Research into Resources

• Vision Generation #1: January
• Vision Generation #2: February
• Vision Generation #3: March
• Vision Generation #4: April
• Vision Generation #5: May
• Vision Generation #6: June

VISION GENERATION #1 (JANUARY): I HAVE A DREAM

BIG IDEA:

God’s kingdom dreams for justice and the dignity of all persons become realities through the kingdom lives of people like us!

YOU’LL NEED:

• The “I Have a Dream” PowerPoint, available HERE (1.3 MB PowerPoint download). Ahead of time, watch the timed PowerPoint sequence and decide if you’d like to add background music or play it in silence.
• If you use the writing/journaling worship option, you will need supplies for that.

POTENTIAL SCRIPTURE TEXT:

Amos 5:21-24, 6:12 (If you use the last question from the list below, you will want to read this passage before you show the PowerPoint)

Ask: What do you know about Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Explain that one of King’s most famous speeches is “I Have a Dream,” which he gave during a march of 200,000 people in Washington, D.C. demonstrating to end racial segregation in America. At this point, play the “I Have a Dream” presentation. Afterwards, ask:

Q: How would you summarize Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dreams? As you think about those dreams, how do you feel?

Q: How do you think Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dreams mesh with the Bible’s descriptions of the kingdom of God? Was he dreaming his own dream about social reform or dreaming God’s dream for the world?

Q: The last slide asks: “Today, what kingdom dreams are being birthed in you?” How would you answer that question?

Q: What advice would you give someone who doesn’t have any kingdom dreams at the moment?

Q: What part do you think you play in seeing those dreams become a reality? What part does God play?

Q: The passages we read from Amos seem to indicate that our worship and our acts of justice are related – that raising our hands in worship is linked to opening our hands towards those who have been victims of oppression or injustice, perhaps on our account. As we move into a time of prayer and worship together, let’s invite God to reveal the true condition of our worship to us, and to move us towards worship that flows out of deeply caring for God’s world.

Ask your students to gather into pairs, triplets, or small groups and pray for each other’s kingdom dreams. You might want to read Amos 5:24 as a catalyst for prayer, asking God to bring justice that rolls like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream. Invite students to ask God to provide the grace and strength to take steps forward—whether they are baby steps or large leaps—in seeing each other’s kingdom dreams become a reality. Close as appropriate to your setting with some sort of corporate worship, perhaps involving a time in which students can write or journal their reflections on the connection between our worship and our actions towards those in need. Given the content of the passage, you may want to plan worship without music.

HAVE MORE TIME?

• Take students to a Martin Luther King, Jr. remembrance service, celebration, or other community event connected with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Many communities and the churches within them hold a number of such events. Unfortunately, they are often attended by people of one race, which seems to suggest that Dr. King’s dreams have not yet found a home in our society. If you have a predominantly Caucasian church, take students (and their parents, if possible) to a service at a predominantly African-American church (or a church of any other ethnicity than the one dominant in your group). Encourage them to engage in the worship that takes place there, and to reflect on it afterwards. Be sure you plan time for debriefing as a group, to ask questions such as, How did it feel to be part of this service? Did you see evidence of Dr. King’s dreams becoming reality today? Where and how? Why or why not? How would you describe the situation of racial/ethnic relations in the U.S. today? What about in our community? Our church? How do you think God feels about that? What might God be calling us to do in response, as people who dream God’s kingdom dreams?

GET ACTIVE!

• Find a church in your community that is unlike your own church in its racial/ethnic makeup. Intentionally contact someone who is part of that church (preferably someone who also works with youth as a staff or volunteer) with an expressed desire to build a friendship that crosses cultural boundaries. Meet for coffee or lunch, and make a regular, monthly habit of doing so. As your relationship grows, perhaps find ways to connect the students and families in your churches with one another if that is possible. Or you may want to encourage your students to share in the same kind of intentional relationship building across boundaries. At the very least, you will grow in your own understanding of someone serving in the King’s work in your community, and that will expand your dreams of the kingdom!

VISION GENERATION #2 (FEBRUARY): THE SWEET LIFE

BIG IDEA:

Our spending is a barometer for our love and concern for others. What is that barometer telling us about how we are loving the world around us through our gift-giving?

YOU’LL NEED:

Nothing, unless you want to give out sweets to drive the point home, or cut out newspaper ads for Valentines’ jewelry and candy to use as illustrations of our spending. The possibilities are really endless, but you could also just use nothing.

Say: In our country, we LOVE the sweet life, and we love spending extravagantly to show our romantic love. Who can guess how much Americans as a whole usually spend on Valentine’s Day gifts?

Depending on how much time you have, either let students yell out responses, or have them submit guesses and give a piece of candy to the closest guesser. The reality is that Americans spent $13.2 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts in 2005. (1) And that was three years ago!

