Beginning with the greatest

We’re now a couple of weeks into Senior High Sunday Morning’s year of study under the general theme of “Change One, Change the World.” (For more information on the theme, see this post). I really can’t divvy this up into sessions or set lessons because I have a tendency to allow discussion to flow away from the “script” as long as it stays roughly in the realm of Biblical study or Christian living or such things. Rather, what follows is an overview of the initial session or sessions of the year which took us about three weeks to cover … not counting the very first week in which we saw the I Heart Revolution trailer that inspired the series.

Week One: Introductory week. We talked about what we wanted to change. I simply asked a series of questions and let the students answer with whatever came to mind. The questions were:

• If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
• If you could change one thing about the community, what would it be?
• If you could change one thing about you, what would it be?

For the first question, I directed students to think about situations outside our state – just to give them a bit of delineation. That made the second question refer to church, school, our state and other “more local” events. For the final question, I insisted that it not be a physical aspect of their character because, frankly, there probably isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t change something about themselves physically. The range of responses to the questions was fascinating. The students wanted to see everything from peace in Darfur to patience in their own lives.

This session took a big twist when, on the spur of the moment, I asked the students to think of people who changed the world. Again, interesting thoughts. I actually had to coax them into saying the typical Sunday school answer — Jesus. It was awesome to hear them mention people like Rosa Parks or Billy Graham. It was equally awesome to hear them recognize that one person can change the world for the worse as is the case with Hitler and Osama Bin Laden.

We ended by introducing the theme verse from Matthew 22:34-40.

Week two: We reviewed some of what we talked about the week before. We then went phrase by phrase through the interaction of Jesus and the expert in the law as recorded in Matthew. We referred back to Deuteronomy and talked about the Shema and its role in Jewish life. Then came this week’s big distraction. We turned back to Leviticus 19:18, the verse Jesus quotes when he says “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Let’s just say that nothing will get a group of senior highers off track faster than browsing through Leviticus and catching sight of some of the laws.

I corralled them back to the subject at hand and finished with the question of “who is my neighbor?” To answer the question, I asked students who had attended the World Vision Experience (see post here) to describe the event and what they took from it.

Week three: We continued with the theme of identifying our neighbor by taking apart the parable of the good Samaritan, looking at details such the dangers inherent along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the role of the priest and Levite and the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. I pointed out that Luke follows the telling of the parable with the scene from the home of Mary and Martha. In the parable, there is a call to doing, but in the scene between Mary and Martha, the importance of being is stressed. I concluded by pointing out that to change the world, you sometimes have to change yourself. That serves as an introduction to where I hope to head next week with a look at the Mary and Martha episode and discussion on personal devotions and Bible study.

Any comments or ideas for the series are welcome.