Gathering time
5 minutes
Have a time of refreshments and catching up. If you would like you can begin to bring in the theme of promised land by asking the group what their dream place to live would be!
Wink murder
10 minutes
Play a few rounds of wink murder. Everyone needs to sit in a circle and close their eyes. While their eyes are closed, walk round and choose someone to be the murderer by tapping them on the head. Ask everyone to open their eyes and choose a spy (call them a spy rather than detective for this game). The murderer has to kill people off by winking at them, without the spy seeing. The spy has to catch the murderer before they’ve killed everyone. Have enough rounds for everyone to have a turn.
Bible exploration
15 minutes
You will need: Bibles, possibly The Message paraphrase
Remind the group of the Israelites journey that you have followed so far. God had taken them out of Egypt with Moses leading them and given them the Ten Commandments.
Explain that you’re using Bible passages from two different books of the Bible, but that they fit together to be part one and two of the story. Ask the group to split into three. Give one group Numbers 13, one Numbers 14 and the other Joshua 3 to work with. It might be easier for them to work from The Message. Give both groups ten minutes to read the passage each and then come up with a small skit to act out to the other group. Encourage them to keep it simple and they can use the passage to read from as they act in it, although they can get as creative as they can in ten minutes too!
Depending on how the skits go, it might be helpful to summarise the two stories as one together, drawing out the main points about what’s happened in all the passages.
Chatting together
5 minutes
Having explored the story, have a time of asking questions and exploring themes from around the story. Use these to help, but be flexible about exploring the story using ideas that the young people have as well.
- How do you think the Israelites would be feeling about the Promised Land after 40 years?
- What do you think taking over from Moses would have been like for Joshua?
- What do you think it would have been like getting to the Promised Land, only to find out there were huge people living in it already?!
- What part did fear play in the reactions of the Israelites?
Creative response
15 minutes
You will need: paper;art materials
Ask for a couple of volunteers to role play being the spies. Encourage them to sit somewhere central, so the rest of the group can see them.
Ask the rest of the group to ask them questions about their experience of finding the Promised Land, what they were hoping for, and how they felt! If many people want to have a go at being the spies, let a few have turns.
Now do the same with someone playing Joshua. You can prompt the group with questions to ask the young person playing him such as, like how did he feel about taking over from Moses or what was good about being a leader? Let the group reflect together on their ideas using this role play, and gently encourage them to stay on topic if there are too many tangents (though some will be good fun!).
Ask the group to take some time to think about what it would have been like after 40 years in the desert for the Israelites to finally know that they were going to have their own place called home. Ask the group to think how they could respond creatively to that idea of ‘going home’. They could write a poem or a diary entry of an Israelite. Or they could do a drawing that sums up how they might feel about it.
Allow some time processing the idea of going home to God’s Promised Land. You could put some music on in the background to create a sense of space and calm. Give them a sense of how long there is to make or write, and afterwards you could invite the group to share anything that they might want to.
Prayer
10 minutes
You will need: a world map; tea lights and matches (optional)
The story of the Israelites is reminiscent of the many refugees we have in our world today. For a visual aid, spread out a map, and show the group the area that the Israelites wandered between Egypt and Canaan (now in Israel). Show them where Syria, Israel and Palestine are, and explain that many Syrians are refugees, Palestinians are now displaced in the separation between Palestine and Israel, and many Jewish people were refugees in Israel after the second world war. Encourage the group to pray for these groups, and others who are refugees and homeless in the world.
You could light some tea lights and encourage others to light them as you pray together, as a sign of God being with these people in the world.
