CRC-affiliated GEMS celebrates 50 Years

GEMS a Christian Reformed Church-affiliated ministry for bringing girls across the world closer to God, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

GEMS stands for Girls Everywhere Meeting the Savior. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary at a special event in Asheville, N.C, in July.

“Fifty years ago, God brought together a group of women with the idea of beginning a ministry specifically for girls,” says the GEMS’ website, which is http://www.gemsgc.org/. “Driven by God’s Spirit and their own passion for helping girls grow spiritually, GEMS Girls’ Clubs/Calvinettes was born.”

In 1957, the Young Calvinist Federation board agreed that the Girls’ Club movement required assistance and approved appointment of a committee of young women members of the YCF Board and girls’ club leaders to take action.

In January of 1958, the group for girls, first known as the Calvinettes, was born with the goals of meeting the spiritual needs of girls and molding their lives and inviting all girls to join so that they could study the Bible and have fellowship together in a Christian setting. In order to more clearly identify the purpose for which the ministry was created, the name GEMS came into being in late 1995.

“The purpose of GEMS Girls' Clubs is to help bring girls into a living, dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ. To help foster this all-important relationship between each girl and Christ, other relationships are nurtured as well — between girls and between girls and their counselor (leader),” says the website.

GEMS has been recognized as the official youth serving agency for the Christian Reformed Church. Curriculum is developed from a Reformed perspective. At the same time, the ministry is non-denominational with club participation in several different denominations and non-denominational churches and other Christian organizations throughout the United States and Canada.

In GEMS, girls from first through eighth grades meet in small groups of six to eight and get to know each other and their leaders well. They learn life skills, such as emotional and physical health, citizenship, understanding disabilities, building family and other relationships, resisting peer pressure, and activism.

The relationship formed by leaders and girls is life-changing, said GEMS board president Barb Miedema in an article in the Banner earlier this year. “Women show the girls what it is to be a Jesus follower and have a living, dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said.

GEMS now has clubs across North America and in Africa.

To read a break-down on the history of GEMS, visit: http://www.gemsgc.org/main/our_history.html

To read the Banner article on the club, visit: http://www.thebanner.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1472.