i led the "talk" at youth club at Ley Street Chapel on thursday night. we always have trouble getting the kids to listen to us (surprise, surprise) so I decided that I would listen to them instead. here's what I did (I should mention that I pretty much stole the idea from Reimagining Spiritual Formation)
Have you ever been betrayed by someone you thought was your friend?
What happened, and how did you feel about the other person?
Each time someone talked (4 or 5 people had things to say) the rest of the group would start making noise (they refuse to keep quite for 15 seconds). Each time I would silence the chatter and remind them that one of their friends had something to say that was important for all of us to hear. After a few times of this, they stayed quiet.
Then I read the very short story from Luke 22 where Judas agrees to betray Jesus. Quite a few of them had good comments about the story, and even connected it to the story of Moses that we had been looking at a few weeks ago.
Then I asked:
Why do you think Jesus let Judas into his trusted circle of friends if he knew he was going to betray him?
That was it. No "this is how you should think about the story" or "this is what you should believe" from me. I just wanted these kids to begin to explore what it's like to connect Jesus' story to their own.
1 comment:
I worked with a group of kids who were reluctant to listen to talks and we did something similar to what you just mentioned. It seemed that they were more receptive if they were allowed to be a part of a discussion. As one kid put it, " We listen to teachers talk all day. When do we get to say something?"
Because of posing the questions in a way that caused them a chance to become a part of the story somehow, they became more engaged and even remembered the discussions beyond the evening.
My best to you...
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