COMMIT
Cultivating Obedience, Ministering Mercy, Internalizing Truth
The Story Behind COMMIT
The story of COMMIT began when 16-year-old Christianna Reed made a commitment to spend the next four years of her life in wholehearted service to the Lord, focusing on growing in love with Him rather than other issues which so often become the focus of young ladies’ lives. The resulting ministries, spiritual growth, deepened family relationships, insights, and closeness to the Lord that came into her life gave her a vision to share what she learned with other young ladies.
Over the next few years, Christianna was able to counsel a number of girls who were in difficult situations due to prior choices to seek worldly interests, rather than Jesus first and foremost. She saw how this damaged their lives, and how hard it was to free these young ladies from the bondage they had unwittingly become entangled in through desires they had pursued in earlier years. After one frustrating counseling session, Christianna talked with her parents about beginning a ministry to younger girls, while they were still forming their life purpose and before they reaped bigger consequences from wrong decisions.
Shortly thereafter, Christianna prayerfully began a two-month weekly discipleship group for twelve home schooled girls in their pre-teens and early teens. Each week she taught them how to apply a different Biblical principle, she allowed time for guided discussion, her sister Charity taught a fun session on etiquette, each girl shared what she learned about Jesus from assigned reading in John’s gospel, and, finally, they broke up into smaller groups for prayer.
My sister and I were in this group, and it greatly affected our lives! We had long admired Christianna from afar, because of her effervescent spirit, announcing to everyone by her very demeanor what a joy it was to live a life of seeking Christ first of all, and being wholly dedicated to Him. We found that not only did she display spiritual maturity, but also she was amazingly gifted in sharing how we could live this life for ourselves! She was funny, witty, and joyful in her exhortations; she was able to share Biblical truth in a way very applicable to young ladies’ lives.
Due to ministry trips, Christianna was unable to continue a local discipleship group after those two months, but her vision for ministry to young ladies remained unchanged. One day, as her family was driving to Dallas, they discussed the need for seminars for young ladies, but acknowledged to one another their inadequacy to organize these. Their parents told the girls (Christianna, Michelle, and Charity) not to tell others about this idea, but just to pray. They did, and on that very trip to Dallas, Mr. Gothard asked their family to organize seminars for young ladies as part of IBLP!
From that point on, COMMIT—which stands for Cultivating Obedience, Ministering Mercy, Internalizing Truth—has been a family ministry for the Reeds. Since the first COMMIT conference was held in Oklahoma City in September 1999, with 100 attendees, mothers and daughters across the country have been eager to attend the COMMIT conferences.