The following materials are suggestions for leading your small group. It is by no means a requirement that you cover everything you find here. Use what you like and what you feel comfortable with. Be spontaneous and flexible. Make it your own. (For example, instead of just reading the Bible verses to your groups, try telling the story through Bible storytelling, having the kids each take part in reading it, or having the kids act it out.) We have also included several other resources; a short list of games, mixers, and bridge builders. Please read over this material thoroughly before the gathering.

Gathering Theme Verse: John 14:1-11 Specifically verse six: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

The text of the gathering has potential to be very exclusive. This small group material should not focus on Christianity verses other world religions. This is not a discussion of whose faith is better. As Christians, we should respect and love all people and their beliefs. We are Christians and are called to celebrate and share our faith. We are called love everything and everyone God has created. God has chosen us and shown us the way, the truth, and the life through the wonderful example of Jesus Christ, God’s son. We do not choose God, rather God chooses us, unconditionally. There is nothing that our sinful selves can do to change this.

Tie it into today’s theme. Important concepts are sense of call, and specifically the call to follow Christ’s example. How did Jeff do this?

Use masking tape to create a path on the floor. Youth will use a small mirror to hold over their shoulders to guide themselves backwards along the line. Make sure to make a clear beginning and ending point to the line.

How difficult was it to follow this path?

Can you think of a time in your life when you had trouble staying on your path?

Is it easy to find our "way" in life?

Jesus says that our destiny is God but, there are no means by which we can find our way to God. We don’t have to! God has found the way to us through Jesus.

The Tandem Bicycle Story (see attached sheet)

Are there times in your life when you feel you are not in control? How does it feel?

What does it mean to you when Jesus says, "Your faith has healed you" ?

Share some of the times in your life that you feel your faith has opened your eyes.

During this time, were you shown the way?

What is "the way"?

How does God show us "the way"?

Is the way shown with neon lights or a burning bush? (trick question!)

Bible Verse: Mark 10:46-52 NRSV

They came to Jericho. As He and His disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus Son of David have mercy on me!" Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David have mercy on me!" Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man saying to him, "Take heart; get up, He is calling you." So, throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, " My teacher, let me see again." Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

How are we like the blind man in this story?

What are we blind to?

How does God work in our lives?

Do we always realize it when it happens?

Have you ever felt a calling from God?

Did you follow it?

Is it always easy to follow this?

What does verse 52 mean when it says the man followed Jesus on "the way"?

Maybe this would be a good time to talk about God’s calling in our lives. All of us are called. Some people are called to ordained ministry, others are called to business professions, etc. All of these are necessary and equally important to God. In all of them, we have the example of Jesus Christ to live by. No matter what our vocation, we have a calling to follow this example.

Have your youth get in a comfortable position (laying down if possible). Ask them to concentrate on your voice. Say:

It is perfectly normal to ask questions. If you could ask Jesus any question, which one would you ask? (pause) It’s not always easy to understand or find answers, but resources exist in the insights of parents, pastors, youth directors, friends, and the Bible. Remember the words in John 14:1, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me."

How have you experienced Jesus as the way, the truth and the life in your daily lives? (pause)

Get comfortable. Relax. Close your eyes and breath deeply. Concentrate on the muscles in your body and relax them one by one. Focus on a concern you have. Maybe its a relationship with someone, a direction to take in your life, or maybe something that is happening in your school, community, family, or the world. Focus on just one concern. (pause)

Narrow your focus, and pay attention to the feelings that accompany that concern (pause for one minute).

Now meditate on the words of Jesus, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Repeat the words over and over in your head. Your minds may wander, but keep coming back to Jesus’ words. Concentrate on them. (more silence for reflection).

After you repeat Jesus’ words one or two more times, go back to your concern. Focus on the concern, remembering that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Knowing this, how can you now cope with or deal with your concern? Does Jesus call you to act in a certain way? How? Use the silence to struggle with these questions. (1-2 minute pause). When you are ready, open your eyes.

Have volunteers share their experience.

Separate your group into two smaller groups divided by some sort of characteristic (i.e. eye color, color of clothes, etc.) Be careful not to divide along boundaries that might be sensitive (ethnicity, gender, etc.). During the following games, consistently give one of the groups more favorable treatment.

Points of Contact: This co-op game is played by assigning a certain number of "points of contact" to each group. The group must be a collected mass (so that they are one big pile o’ youth), and have only a certain number of body parts touching the ground (make up your own numbers, but an example to follow might be 11 points for 9 kids). A good way to "discriminate" against one group would be to allow only two or three points for them, while allowing the other group to have nine or ten.

