Activity
5 minutes
Give the group a minute to find something they like in the room (a friend’s jumper, trainers, phone) and ask the owner if they would lend it to them for the rest of the session. Everyone should lend something and everyone should borrow something. Ask: how did it feel to lend something? How did it feel to receive?
Discussion
10 minutes
When someone lends us something, we take care of it, often treating it even better than if it was our own. When I borrow a friend’s car, I drive really carefully. I drive slower and more cautiously, ensuring I don’t scrape the bumper or knock another car. As it’s not my car I want to make sure I return it in good condition. I may even clean it to say thank you, so I’m returning it in better condition than I received it. (You could share your own illustration at this point.) Ask the group to discuss: if I were driving my friend’s car recklessly and returned it with scrapes all over it, what would that say about my relationship with that person? Invite the group to close their eyes and imagine ruining the item their friend just lent to them – How would that make them feel?
Bible Reading #1
5 minutes
The Earth is God’s creation, something God made for us as a home to live in. Look through Genesis 1 and the creation story to see how thoughtfully God created the world, how beautiful it sounds and how good he said it was. Ask the group for any reflections. Read Psalm 34:1–2 and say: if this is God’s Earth shared with us, we need to think carefully about how we treat it. As with my friend’s car, if we ignore our relationship with the gift someone has given (or lent) us, we would be naive to think it doesn’t affect our relationship with them. When we ignore our relationship with the Earth God has given us, it influences our relationships.
Four Dimension Gospel
5 minutes
Our faith is about our relationship with God, others and ourselves, but it is also about our relationship with the environment. Draw this diagram on flipchart paper.
Say: It is easy for us to think that being a Christian simply means praying, going to church and reading our Bible, while trying to be good people. But God longs for more than that for us. He wants us to be in good relationships – with God and with others as well as having a healthy relationship with ourselves. But this also means having a restored relationship with the Earth he has given us, taking care of his creation.
These relationships are connected: having a healthy view and opinion of myself will help me to have a healthy relationship with others too. As it says in the greatest commandment: love others as we love ourselves!
The same is true of our care and love for the environment, especially when we think about our global neighbours and people who live in poverty. Although people living in developing countries may seem far away, our relationship with the environment has an impact on their quality of life. We are connected to one another.
Film Clip
5 minutes
Play the Trashed documentary trailer (found here) . Reflect by asking: what stands out to you? How does it make you feel? What does it say about our relationship with God and our relationship with others (especially our global neighbours)?
Activity
15 minutes
Divide your group into two groups – one with 80 per cent of the young people and one with the remaining 20 per cent. Explain that you’ll come around with crisps for them to share and once each group has theirs they can divide them up among themselves. Give the minority group plenty of packets and the majority group only a small amount, so there is not enough to go around the large group. Repeat this process a few times giving more and more to the small group (sweets, magazines, chocolate, etc.) and only a little to the large group. Ask the groups to discuss how this felt. What should and could each group choose to do?
Say: We live in an unfair world, where the minority have plenty and the majority go without. We are part of the minority. It is easy think that we are not rich, but if we have free education, access to healthcare, a house with electricity and a democratic voice then we have a lot more than most.
Once you’ve pointed out the injustice of the situation, you can explain that those of us who live in the West are using far more than our fair share of the Earth’s resources. Say that if everyone on Earth lived like we do then we’d need three planets to sustain us! The other problem is that our lifestyles are impacting the planet and the climate, and the people who suffer the consequences most severely are those living in poverty. Droughts and floods in some of the poorest nations in the world are being made worse by Climate Change. And who are the people on the planet most causing Climate Change? We are.
Explain that God cares passionately about those living in poverty and that our relationship with the environment is deeply connected to our relationship with them. Discipleship involves investing in all four of the relationships on the diagram. God invites us to restore these relationships, so that all things may be in right relationship.
Prayer
5 minute
Close with a prayer of thanks and repentance. Invite everyone to stand in a circle and if people are comfortable to, encourage them to call out something they are thankful for in relation to creation. People could also pray for forgiveness for when we (corporately or personally) have not treated the Earth as a gift God has shared with us. You may also like to close with the Franciscan prayer found at here.
Kiera Phyo leads Tearfund’s youth and emerging generation team.