While there’s not necessarily anything wrong with giving special — sometimes even expensive — gifts to those we love, marketing specialists have convinced us to spend in order to show our love. The assumption seems to be, “The more you spend, the more you love.”

In fact, if we were to gather up the money spent on giving “love” gifts in 2005 and apply that money to loving the undernourished in our world, we could do a lot. Providing access to clean, drinkable water and basic sanitation for the world’s poor will cost $7 billion a year over the next decade; an additional $4 billion per year will help to provide basic health care to prevent the deaths of three million infants a year. (2) Combined, that’s less than what Americans alone spend on Valentine’s Day!

Have kids break into groups of three or four to discuss the following questions:

Q: Did you know before today that the money spent on Valentines gifts in the United States could literally save the lives of millions of kids? Describe how that makes you feel. What could our response be to that fact? Does it mean we shouldn’t buy Valentines gifts? Why or why not? If not, what do you think we should do to in response to this information, if anything?

Q: Describe why it seems loving to spend a lot of money on a Valentines (or any other) gift. How or when is it not loving to give expensive gifts?

Q: Share a story of a sacrificial gift that someone has given you in the past. What made it a sacrifice? How was it special? Would it have been more or less special if it had cost more or less money? Why or why not?

Q: Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “Every dollar we spend reflects our love and concern (or lack of it) for others.”? Why do you agree or disagree?

You may want to push kids a bit here, to consider (for instance) that the clothes they buy impact the people who make them (perhaps working in inhumane conditions, perhaps not), while also impacting the retailer who markets and sells them. Every spending choice does in fact have an impact on someone else.

You may want to bring students back together for the next part of the discussion.

Q: In the midst of Valentines celebrations, how does God’s compassionate love for the world relate to our gift-giving? How could we live so that God’s love is known by our gifts? What about God’s love specifically for those who are dying of poverty, hunger, or AIDS-related causes?

Share with students that love ultimately leads to sacrifice — and sometimes that means the sacrifice of money or of material goods. Sometimes it may mean sacrificing by NOT giving an expensive gift in order to live more simply and share more with those who are desperately in need.

Close by asking: What are some ways we could respond with our hands and feet to our discussion today? As you think about spending on Valentine’s gifts, how can your spending this year reflect God’s love for the poor or the marginalized, even while reflecting your care for someone special in your life? What are some ways you and your friends could think about or find out how your spending impacts others? See the “Get Active” section below for some specific suggestions for giving options.

Let this discussion move to a time of prayer, thanking God that his extravagant love was revealed in Jesus’ love-sacrifice for us, so that we could be called God’s children (1 John 3:1-2). Have students get out their wallets or any money they have and hold it in their hands as you pray, inviting God to make us people who love the poor, even loving them sacrificially with our wallets. This prayer could be done in small groups or all together.

POTENTIAL SCRIPTURE TEXTS:

Matthew 6:19-24, 1 John 3:1-2, Micah 6:6-8 (You may choose to expand this discussion into a Bible study that develops the themes of these texts further, or you may want to use one or more of these in worship and prayer.)

HAVE MORE TIME?

• If you want this to be the central theme for a Bible study, you could use Matthew 6:19-24 to discuss the love of money and the love of God, and Jesus’ views on forming a right perspective on spending.
• Or, let this discussion be a catalyst for a time of worship focused on confessing our excesses to God and our inability to truly love others. This confession can lead to lament over the sins of our culture and our community, even our church, in failing to love others through the ways we use money. Out of this lament, transition into a time of gratitude to God for his grace both to cover our sin and to empower us to change.
• Pray for a transformation of hearts, minds, and wallets, and celebrate that God alone is able to bring that transformation into our lives and our world. Be careful to clarify in your worship that the intent is not to promote feelings of guilt or shame. The intent is to acknowledge before God that as a people we have no idea how far out of control our excess spending has become, and to begin inviting him to speak into that and change that about us as a community and as a society. You might organize this worship around Micah 6:6-8, which centers our gift-giving to God in our acts of justice, our love of mercy, and our humble walk before God.

GET ACTIVE!

• Encourage students to think carefully about their gift-giving — not just for Valentine’s Day but in general — and to add up the amount they typically spend on gifts they give. Have them do the same for gifts they usually receive, or expect (or ask) to receive. It’s probably still close enough to Christmas for them to think back on those gifts specifically. Brainstorm ways to simplify gift-giving and receiving, in order to send students out to be prophetic catalysts for change.

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VISION GENERATION #3 (MARCH): HOW TO LIVE ON A DOLLAR A DAY

BIG IDEA:

Over 1 billion people across the world are forced to try to live on $1 a day, but it’s barely possible. We have the ability to make a difference in their lives, and we can start by praying on their behalf.

YOU’LL NEED:

Enough $1 bills for (a) everyone in your group, (b) just a few, or (c) just you, depending on how you decide to carry this out.