Love (Human) Knot: Gather each group into a circle and tell them to take hands with two other members of your group, making a "knot." Tell the groups to untangle themselves. Give your "oppressed" group obstacles like completing the exercise in silence, blindfold one or two youth, etc. The "privileged" group should do the exercise as well, but without the obstacles of the other group.

Win, Lose, or Draw: The normal format, but give simple words like "love," and "square," to the "privileged" group, while giving word like "Athanasian Creed" to the other group.

Processing Questions

Ask both groups how they felt when playing.

Talk about the different ways the groups were treated.

Ask if they can compare this situation with real world experiences.

What are the real world "truths" when it comes to discrimination?

What is Jesus’ "truth?"

Ask the members of your small group to attempt to decipher this phrase:

Give them clues if you want. The message is "The truth shall set you free." You may want to relate the deciphering of this code to how we sometimes have to search through what the world tells us to find the truth of what God tells us. (To decode replace the letters above with the letter immediately following that letter).

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

-Make sure the youth understand the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans at the time. (The Samaritans were seen as inferior to the Jews much the same as African- Americans have been in our own history.)

-Who are the Samaritans of today?

-Do we "give them water," do we share God with them?

-Why or why not?

-What are ways that we can follow Christ’s example?

-Why is it important that Jesus did this?

Situations/Questions-come up with three or four hypothetical situations (i.e. sexism in high school) and consider the following:

What would you do?

What would Jesus do?

If for some crazy reason you have extra time, you can choose to play the games again, but this time as one big group without discriminating. Discuss the difference in the activities.

Lifesaver pass: Arrange the youth into two teams both in straight lines. Give each person a toothpick. Give the first person in line a lifesaver to put on their toothpick to put in their mouths. The object of this game is to see which team can get the lifesaver through the line first. The participants cannot touch the toothpick or the lifesaver with their hands during the game.

Bible Verse: Luke 23:39-43 (NRSV)

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for out deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

What is the importance of this story?

What kind of a person do you think the robber was?

What is Jesus’ message to him?

What does this mean for us?

How are we like the robber on the cross?

How might Jesus have felt at that moment?

How was He a risk-taker at that moment?

How was He a risk-taker throughout his life?

What do you think of when you think of living "THE life"?

The Life is helping others, living how Christ lived, doing what Jesus would do. The life is not about material wealth.

How do you think that God shows us "the life"?

Life-Risking vs. Life-Sheltering (See attached sheet)

What does a Christian look like?

What sorts of things does a Christian say?

What kind of music do Christians listen to?

Is the Christian faith something that is "cool"?

Is there anything you would do in church that you wouldn’t do at school? Why or why not?

Do you feel accepted into the Christian community for who you are? Why or why not?

Living the life is much more than just going to church. We are called to live the example of Jesus everyday! This is hard work! We‘re called to love all people and serve all people, just as Jesus would have done.

And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.

Give the youth two small pieces of paper each. On one paper, ask them to write something in their lives that they feel may be keeping them from living "the life" that God calls us to live. On the other, have them write one way in which they may be able to reach out to others and show "the life" to them. At the closing worship service, we will put the first papers on a large cross until it is covered. Encourage the youth to give their second papers to the person sitting next to them so that everyone ends up with someone else’s paper. This will give them ideas to take from the gathering to apply in their lives.

1. If you could choose one of the items listed, which would it be; a pack of gum, ball of silly putty, or a satin shirt?

2. For what do you think you’d lay down your life?

3. If the hydrogen bomb was to fall in ten minutes, what would you do in those ten minutes?

4. What would you like to put on your gravestone?

5. What makes you feel secure?

6. If you had to paint love, what color would you paint it?

7. What subject is most frequently discussed among your friends?

8. How would you describe your lifestyle?

9. If you could meet any person in the world today, who would it be?

10. When do you feel most productive?

11. What decisions are hardest for you to make?

12. What is the greatest problem in the United States?

13. What do you love?

14. What discipline is most needed today?

15. Select one word that best describes your life?

16. What is the best thing about your home?

17. What is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

18. What event of the past year stands out in your mind the most?

19. What is the greatest crime one person can commit against another?

20. On what basis do you select your friends?

21. What is the greatest value that guides your life?

22. What do you want to be doing ten years from now?

23. What person has had the most influence in your life?

24. In school, at work, or in the neighborhood, you have seen certain people all year and not spoken to them. Why?

25. If you could have one season all year long, what would it be?

26. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?

