insights from high schoolers into St. John's Apocalypse
It's really fun to facilitate a Bible discussion with high schoolers when I don't have an agenda, don't ask leading questions, and listen to what they hear. For some reason, after we finished the Gospel of John, they wanted to study Revelation, aka, the Apocalypse. It's real easy to get an agenda with this book. "It's so weird, how can any Christian teacher in their right mind let kids figure out this stuff on their own?" I'm not in my right mind, andI think God's Holy Spirit will handle it just fine.
We were in Revelation 3 last night, sitting around a campfire in my back yard. My main purpose is to provide a loose structure, and a frequent call to focus, with smores waiting as a reward. There were 7 kids and me. We went around the circle, each reading a few verses. When we finished, I asked them what they liked, what they didn't like, what they learned about God, what they learned about humanity, and what do they need to do with what they've read.
The kids liked Jesus's snark towards Laodicea. "You think you are so special, buttttttttttt, you are wretched naked and blind." v. 17
We also talked about what it means to be hot or cold, and how lukewarm makes Jesus barf, vv. 15-16. I wanted them to figure out what hot and cold means. Someone associated hot with hell. Someone else connected it to light switches, and how when they were little they'd try to get the switch to stay in the middle, unsuccessfully. Of course, some people did have success keeping it in the middle, but I told them they were probably close to burning their house down as well. They concluded that being in the middle spiritually was risky as well and they needed to choose on or off. One kid took that as his application and prayer request for the week.
God was at work, and I had the privilege of watching Him. It is such a pleasure to be a discussion facilitator, watching people learn to learn, and staying out of God's way. We spent about 40 minutes on the text, we do a safe prayer method, taking requests then praying all at the same time - no oratory skills required, then cooked smores, then played frisbee for an hour and a half until we couldn't see anymore in the twilight.
We were in Revelation 3 last night, sitting around a campfire in my back yard. My main purpose is to provide a loose structure, and a frequent call to focus, with smores waiting as a reward. There were 7 kids and me. We went around the circle, each reading a few verses. When we finished, I asked them what they liked, what they didn't like, what they learned about God, what they learned about humanity, and what do they need to do with what they've read.
The kids liked Jesus's snark towards Laodicea. "You think you are so special, buttttttttttt, you are wretched naked and blind." v. 17
We also talked about what it means to be hot or cold, and how lukewarm makes Jesus barf, vv. 15-16. I wanted them to figure out what hot and cold means. Someone associated hot with hell. Someone else connected it to light switches, and how when they were little they'd try to get the switch to stay in the middle, unsuccessfully. Of course, some people did have success keeping it in the middle, but I told them they were probably close to burning their house down as well. They concluded that being in the middle spiritually was risky as well and they needed to choose on or off. One kid took that as his application and prayer request for the week.
God was at work, and I had the privilege of watching Him. It is such a pleasure to be a discussion facilitator, watching people learn to learn, and staying out of God's way. We spent about 40 minutes on the text, we do a safe prayer method, taking requests then praying all at the same time - no oratory skills required, then cooked smores, then played frisbee for an hour and a half until we couldn't see anymore in the twilight.
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