Open by handing out dollar bills to everyone in your group. If your budget doesn’t allow for that, you could (a) ask everyone present who has a dollar with them to get it out, (b) bring up a few volunteers and give each of them a dollar, having them stand in front of the group holding their bills, or (c) hold up one dollar yourself, which you will later pass around. Then ask these questions:

• With the dollar in your hand, what could you buy? What will a dollar purchase?
• If you could spend this dollar any way you want, what would you most likely do with it?
• Most of you probably weren’t thinking of answers like, “Pay the rent,” or “Buy food for my family,” or “Get my little brother’s prescription filled,” right? Why is that?
  (The point here is not that they aren’t thinking about others—though many might say “these are my parents’ responsibilities, not mine!”—but the point is that $1 couldn’t possibly pay for those things in our economy or anyone else’s.)
• Do you think it’s possible to live on $1 a day? What if you had to do it? Describe how you might look at that dollar differently.The truth is, people can barely live on $1 a day. There is no economy in the world that exists where all basic needs can be met for the equivalent of $1. Yet, over 1 BILLION people try to make it work. What’s more, over HALF OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION—3 BILLION PEOPLE—live barely above that, on $2 a day.In sub-Saharan Africa, where the impact of AIDS is hitting hardest, 45% of people live on less than $1 a day. To be more specific, between 1990 and 2001, the average income in that region was around 60 cents a day.
• How many of you spent at least 60 cents to purchase something today? Raise your hands.
• As you hear these statistics, what do you feel? What is your honest response?
  (Help them with this question. Do they want to actively do something in response? Do they feel hopeless? Do they feel disconnected from the statistic or apathetic about it? Check their postures and body language for cues, and perhaps push them a bit to share their responses.)

  The point is not for us to feel overwhelmed with guilt or hopelessness. Neither of those are kingdom-of-God responses. Jesus spurs us to join him where he’s already at work among the poor, and to start by actively praying. Tonight we’re going to join with and pray for our brothers and sisters across the world, made in God’s image, who are forced to attempt survival on less than a dollar a day.

• Let’s pray together for those in extreme poverty around the world. (If your group supports a specific child or community in a developing nation, now is a time to connect them with those names and faces as they pray.)
  • As we pray, let’s think about these dollar bills and start by repenting of our flippant use of money, or our over-spending on ourselves … I’m going to pass around this dollar and if you want to, go ahead and pray out loud when the dollar passes through your hands.
  • (OR, if you have the resources… get a dollar into everyone’s hands in your group and hand over the responsibility to them.) How could you invest this dollar in making a difference in the lives of the poor? Is it possible? What you do with this dollar is, ultimately, up to you. But imagine the possibilities… and pray about expanding this dollar. (Develop together a timeline and a goal for your group’s use of those dollars.)

POTENTIAL SCRIPTURE TEXTS:

Matthew 25:14-30 — the parable of the talents. You might include this text in the discussion and prayer time above or use it to develop a Bible study related to what it might mean to invest for kingdom returns, and move into a discussion about stewarding our resources in light of the poor.

HAVE MORE TIME?

If you have time, convert a hallway into a prayer labyrinth. You might use these ideas for prayer stations along the way, or create some of your own.

• Station 1: Confession (post a few advertisements for things we don’t need from both guys’ and girls’ magazines). Confess our flippant use of money and our over-spending.
• Station 2: A prayer for Parents (post pictures of dads and moms from developing nations). Dads and moms (or often grandparents, aunts, or uncles who take on the role of parents) carry most of the burden of feeding and caring for their families’ needs. In countries where an individual will make less than $1 dollar a day, imagine how that causes the dad or mom to feel. Pray for the parents who know they can’t afford to care for their families as they need to. Write down words on this paper that would describe how you would feel if you were responsible for taking care of someone and knew you could not. Give those words to Jesus.
• Station 3: Children (post pictures of children, of various ethnicities, engaged in different activities). Pray for the children whose parents are dying of AIDS, whose parents can’t afford to care for or feed them, who are unable to go to school, who are forced to work, beg, or are sold. (If you sponsor a child together, have that child’s picture present and give students an opportunity to write a prayer for that specific child). With crayons and construction paper, write out your prayers.
• Station 4: Governments (post pictures of various governmental leaders, including some of our own). Pray for wisdom for those who govern. Pray that their eyes would be opened to the needs around the world and that they would have wise responses to poverty. Pray for nations to help other nations.
• Station 5: Me, Us (have a mirror hanging at this station and a picture of your youth group). Pray that God will open your eyes to the needs around you. Pray that you will be given wisdom in how you can respond to the needs. Pray for the group, that together you will be able to impact your community, nation and world with your response to poverty and the needs of those around you. Have a jar there for students to place their dollar bills in.

