Note: This was used as a one off longer event all about the passover.

Things needed: Nooma Rhythm DVD and powerpoint (click to download), Group Questions

Set Up: Have a long table set up with chairs around it. Have some nibbles like nachos and dips around the table too.

Start around 7:15 – as people arrive encourage them to sit down around the long table but not eat!

Ice Breaker: Invite the young people to share with those around them the last time they went out for a meal. Who was it with? What were they out for?

Start:    Welcome people to the event and explain that although tonight isn’t exactly as the Last Supper would have been that we’re going to explore it.

Explain:The Passover wasn’t just an ordinary meal that Jesus and his disciples gathered for, it was an important meal and one of the biggest dates in the Jewish calendar and it wasn’t coincidence that it was the following day he was crucified.

Task: Have strips of paper down the edges of the table and invite the young people on each side to produce a biblical timeline of everything that happens (that they remember) from the beginning right up to the beginning of the church in Acts. Encourage the young people to move around

Share: Invite both sides to compare their notes and share what they’ve come up with

Explain:The bible is a story, it’s not just lots of random little books but when we fit it all together it tells us a powerful story and it starts in Genesis and continues up to Exodus

Drama: Invite everyone to split into groups, give each group a bible passage (some key sections from the story) to act out. – These are on the powerpoint

Performance: Ask the groups individually (and in order) to share their drama’s with the         others

Explain: Do a brief summary – man created, messes up, murder, exile and slavery, feed and lives spared

The Passover

Explain: So the Passover was (and is) a time in the Jewish calendar when they would remember the escape from Egypt and how their lives had been spared as God passed over those who’d put the lambs blood on their door steps.

The Jewish Passover is made up of all sorts of things and the passover meal is a whole evening event which involves the retelling of the escape from Egypt and those taking part eat all sorts of things  to remind them of the story and their escape from Egypt

So Jesus spends his last evening with his disciples sharing in the Passover meal and there’s all sorts of links between the Passover and what would happen to Jesus the coming day

Groups: Invite the groups to read Matthew 26: 17-30 and answer the questions (see sheet)

Share: Bring everyone back together and share some answers

Explain: Jesus introduces His disciples to ‘The New Passover’, in the original Passover the Jewish people were instructed to kill a lamb and spread the blood on their door posts so God would know a Jew lived there and would pass-over, sparing their first-born sons and so from that point the Passover celebrated the passing over, then Jesus comes along  and towards the end of their meal He breaks bread and says ‘This is my body, broken for you’ and he drinks wine saying ‘This is my blood, shed for you’.

Jesus makes this meal about Him, He knows what’s about to happen, He knows he’s soon to be betrayed, beaten within an inch of his life and killed and the significance of the wine and bread being the body and blood of Jesus is that Jesus is the new Passover lamb, the new sacrifice and His blood would spare the blood of many, the same way the lambs blood on the door-posts spared the blood of the Jewish people.

Break for Refreshments at this point (20 mins)

Part 2 – Our Reaction

Ask: Have any of you ever thought of the Passover/ Last Supper like that before?

Does it make more sense to you seeing it like that?

Explain: We’ve looked so far at the mess us humans got ourselves into and the distance that we managed to get between ourselves and God and we’ve seen how through Jesus God can pass over us and we can be saved and we’re going to think about what that means though.

All of this new Passover stuff we’ve been looking at is great but the Jewish people had to choose to put the blood on their door-posts to be saved, it’s a little bit obvious but like that with Jesus we have to choose to accept Him, we have to choose to accept that He died for us so that God would pass over and remove our sins and when we do that, when we ask Jesus into our lives     we are able to have a relationship with Him and we’re going to spend a while thinking about that relationship that we’re able to have through the new Passover

Video:    Nooma Rhythm

Small Groups

Invite people back into groups to discuss the following questions from the video

What do you believe about God’s involvement in our daily lives?

Are you in tune?

Explain: We’re coming to the end…or rather the end of the story for this event, but the story continues. A relationship with God isn’t about a youth event or a church service it’s about our lives…every single bit of them and it’s about God being key in all of that, it’s about us accepting that God loved us so much, that He wanted a relationship with us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us…to be the new Passover lamb

It may be that you know that already or it may be that tonight’s the first time you’ve heard that, it may be that you’ve responded to God’s call before and given up or maybe it’s lost it’s meaning to you, or maybe you’ve never responded to God

Response: Have some candles and matches/lighters set up in the corners of the room and invite the young people to respond to God’s call by taking a candle, bringing it back to their table and lighting it…allow an opportunity for prayer

Pray to close the evening