Synopsis
The second studio album from the Londonbased drum and bass quartet features a bunch of their star-studded friends, including Ed Sheeran.
INTRODUCTION
Each generation needs an anthem, song or cry that sets them apart from those who have gone before. This session encourages young people to take a stand for their generation.
THE SESSION
As your young people arrive, consider playing The Who’s ‘My Generation’, to help set the scene for the session, and display a selection of quotes about ‘my generation’ or ‘our generation’ (many of which can be sourced online).
Provide a selection of images of people, including a mixture of celebrities, wellknown figures and other more generic images, and ask the group to sort the images into groups by age or generation. Allow free choice about how many groups they sort the photographs into, and how wide an age bracket each group contains. Provide some paper and pens and ask the group to add labels to each group, considering what defines each group. What are they known for? How do you view each group? How do you relate to these different groups?
TRACK 3: WE THE GENERATION
Play the track and encourage the group, as they listen to the music, to think imaginatively about what it means to be ‘the generation’ who ‘have had enough’. Invite the group to share their thoughts. What does it mean to have had enough? What has this generation had enough of? Do their individual ideas stand apart as unique, or can they identify a shared sense of ‘having had enough?’
Explain to the group that we like to define groups of people linked by age or generation as having a shared identity. You could refer back to the groups created at the beginning of the session to explain how each of these is better known or typecast. Ask the group:
- What do you think your generation is defined by now?
- In years to come, when looking back, what would you like your generation to be defined by?
- What sorts of people define a generation?
Explain to the group that the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) also defined people by generation: those who followed God faithfully and those who turned away from him. Read Jeremiah 2:31a and ask the group: how would it change your generation if this was to become your hallmark? How would this define your generation?
As you close the session, challenge the group to consider how they, as individuals, and as a group, can play their part in forming the identity of their generation, rather than being absorbed into a group defined by others. Pray for the group, that God would raise up leaders among them, who can take a stand in the places that God leads them.