At the end of their time in the prayer labyrinth, bring the jar of bills in front of the whole group. Note that while $1 looks so insignificant, when you put them all together, you can begin to get creative. Hand out the dollars to the students again, this time with the invitation to go and find a way to multiply this dollar. Develop a timeline and a goal. How could you invest this dollar in making a difference in the lives of the poor? Is it possible? What you do with this dollar is, ultimately, up to you, but imagine the possibilities … and pray about expanding this dollar.

GET ACTIVE!

• Check out the report on progress so far towards the achievement of Millennium Development Goals. Goal number one is to “Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty,” with a target to “Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.” Check out the progress on this goal and think of ways your group can help make this goal a reality.
• How many lives can your group impact?

VISION GENERATION #4 (APRIL): YOUR PERSONAL NET WORTH

BIG IDEA:

The Kingdom of God reorients our ideas of personal value and net worth.

YOU’LL NEED:

• Paper & pencils or pens
• Calculators
• (Potentially) Copies of your church’s annual budget
• A prize, if you choose to award one

FOCUSING TEXT:

Mark 10:17-31

Note to Leader: This exercise involves students assessing the monetary worth of what they and a partner are wearing. Since you are the best gauge of your group, feel free to adapt this activity to fit their needs. For example, perhaps instead of sharing their “net worth” with a partner and/or evaluating the “net worth” of a partner, students could maintain privacy by simply evaluating their own “net worth” and keeping that number to themselves.

Ask your group, “What is the significance of April 15th in our country?” By April 15th every U.S. citizen must give an account to the government of how much income they made over the past year, and essentially how much they are worth, in order to pay taxes in a way that the government deems appropriate.

Have your group divide into pairs. Give each student a piece of paper and pencil, and distribute as many calculators as possible to students.

Group Instructions: In light of the practice of “tax day,” each one of us is going to total up our monetary value. I’d like you to calculate, to the best of your ability, how much money is represented at this moment on your person. In other words, what is your “net worth” right now? Make a guess at how much you (or someone else) spent on your shoes, jeans, jacket, purse, sunglasses, cell phone, jewelry, whatever is in your backpack or wallet, even your braces, the highlights in your hair… anything you can put a monetary value on. List all of this stuff, and add up the total dollar amount. How much money do you represent right now? Be sure you don’t share your list with your partner yet.

Give them a few minutes to calculate their own total net worth. Either ahead of time or as the students ere calculating their own net worth, you should likewise calculate your own net worth so that you can share your own experience.

More Instructions: Once you’re done estimating your own “net worth,” make a guess about your partner’s “net worth” based on what they are wearing and carrying at the moment.

After a few minutes calculating their partner’s net worth, students can then compare and share their estimates with each other. You may want to give a prize to the student who was best able to calculate their partner’s net worth.

Debrief: What was this experience like for you? What made it easy to calculate your own net worth? What made it challenging?

Q:  How did it feel to know that someone else was evaluating your “worth”?

Q:  What, if anything, about this exercise surprised or shocked you? Describe your response to that surprise—does it make you want to do anything or does it raise any questions for you?

At this point you might want to expand the conversation by highlighting an item that most students have in common, like blue jeans or shoes, and pursue questions like:

Q: How much money would you say is appropriate to spend on a pair of jeans? Should that amount be any different for someone who follows Christ? Why or why not?

Q: Is it OK for someone to own three pairs of jeans? Four? Five?

(Continue this one up a few more until students start to arrive at the point at which they feel like they’ve likely crossed the line into the number of jeans that feels excessive. Note: In the discussion that follows, the point is not to suggest that this “find the line” mentality is the way to make decisions about money or possessions. Rather, the point is to reveal that the Kingdom of God is based on generosity rather than possessiveness, and on a worth that has already been determined rather than worth we must prove or earn.)

Q:  Whether it’s jeans, shoes, or the number of albums you download from iTunes, how do you determine when you have crossed a line into what is “excessive”? As Kingdom followers, when—if ever—is it OK to spend excessively on ourselves?

Q:  When we do cross the line into what is “excessive,” what is the impact on us? How about on others?

Q: During a time when adults across the U.S. are scrambling to total up their net worth to report to the government, how should we as a youth ministry respond to the reality that U.S. citizens make up only 5% of the world, but we consume 50% of the world’s resources?1 You may want to repeat this statistic to be sure they caught it.

Scripture: At this point, ask a few students to read aloud the account of “The Rich and the Kingdom of God” found in Mark 10:17-31.

Q: Why do you think Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10 was such a difficult teaching for this man—and for Jesus’ closest disciples—to hear? What was so disturbing about Jesus’ words?

Q: If Jesus told you to do the same thing, how do you think you would respond?

Share that it may not have been this man’s wealth itself that excluded him from the Kingdom, but rather his inability to be generous with it or free to live without it. Jesus repeats several times that it is hard—particularly for the rich, but for everyone, really—to enter the Kingdom of God. For some, following the Kingdom Way may in fact require giving away everything they have. For everyone, it requires a new way of viewing possessions and personal worth.

