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PREPARATION
You may want to extend the session - as it’s the last night why not start or finish with a meal? You could always use this as a rite of passage - invite Dads or older relatives of lads to attend the meal and get them to give out a gift, maybe even a little speech. You will need Nerf guns, two bags of sweets, pens and the ‘What’s on your bridge’ handout from the links section of the Premier Youthwork website.
AVENGERS V JLA NERF BATTLE
15 mins
Get into two teams, naming one The Avengers and the other the Justice League of America and tell each person to adopt a superhero persona from their team. Choose leaders for each team – Captain America for the Avengers, Batman for the JLA – who have to give each team a strategy that members have to follow. Then play a classic game of Capture the flag, with added Nerf guns. The rules of the game (if you need them) and a list of Avengers and JLA members is available on the links section of the Premier Youthwork website.
At the end of the game have a discussion about whether the teams’ strategies worked and who was the best player on each team. Get them to decide who it was and award a bag of sweets to the men of the match.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
5 mins
Show the clip from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring of the standoff between Gandalf and a Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad Dum.
WHAT’S ON YOUR BRIDGE?
20 mins
Give everyone a copy of the ‘What’s on your bridge’ handout.
Say: We might not have to face fiery demonic monsters on a regular basis but for most of us there are things that we fear that stand in between us and our freedom. It could be a fear of the dark, spiders, heights, but what are the situations that make us afraid? What stops us from taking a risk or achieving an ambition? Encourage them to be as honest as they can in filling out the sheet. After they’ve finished, encourage them to share what they’ve written.
DO IT LIKE JORDAN
5 mins
Watch the Nike advert with Michael Jordan on the links section of the Premier Youthwork website. Then ask these questions:
• What connects with you in the clip?
• Do you agree that the biggest thing we’re afraid of is that we won’t reach our potential?
• What are some of your goals and ambitions?
WHO GOES WITH YOU?
10 mins
Sometimes being courageous is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. This means recognising that the consequences of the risk we’re taking just aren’t as big as we make them out to be. But one of the greatest ways of overcoming fear is seeing who goes with you. Who’s on your side? Who’s got your back?
KEY POINT 1
What are we afraid of? There’s a line in a song by a grunge band called Soundgarden that says, ‘The words you say, never seem to live up to the ones inside your head.’ Many of us are really scared that we will never become all that we want to become. We have great ambitions and want to achieve great things but something stops us from taking the risks that we need to in order to be all that we can. This could be as simple as putting our hand up in class to answer a question, putting ourselves forward for a team, volunteering for a school play or befriending a loner. Many of us love playing the hero in computer games but haven’t the first clue how to be one in real life. Someone said that ‘FEAR’ stands for ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’. It means we make the things we’re afraid of seem massive when they’re really not. Overcoming fear is about realising that, as Nelson Mandela reportedly said: ‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’
Read 1 Samuel 14.1-15 and ask:
• Why does Jonathan take such an enormous risk?
• Why does his armour bearer agree to go with him?
• What encourages you to take a risk you normally wouldn’t?
KEY POINT 2
It’s not the Avengers or the Justice League, but it’s still a pretty impressive team: Jonathan, his armour bearer and God! When Jonathan realised that God was with him, he didn’t hesitate. He stepped out in confidence because he knew that victory was already assured. Look at the apostle Peter when Jesus is arrested – he’s so scared that he betrays the man he swore he’d die for. Then Jesus sends his spirit and Peter delivers a knockout sermon that brings 3000 people to faith (Acts 1) all because Christ is with him. There are no limits to what you can achieve knowing God is on your side, but it’s also good to have an armour bearer or two - friends around you who will say to you when you want to take a risk, ‘I am with you heart and soul!’ One of the reasons Jesus always sent his disciples out in twos was so that they’d always have someone to encourage them. Overcoming fear takes team work!
STRONG MAN
10 mins
Get everyone to stand in a circle, then take some time to call out the strengths and giftings you see in each other. Go round each person and prep the leaders to make sure they take the lead but encourage the guys to join in. After you’ve encouraged one person get them in the middle and pray for them, then move on to the next. Make sure you don’t leave the leaders out.
Finish with this reflection: When the disciples are arguing about which one is the greatest, Jesus puts them in their place. Read Luke 9:46-48. Jesus says it time and again - if we want to be a truly great man we must learn how to serve. The best among us are not the ones in the limelight, the ones with all the talent or the ones who get the best results, it’s the ones who know how to encourage, how to lend a hand, how to say the words that help people overcome their fears.
