YOUTH GROUP OLYMPICS
10 minutes
Golf became an Olympic sport in 2016 for the first time. Make your own version with ping-pong balls and rolled-up newspapers. For holes, cut circles out of paper plates, turn them upside down and tape them to the floor. Best not to have more than four holes, or it will take the whole meeting to complete! Give everyone a go, and record the scores.
THE PUB QUIZ
10 minutes
While they’re in a competitive mood, run a quick review of this series. Put together questions and let them tackle it in small groups - ‘pub quiz’ style. Show the flipchart list of everything you’ve covered so they can appreciate how it all hangs together.
Say: We’re coming into the last great stretch of Jesus’ discipleship training course. He’s going to end by giving us some pretty stark choices. In this bit he wants to say two important things (write on flipchart):
- The good news: you can trust God to give you all you need!
- The bad news: the way to get it is never going to be popular.
THE GOOD NEWS
10 minutes
Read Matthew 7: 7-8. Discuss in small groups: if God knows what we need better than we do, why do we need to ask? Compare answers. These could include: God does give us a lot that we don’t even know we need and so haven’t asked for - getting us to ask is his way of involving us in the process; when we ask, we’re acknowledging he’s our father (you might be able to take stuff from the family fridge without asking, but your parents likes you to ask anyway); when we ask, it reminds us just how dependent we are on his love for us; when we ask for something, we might start out asking for the wrong thing, but the process of asking helps us see what we should be hoping for.
Write, ‘ask, seek, knock’ in big letters on the flipchart. Is there any difference between them, or are they saying the same thing? Many have pointed out that they describe different processes: making a request, searching around for what you need, insistently tapping on the door because you know what you need now but you’re not sure if it’s time to have it yet; there’s an intensification - ‘seeking’ takes more effort than ‘asking’, and ‘knocking’ is even more direct.
There are lots of ways to ask God for what we need. We shouldn’t confine it to a short shopping list once a day. We can use all kinds of ways to think about and explore what we want from him, and what he wants to give us!
WHY IT’S GOOD NEWS
10 minutes
Print the two faces and give a copy to each small group. Ask: which of these men would you trust more?
According to researchers, it’s the second one. See if the group agrees, Apparently when we meet someone, our brain decides in 33 milliseconds whether they can be trusted. Brown eyes seem more trustworthy than blue, among both sexes. For men, round-faces, larger mouths and wider chins appear more trustworthy. High cheek bones make women look more honest. It’s all irrational, of course. Trustworthiness really depends on our nature and our track record. And there, says Jesus, your father emerges as the person you can trust most in the universe.
Read Matthew 7: 9-12. If God really is your father, how can you lose?
ONE DOOR AND ONLY ONE
10 minutes
Try them with this old puzzle: you are the captive of a cruel king who has decided to let you have one chance to regain your freedom. You are standing before two doors. One leads to the outside world. Behind the other stands a monster which will kill you instantly. In front of the doors are two guards who can answer just one question with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. One of them always tells lies, and the other always the truth. You don’t know which is which. What question do you ask to ensure you escape? (A good question would be: “If I asked the other guard whether this door leads outside, what would he say?” If the response is “no”, then take that door; if it’s “yes”, choose the other.)
Say: Sometimes there are only two choices, and it’s hard to know which to take! Jesus spoke about two doors as well and said that most people get the choice wrong.
Read verses 13-14. Ask: why don’t most people want the ‘narrow way’? They think having God in charge of your life seems too restricting, they can do better organising everything to suit themselves. Which is stupid: if God made you, and loves you, and knows what’s best for you, the only way to live life successfully is to follow him. It’s a no-brainer, really - unlike the puzzle we started with.
SPOTLIGHT: MONEY SAVING EXPERT
10 minutes
Money Saving Expert is a popular website which aims to help people see through the untrustworthy claims of big companies, and save money by finding deals in unexpected places. It’s become massive very quickly because we know we can’t always trust the claims we read in advertising and we know that the best door to go through isn’t always the obvious one.
Yet many people - even those who know about it - can’t be bothered to use it. Why? It’s just too much like hard work. You can find something trustworthy, realise that the unlikely route is probably the best one… and still do nothing about it! People are like that!
CLOSE
10 minutes
Read the two sentences you put on the flipchart. Pray that God will give you the wisdom, grace and determination to choose the narrow way, and experience all the blessings your father longs to shower upon you.