Q: This passage seems to imply that the Kingdom of God is one of generosity. How is this characteristic of God’s Kingdom different from what our society tells us about money, wealth, and possessions?

Q:  How can we use what we have been given—our own net worth—in a spirit of extravagant generosity that helps others experience the Kingdom of God?

Wrap up: Close your time with a journaling exercise, asking your students to reflect on what they value and why. Have them create a “Lowering my self net worth” list—brainstorming ways they can reduce the costly material stuff that clutters their lives and ways to possibly redistribute some of that money and stuff to others.

You may also want to close by using Genesis 1:26-27 or Psalm 139 as a focal point for prayer, acknowledging that it is God who has determined our worth already, by creating us in His image in a mysterious and wonderful way. This worth extends to every person on the earth, meaning that we share this same sense of value with the poor, oppressed, sick, and hungry around the world.

HAVE MORE TIME?

• Have your students design their “ideal church budget.” That is, if it were up to them, how and where would they spend the church’s money? You might even want to see if they can come up with the percent of the budget they’d like to spend on each of their separate categories. Then, distribute copies of your church’s annual budget, explain where the money goes, and dialogue about the similarities or contrasts between the “ideal” budget and your church’s budget. (Note: you may also want to give some framework for how the church budget is determined in your church). What part, if any, does caring for those impacted by AIDS in Africa or dying of malnourishment play in your church budget? What would your church need to do in order to give more away beyond its own walls? Maybe invite someone from your church’s finance committee to be part of this dialogue.

GET ACTIVE!

• Consider adapting the “Closets with a Cause” experience on page 51 of the One Life curriculum for this theme. Have students process this practice of simplifying in light of the above discussion of personal worth.
• Teach students how to create and live within a personal budget. Push them to consider how our actual use of money shapes our beliefs about money, and how both of these influence our sense of worth.
• Encourage your students to go home and talk with their parents about how their family approaches money. What are their biggest spending “line items”? How much do they give away, and how do they decide? What line items might their families choose to reduce or cut out in order to deliberately give more away? How do we spend money differently as a family because we’re Christians? What choices can we make that would be even more generous?

VISION GENERATION #5 (MAY): SPRING CLEANING

BIG IDEA:

America’s addiction to stuff has created a “storage culture” in which hoarding is a core value. The Kingdom of God pushes us to re-evaluate that against the values of generosity, simplicity and stewardship.

YOU’LL NEED:

• Digital cameras—either borrow enough for each small group to have one, or buy a disposable digital camera for each small group. (Optional)
• Paper and pencils or pens

FOCUSING TEXT:

Matthew 6:19-34

Divide your group into smaller groups of three or four. Depending on how many digital cameras you can borrow, give a camera to each group, in addition to paper and pencils. During a 20-minute period, have each small group explore the various parts of the church (rooms, closets, storage sheds, offices, etc.), looking for items that the church either has too much of, has stored and probably doesn’t use, or could be donated. Have them snap photos and list on paper all of the “extras” they discover. Note: If your youth ministry meets at a home, or in small groups at various homes, have small groups do the same exercise there. Be sure to get the parents’ permission beforehand, and find out which rooms/areas may be off limits!

After 20 minutes, gather the group and discuss the experience together. If you use digital cameras, have groups share their pictures during the discussion if you have some relatively quick way to download and display the photos. (Be sure you think through that part ahead of time!) Most cameras now come with a data cable that can be plugged into a TV directly for viewing. If you can’t do this quickly, you might gather the cameras and put together a sampling for students to see and reflect on the following week. Or, forego the cameras altogether and just compare lists.

Discussion Questions:

Q: What was the most interesting thing your group discovered?

Q: Did you discover things that seem unnecessary? Things that could be given away? Things that could be thrown away? Talk about that.

Q: What surprises you about how much stuff the church has?

Q: Why do you think we store so much stuff?

Q: How many of your families have rented storage spaces? What’s in there? If your church has rented storage space as well, you should point that out, too. And of course, if you personally have rented storage space, you need to share it!

Q: Who can guess how much we spend per year in the United States on rented self-storage units? After a few guesses, explain that the self-storage industry in America is actually an enterprise of 3.6 billion dollar per year.1 That’s a lot of money invested in saving stuff we probably don’t even need! Let’s think out loud: What are some other ways this money could be used? Let students suggest ideas, then add that this much money could make a huge dent in the needs created by the global AIDS crisis and global poverty, not to mention poverty in our own communities.

In contrast, Jesus seems to say in Mathew 6:33 that if we pursue the Kingdom of Heaven, God will take care of our needs. At this point, ask for a few students to volunteer to read portions of Matthew 6:19-34.

Q: How are the words of Jesus in Matthew 6 pertinent to our conversation about storing or hoarding stuff?