27. Are there people you envy enough to want to trade lives with them? Why?

28. Would you be willing to murder and innocent person if it meant ending world hunger?

29. Have you ever hated anyone? If so, why?

30. When did you last sing to yourself -- to someone else?

31. If you could choose the manner of your death, what would it be?

Interview with a twist: Introduce yourself to another member of the group using your name. Once you have heard your partner’s name, you then adopt that name for your next introduction. Move around the room taking on a new name with each person that you meet until everyone is really confused. Sounds really difficult, but gets to be fun.

I Never: The group forms a circle with one person in the middle (This game is easier with chairs, but can be done without). The middle person states something he or she has never done. Whoever has done what the middle person hasn’t must find a new seat in the circle. Meanwhile, the middle person scrambles for a seat and another person is left seatless and becomes the new middle person. For example, if Bob was in the middle and states that he has never led a small group, you would immediately rise out of your seat and look for another.

Vegetable: The youth sit in a circle. Go around the circle with each person naming off a vegetable, none of which can be repeated. After this, one person begins by saying their vegetable twice and the name of another person’s vegetable twice. The person whose vegetable was called repeats the process. The trick to this game is that once your vegetable is called you cannot show your teeth. Once you have said the names of the vegetables, you are then allowed to show your teeth.

Bop-bippity-bop: The group stands in a circle with one person in the middle. The game begins with the person in the middle approaching one person in the circle and saying either "bop" or "bop-bippity-bop." If they say "bop" the other person cannot say anything. If they do, they become the middle person. If the middle person says "bop-bippity-bop," the other person must try to say "bop" before they finish. If they don’t, they move to the middle. After this goes on, you can add different things. Here are some examples:

Elephant--the person in the middle makes an elephant trunk and the people on either side make elephant ears. Bicycle--the person in the middle rings the ringer and the other two pedal. Other ideas include; cow, Viking, fire hydrant, and Jell-O.

Encore: Divide into two teams. Game leaders pick a topic, like "love." The leaders also pick the teams who will go first. Each team gets 30 seconds after hearing the topic to prepare. When the leaders say "go" the first group gets 10 seconds to sing a song with the word topic ("love") in it. The teams alternate receiving 10 seconds each. The first team that is unable to think of a song loses. The teams must sing at least eight words from the song. Leaders must keep time well. Leaders can also be flexible when making the rules.

Lap sit: Youth stand in a circle and turn sideways. They stand so that they are very close together and on the count of three sit so that everyone is sitting on someone else’s lap. If your group gets this pretty easily, see if they are able to walk in that position.

Willow in the Wind: Have your group stand in a circle except for one person. They stand in the center of the circle and lean back with their eyes closed and their arms crossed in front of their chest. The person in the middle must keep their feet firmly planted and their body straight. The other youth catch the person in the center and gently push him or her around the circle. The center person then becomes the "willow" that is blown around in the wind. The game requires a lot of trust.

Determine rather the following activities would be "life-sheltering" or "life-risking."

Doing only what you know you can do.

Working to protect your routines in life.

Reaching out and welcoming a new person at school.

Volunteering to do something you have never done before.

Practicing tithing, giving away one-tenth of all you earn.

Sharing your faith with someone new.

Sitting at the same table for lunch everyday.

Learning a foreign language.

Ignoring the kid who cries in your gym class.

Becoming involved in an issue of social justice.

But later on, when I recognized my higher power better, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride, on a tandem bike, and I noticed God was in the back helping me pedal.

I don't know when it was that God suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since.... life with my higher power, that is, making life much more exciting.

When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring but predictable. It was always the shortest distance between the points.

But when God took the lead, God knew delightful cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at breakneck speeds; it was all I could do to hang on!

Even though it looked like madness, God kept saying, "Pedal, pedal!"

I worried and became anxious, asking, "Where are you taking me?" God just laughed and didn’t answer, and I found myself starting to trust. I soon forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure, and when I’d say, "I’m scared," God would lean back and touch my hand.

God took me to people with gifts that I needed; gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey. Our journey, that is, God’s and mine.

And we were off again. God said, "Give the gifts away, they’re extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust God at first, in control of my life. I thought God would wreck it. But God knew bike secrets, knew how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear places filled with rocks, fly to shorten scary passages.

And I’m learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, my higher power.

And when I’m sure I can’t go on anymore, He just smiles and says, "Pedal..."