. Dannah was more than happy to partner with them when they approached her this spring during a Secret Keeper Girl event in their home city of Nashville. “I’m so happy that someone with the branding muscle of VeggieTales is concerned enough to speak into a very critical cultural issues for our little girls. And they do it with fun and humor, so it’s easy to digest!”

Secret Keeper Girl Live: The Pajama Party Tour debuts in State College on August 17. The event starts at 6:30 pm with tickets available online at secretkeepergirl.com. The team is keeping tabs on tickets sold from out-of-state in an effort to offer invitations to the Sweet Treat Reception on a first-come first-served basis until space runs out. 

Tickets are $12.00. The show is expected to sell out as it has in past years in our hometown. For more information, please call Eileen at 814-234-6072.

Posted by Dannah Gresh, Creator of Secret Keeper Girl  Are you one of “those” moms who is always the lone boycotter of the newest TV fad? Turns out, you’re a good mom and some new research proves just how much you’re protecting. (It’s more than her mind!) It’s not just the categorically “bad” television that hurts our kids. The most sensational scenarios are not what’s robbing our little girls of their innocence.  It’s the slow-drip of value-ingraining shows where girls dress up and go on dates and our little girls are pressed to identify with older more mature characters and life scenarios. (I probably don’t have to mention that Hannah Montana has a lot of that stuff in it, do I?) It’s what culture as deemed the “norm” that probably shouldn’t be, if you want to keep the little in your girl.

There is an inarguable connection between the media diet of tweens and early sexual activity in teens. Fifty-five percent of teens who were exposed to a lot of sexual material as tweens had sexual intercourse between the ages of 14-16 compared with 6% of teens who rarely saw sexual imagery as tweens.[i] While studies often look at television shows with content deemed appropriate for teens and adults, you have to consider how a steady diet of boyfriend/girlfriend television programs, mildly sexual music lyrics, and an occasional PG or PG-13 movie impacts a girl. Doesn’t it make sense that anything we feed our daughters that says “be boy-crazy” would just put her in the cultural current of early sexualization?

As I was writing Six Ways To Keep The Little In Your Girl: Guiding Your Daughter From Her Tweens To Her Teens (September 1, 2010), one of the more unusual findings of my studies was that there is an actual biological component to this trend. After viewing romantic film content, both men and women being studied experienced changes in progesterone and testosterone levels. (Have you ever watched an over-the-top romantic movie with perhaps mild sexual nuances to it, and then found yourself craving your husband?) These findings indicate that media content actually alters the endocrine environment, at least temporarily. As I write this the pediatric field is exploring this question: can early exposure to sexual images such as those seen in music videos and commonly viewed primetime television be altering the rate of maturity in a girl’s body, thus creating the trend of reaching menarche earlier?

Play it safe, mom. The stakes are too high.

So, is your daughter to be a monk? Naw! TV, music and movies aren’t all bad. Just some of it is. My new release, Six Ways to Keep The Little In Your Girl, is full of more great statistics, hilarious stories of raising my own tweens and creative ideas to guide their eye toward age-appropriate television. Pre-purchase a copy today at our online bookstore.

[i] Victor Strasburger, M.D. “Clueless: Why Do Pediatricians Underestimate the Media’s Influence on Children and Adolescents?” Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Volume 117, Number 4, April 2006,

Posted By Dannah GreshI’m finishing up the galley (designed manuscript) portion of my September release Six Ways To Keep The Little In Your Girl: Raising Your Tween To Be A Godly Teen. We need “something” to fill a page at the beginning of each chapter. I’d like to include real life concerns from moms. Your first name would appear under your quote with the name and age of your daughter.  So….could you talk a quick minute and answer this question?

WHAT CULTURAL PRESSURE MOST CONCERNS  YOU ABOUT RAISING YOUR DAUGHTER?

(2-3 sentences, please. Can be in the form of questions.)

Here are some key areas that the book covers and it’d be great to have these addressed in some of your answers.

• Toys, Dolls, Commercialism
• Periods, Hormones
• Boys, Boy-craziness at a younger and younger age
• Sleep overs, the cultural pressure to have less and less family time
• Carpooling (importance of it so you can hear what’s going on)
• Television, Movies, Music and Celebrity Influence
• Immodesty, beauty products sold earlier and earlier
• Mean girls

You don’t have to use the list above. It’s just for creating creative ideas!Here’s how it should look:

“I can’t believe the pressure to dress immodestly. I thought that after all the groundwork I laid with my girls when they were little, it wouldn’t be so hard. But it is. Are there any other moms out there saying “no” to low cut shirts and bikinis?”Dannah, mom to Lexi (16) and Autumn (16)

This Saturday was officially our last show of the season, and what a time we had! Not only did we have a BLAST doing our sweet dance moves and telling our most embarrassing moments, but we also mastered the silly faces and the classic thumbs up. In fact, there was tons of smiling faces striking poses all over the Woodland Heights Baptist Church this weekend - check out all their fantastic faces in the pictures below. As if the flash bulbs didn’t make our eyes water enough, we all got a little misty eyed as Suzy invited a mom with her seven week old daughter on stage to give us an idea of how our mothers will always view their daughters. Thanks for the heartfelt reminder Suzy, and thanks for all the smiles Conway!

Secret Keeper Girl Intern Tryouts Via Skype

Monday, May 25th

Are you a college junior or senior who desires to make a big impact for the Kingdom of God? Consider our Secret Keeper Girl internship. We’re now looking for our fall interns. As an intern, you are discipled by Dannah Gresh to find your true ministry gifting, train to be on stage during our Secret Keeper Girl live events, and manage all the behind-the-scenes details of our tour. It’s a great resume-builder. This unpaid internship, pays off big time in terms of experience and fun! If you’re interested, have great stage skills and want to try out now….email your resume to eileen@purefreedom.org today and clear our your calendar for a 30 minute try-out/interview on Tuesday, May 25th!

Posted by Melanie Cherland, SKG InternSaturday was a very special day for me at Asbury United Methodist Church in Madison, Alabama because it was the first time my family got to see the Secret Keeper Girl show! They LOVED it! They couldn’t stop talking about what a great time they had and how much they appreciated hearing God’s truth about the importance of inner beauty. They loved that we are gathering signatures to petition the fashion industry and ask for age appropriate clothes for tween girls (see picture of the petition collection bucket below). My mom loved watching the decades fashion show, she lived through a lot of those crazy wardrobe choices herself! My older sister thought the girls clothes were adorable and was excited to learn about the Secret Keeper Girl “secret weapon” (an A-line tanktop, usually found in the boys/mens department to help make tops more modest). Even my dad had a great time listening to some upbeat chick rock and watching moms and daughters bond together.Thanks for showing my family a great time!!