Q:  Jesus talks about our tendency to worry about what we will eat, drink and wear. In that same passage, Jesus promises to take care of our needs, so why do you think we spend so much time worrying about our possessions?

Q:  Of course, there’s often a difference between what we want and what we need. How do we tell the difference? What did Jesus mean when he said he would “provide for our needs?”

[Note to leader: This passage inevitably raises questions surrounding the nature of God’s provision. What does Jesus mean when he says “all these things” will be provided? We have to be careful not to oversimplify or spiritualize this to the point where we end up teaching that “real faith” will equal material provision. This simply isn’t the case, as we see in the lives of many who follow Christ around the world in the midst of very real, continual poverty. Be sure to think through your own responses to questions about God’s provision before leading this discussion. Consult the Scriptures and perhaps a wise elder or pastor.]

Q: The reality is that in the United States, most of us store more stuff than most people in the world actually own. When you think about that, how does it make you feel? Why do you think we store so much stuff that we don’t need?

Q: As we’ve seen in Matthew 6, the Kingdom of God calls us to a life of simple trust in God. What do you think it might look like to be a person of simplicity and generosity in a culture of “hoarding?” What makes it difficult to live simply?

Q: Can you think of any people you know who live simply? What kinds of things do they do that make their lives simple? What do they do without?

Q: What could happen if churches, families, or even cities began to redistribute what they owned to others?

Give each student another piece of paper and pencil. Ask them to reflect and take a mental inventory of what’s in their closets, basements, garages—maybe even storage units—and ask them to think about what they are storing and why they are storing it. Then invite them to list out the things they know they don’t need, the duplicated items, the things they no longer use, and things they should let go. Then enter into a time of worship and prayer:

• Begin by thanking God for the ways He has provided for us.
• Read Matthew 6:19-34 again, this time as part of your prayer. Read it slowly several times through, and invite students to receive these words from Jesus and consider their response to the text. As an alternative, you may ask several students or adults ahead of time if they would read through the passage aloud during this time, from different parts of the room. You may want to have students journal their prayer responses to these words of Christ, prompting them with questions like: What do these words stir in you that you’d like to say back to God?  What questions do you have for Jesus about this passage? Ask students to share their answers out loud if they feel comfortable.
• Continue by asking your students to refer back to their lists and circle the things they could give away or sell. Invite them to pray about doing just that and to prayerfully consider giving the funds to the poor, the destitute, and those affected by pervasive illnesses like HIV and AIDS (this is a good time to remind them about your group’s goals for One Life). They might do this aloud, silently, through journaling, or in pairs as a corporate prayer experience.
• Close out your time by giving students the opportunity to share with the group some of the things they have chosen to donate or sell. You might have them do this in small groups so students can hold each other accountable for carrying out their decisions.

HAVE MORE TIME?

• Take a field trip. Drive your students around town or through a specific area of your city. Have them number and count off how many banks and self-storage facilities they see. Ask questions like: What can we learn from this? What does this tell us about how our community uses its money and material possessions?
• Research the Christian Community Development Association’s “Three R’s” of community development: Relocation, Reconciliation, and Redistribution. How can your church incorporate some of the insights of CCDA into ministry in your neighborhood and beyond? What does this important concept of redistribution have to do with the kind of generosity that counteracts our tendency to hoard things? Look for opportunities to discuss these thoughts with your students, volunteers and church leaders.

GET ACTIVE!

• Take inventory: Encourage students to take their lists home and to bring their circled items to church the next week. Collect the students’ donations in order to help them see how much stuff we intentionally or unintentionally hoard. You could spend the rest of your time transporting those items to your local homeless shelter, Salvation Army, Goodwill, or have a rummage sale and use the money that is raised to help reach your fund-raising goals for others in need.
• Take some students to a local ministry serving the poor, and meet with leaders or volunteers there. Ask them questions like: What kinds of things do people drop off here? How much is useful, and how much is not useful? What do you most need? What kind of support would you most appreciate from the community? Take this information back to report to your youth group, your church, and/or any appropriate ministry team or committee at your church.

VISION GENERATION #6 (JUNE): Can Scrubbing Potatoes Stop Slavery?

BIG IDEA:

The Kingdom of God intends to set captives free. Yet despite just recently celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in England, more people are held as slaves in the world today than ever before.

YOU’LL NEED:

• Dirty potatoes (The amount will vary depending on the size of your group, but have enough potatoes to keep several people busy for your entire time together. Ideal would be for everyone present to be able to hold a potato in their hands toward the end of this exercise.)
• Scrub brushes (You can vary the difficulty of this exercise by limiting these materials.)
• Potato peelers
• Bowl or bucket of water
• Bin to hold peeled potatoes
• Optional: DVD of “Amazing Grace” (previewed ahead of time and cued to specific clips you might want to incorporate. Alternatively, you may want to set aside a movie night to watch the film together before or after the study.)

