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CLIP : The clip starts at 34:34 minutes in and lasts until 41:05 minutes.
A group of explorers must travel beyond our solar system in search of a planet that can sustain life. The crew of the Endurance is required to think bigger and go further than any human in history as they embark on an interstellar voyage into the unknown. Cooper, the pilot of the Endurance, must decide between seeing his children again and the future of the human race.
From the outset, Interstellar looks like a typical tale of ‘man flies off into space to save the planet’, but it has a much richer underbelly, with family and fatherhood at the forefront of a world collapsing.
In this clip we see Matthew McConaughey’s character, Cooper, receive his mission to save the world, a mission that will take him beyond our understanding of time, and if successful would mean him returning to a very different planet at a time that he could not determine. This leads Cooper to the heart-breaking decision to leave his children behind to save mankind. Here we see Cooper explain his decision to his distraught daughter Murph.
After showing the clip as a stimulus, break into small discussion groups (you may wish to have a designated discussion leader in each group) and discuss the following questions:
• Do you think Cooper is making a worthwhile sacrifice?
• Have you ever had to sacrifice a relationship or something you love for a greater cause?
• Is the concept of sacrifice a negative idea?
• Is the idea of creating a new colony of humans at the expense of the ones on Earth an immoral idea or a noble one?
After discussing the first set of questions, read through Genesis 22 together (it may be helpful to the discussions to give some context to the passage and story of Abraham and Isaac - perhaps finish at verse 19) and return to your groups to discuss the next set of questions:
• What idea of sacrifice do we get from this passage?
• Is Abraham right to follow God’s command in this story - would you have acted similarly?
• How does the character of God come across in this passage?
• What other sacrifices might a Christian need to make in their lives?
