Before the Session
Facilitator: In advance of the session
- Review today’s scripture text and the session activities to help better facilitate the discussion.
- Have the Bible Background Video ready to view.
- Listen to the FaithElement podcast for this session.
- Use the social media prompts on this session’s webpage to help youth begin engaging the session them ahead of their gathering.
Intro
Play a game of Quarter’s up by forming teams of six to eight people around a table. If you don’t have a tables, the floor might suffice. Select a volunteer to stand up while everyone else puts their hands under the table, then have the team pass a quarter around under the table, where the volunteer cannot see it. At any time, the volunteer can yell out “Quarter’s up” (or “Up Jenkins”) and everyone must immediately put their hands flat on the table, including the person holding the quarter. The volunteer will have three guesses to try to find out exactly which hand the quarter is under, changing places with the other person if she or he guesses directly. Play several rounds, or until everyone has had an opportunity to guess, then ask:
- How did you figure out whose hand the quarter was under?
- Who did the best job of hiding the quarter and what was their technique?
- What is it like to be sure that the quarter was somewhere when it turned out to be inaccurate?
- This being Easter, what do you think the women who went to Jesus’ tomb were really expecting to find?
Context
Play the Amistad video clip and use these questions to facilitate your discussion:
- Why do you think one slave was willing to believe the story while the other one found it to be unbelievable?
- What do you think was going through their minds as they read this story and why?
- At what points have you encountered other people for whom this story might seem just as alien?
- How might we best share this story with other people who don’t already share our background or values?
Content
Read Luke 24:1-12, then watch the Bible Background Video.
Ask your group:
- What did the women find when they went to the tomb?
- What might they have suspected actually happened?
- How would you have responded if you were in their position and met two men who told you that Jesus was gone?
- Why do you think the disciples did not believe the women’s story?
- In what ways do other people treat your expressions of faith like the disciples treated those women and why?
- In what ways do you think the reality of Jesus’ resurrection changes things like that?
Closure
Form groups of three to five people, and ask everyone to share their experience with God to each other. Specifically, ask them to share how they feel about Christ’s Resurrection. As the conversation dies down, bring the group back together and ask questions like:
- In what ways is the story of Jesus as the Messiah a pretty unbelievable story?
- How might someone hearing this the first time respond to the story of a man risen from the dead and why?
- In what ways have you seen some Christians who have spent their entire life in church struggle with this story?
- Why it possible to be too comfortable and familiar with this story?
- What was your reaction when you first heard about the Resurrection and why?
- In what ways is this story good news, even to people who might not believe it?
Close this session in prayer.
Writer: Don Breeden