FOCUSING TEXT:

Luke 4:14-21

As you begin your time, ask for 2-3 volunteers who want to be part of a “unique opportunity.” Then move them to a separate part of the room where you have placed your materials, and explain that they must wash and peel potatoes for the entire time, ideally while still within hearing distance of the group discussion. They are not allowed to speak and must wash and peel as many potatoes as possible. Let them know that you will check in with them at the end of your time together to evaluate their work.

Tell students that two major motion pictures are being released this year to help raise awareness about a global issue. One, released in February, is titled “Amazing Grace” and tells the story of a man named William Wilberforce. The other is called “Trade,” a movie about human trafficking coming out this August, starring Kevin Kline. Ask how many of your students have already viewed “Amazing Grace.” Note: You may also want to show a brief clip from this film as an opener before you begin this discussion, if you’re able to get a copy on DVD. Alternatively, you may want to use a scene from the 1997 movie “Amistad,” a film about the African slave trade.

Explain that in the 1800s, William Wilberforce realized the slave trade was THE driving economic engine behind Great Britain’s economy. Knowing that without government intervention, hundreds of thousands of people would be bought, sold, and traded against their will, he spent his career in the British Parliament lobbying against the slave trade. As a believer in Christ who wanted to be involved in God’s Kingdom work, he was the person credited with helping to end the transatlantic slave trade in the British Empire in the 19th century.

This can be a challenging topic to dive into. In order to gauge the level of awareness of your students, start out by having them raise their hands in response to the following questions based on their assumptions:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Q: How many of you think slavery has ended? How many think there are still slaves in the world today? How many would say there are probably still slaves in the U.S. today?

Q: Can anyone define human trafficking? What have you heard about it?

Explain that human trafficking is generally understood as the taking of people from their homes by deception or violence for the purpose of exploitation. People who are trafficked are often forced into prostitution, military service, manual labor, begging, forced marriage, and other means of oppression.

Q: How many people in the world today would you guess are considered slaves?

Explain: Although many people believe slavery ended in the 1800s with William Wilberforce in Great Britain and Abraham Lincoln in the U.S., it hasn’t. There are still an estimated 27 million slaves 1 in our world today. Tragically, this means that more people are illegally bought, sold, and trafficked against their will today than ever before. Think about that for a minute. Slave trafficking isn’t history. It’s our reality right now.

While that could be pretty depressing, the good news is that slave trafficking is an issue that is gaining attention in our world today.

To help put a face and name to this issue, you may want to read this story about a Cambodian girl who was rescued from sex slavery and is receiving care from World Vision. Or you might want to show students this slideshow about her story. Please note that this content may be strong for junior high students, as it describes a 13-year-old girl who was brutally raped for weeks on end. While kids need to be exposed to the realities of slavery, you may want to think through the appropriateness of this content for your group.

Break your students into pairs or small groups and share with your students the following information:2

• Between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 percent are women and girls. Up to 50 percent are kids under 18. 3
• An estimated total of 1.2 million children are trafficked each year worldwide. 4
• Human trafficking is the third largest source of income for organized crime, exceeded only by weapons and drug trafficking. 5
• Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of international crime, already generating 7 billion dollars per year in criminal proceeds. There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search for higher profits at lower risk. 6

In the students’ groups, have them share their answers to the following questions:

Q: What did you know about current-day slavery before now? How do these statistics make you feel? What questions do you have now?

Explain that slaves exist in every nation of the world, including the United States. The U.S. State Department estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 people are trafficked against their will into the US every year.7 They are used for all kinds of work — from prostitution to farm labor.

Note: If you have more time in small groups, you might also add this question to the discussion:

Q: Most of us can’t imagine being an actual slave. What would you lose if you were trafficked to another country? List some ways life would be different than it is now for you.

Take some time and have each group share some of their thoughts and feelings with the larger group.

Now it’s time to check in with your volunteer potato peelers. Bring them to the front of the group and ask:

Q: How are your hands feeling?

Q: What did it feel like to be isolated from the group and not allowed to speak?

Q: How did it feel to be told that you were going to have a “unique opportunity” that turned out to be working with potatoes?

After their responses, explain that many end up in forced labor because they are told about opportunities that await them in other towns or other countries — opportunities for work or education, or even for ministry training. These turn out to be lies, and people are trapped into slavery. Others end up in slavery because of their inability to pay a debt that they owe, and once they are enslaved, it is impossible to reverse their status.

Then say: At this point, we could either give you more potatoes to clean, or a pardon to set you free. Today we’re going to set you free, so you can join us for the rest of our discussion and prayer. But remember that even as we’re setting you free, there are many kids like you, all around the world, who will be forced to do repetitive tasks (like cleaning and peeling potatoes) thousands of times per week. And those are the ones who have it easy. Others are forced to become sex slaves or to become soldiers who kill and torture people.

Next, read (or have a student read) Luke 4:14-21.

Q: In this passage, Jesus reads from Isaiah, and then follows that reading by declaring that this prophecy is being fulfilled in their hearing. Why do you think Jesus said that these words were fulfilled that day?

Q: Do you usually think of or talk about Jesus as someone who sets prisoners free? Why or why not? What evidence do you see in His ministry that this claim is valid? Can you think of a time when Jesus set someone free?

Note: Christians in the United States have a tendency to read and teach this passage from an entirely spiritual perspective. Before leading this discussion, you may want to think carefully about how to encourage students (and adults!) in your group to think beyond simply setting captives free in the spiritual sense.

Q: If we are the people who live out Jesus’ ministry on earth today, what does this verse mean for us?

Q: How would you feel if you discovered that your country, your community, or even your neighbor had slaves? Given what we’ve just read in Luke 4, what do you think Jesus would want you to do about it?

Continue: The past few years have seen a lot of growth in the number of people and organizations acting to free slaves. In fact, it’s been estimated that the actions of ordinary people have freed about one-third of the slaves in the United States alone. 8

Close by asking: How can we use our voice to help set others free? William Wilberforce was one man who used his voice to mobilize thousands of others to speak out on behalf of those who could not be heard. He spoke out against injustice and created lasting change within the world. How might we use our collective voice to participate with Jesus in helping to “set the captives free?”

• Your group might decide to become a Child in Crisis Partner through World Vision for just $20 a month, which can help children escape from a life of horrific exploitation, and supports advocating against slavery and exploitation.
• Members of your group could send a letter to Congress, asking them to help stop the use of child soldiers around the world.
• Speak out to Congress about stopping child sex tourism.
• Or, give to the Child Sex Tourism Prevention Fund. By supporting this project, you will help equip World Vision to better assist law enforcement efforts and expand our strategic advertising campaign aimed at deterring sex tourists from the U.S.

Have the potato washers distribute the potatoes to every person in the group (if possible), and while holding the potatoes in your hands, pray and ask God for the release of all slaves in all nations, and for the courage to use our voice on behalf of the millions of people who cannot be heard. You may want to display an image of “Lan,” the Cambodian girl from the story above, during this time of prayer as a reminder of the real people who get trapped in slavery around the world.

As students leave, have them take the potatoes home with them and encourage them to commit to talking with their families and friends about what they now know and what they (and their families and friends) can do in response.

HAVE MORE TIME?

• The potato exercise could also be done with the entire group. If you have the time and resources, tell students you are taking them on a “secret activity” and then end up in a dark basement somewhere washing and peeling potatoes. For this one, you may want to clue parents in ahead of time! You may even consider having students turn over their cell phones, iPods, or something else tangible that might increase the experience of being betrayed and losing their rights. Be sure to allow for significant debriefing time if you choose to develop this option.
• Locate on a map the countries where slavery flourishes (India, Thailand, and the U.S., for instance). Have students place a candle on each of those countries and pray specifically for the slaves in that country, and that the government and churches would aid in their release.
• Watch the film “Amazing Grace” to learn more about William Wilberforce and his life’s work. Maybe watch it as a group, or have small groups watch it together and discuss it afterwards. A number of resources have been released online related to the movie that might be helpful for developing further reflection questions.
• Encourage students by sharing the work of 15-year-old Zach Hunter, who has gained a lot of national publicity for his abolitionist efforts. While we want to be careful not to glorify or glamorize someone like Zach, what can we learn from his courage to be someone who makes a difference in the lives of the oppressed?

GET ACTIVE!

• You may want to develop one of these portions of text into a full Bible study—or a series of small group Bible studies—for students surrounding the issue of slavery: Exodus 2:23-25 (in the context of Exodus Chapters 2-14); Isaiah 42:1-7; or the book of Philemon, particularly verses 8-22. Explore questions such as, What does it mean to treat someone like a “dear brother”? How might we act if we treated child slaves like dear brothers and sisters?
• Have students learn more about the issues and write letters to policy-makers about the importance of working to enforce the anti-slavery legislation in the U.S. and abroad. Help them think about using their voice to proclaim Christ’s freedom while influencing public policy to free slaves of forced labor.
• Sign the “Stop the Traffik Declaration” at www.stopthetraffik.org/help/declaration.aspx. Consider gathering a group of students to get members of your church to sign the Stop The Traffik Declaration.
• For other ways to get involved visit www.stopthetraffik.org or www.amazingchange.com. Encourage students to brainstorm creative ways to engage the youth group and their friends at school.
• For more World Vision resources on slavery and related issues, visit these links:

1. A radio segment about child soldiers in Uganda:
2. Information about various injustices such as child soldiers and child sex tourism:
3. A collection of information about modern day slavery.
4. Another girl’s story.