Equipment: pens, paper, Romans study (click to download), post-it notes

Overview: This session follows on from our session ‘Our Own Mission’ which you can view here. This session aims to get young people thinking about what they can do as they go into the world to show people Jesus through their own lives

Ice Breaker: Hi Harry – In this game the group sit in a circle. One person turns to the person next to them and says ‘Hi Harry’, the person next to them replies ‘Yes Harry’ and the first person says ‘Tell Harry’. The next person then turns to their neighbour and says ‘Hi Harry’ and the process repeats.

If someone messes up a pen spot is drawn on their forehead and they are know known as ‘one spot’. When it comes round to them someone may refer to them as one spot for examples ‘Hi One Spot’.

If people mess up more than once they become two spot, three spot etc. End the game when you feel it’s been played for a good length.

Explain: Unlike in that game we are all different and as we discovered in that game we all do things differently (some of us worse at the game than others). This morning we’re building on all the things we’ve been thinking about with mission and exploring different ways we can share our faith with people.

We’ve explored ways in which Jesus did mission, we’ve looked at how Paul found a relevant way to communicate his faith to people in a completely different place to he was used to and we’ve thought about some ways which we can do that in the different settings we find ourselves in.

Bible: Read Matthew 28: 16-20

Explain: These words are the final words Jesus leaves his disciples. He tells them to ‘Go and make followers of all people in the world’

Ask: Why do you think Jesus tells them to go? How does that apply to us?

Explain: When we spend time with our youth group or other Christians it’s great because we’re accepted, we can share our faith without feeling awkward, if we want to sing worship songs we can, if we want to pray we can however a lot of the time we’re not in settings where we feel comfortable doing that…and there’s nothing wrong with that…bursting into ‘Shine, Jesus Shine’ in the middle of the dining hall might really turn people off faith!

We thought about lots of different ways we can share our faith in the places we’re in every day though.

Group Study: Split the group up and use the bible study on Romans

Feedback: Bring the group back together and feedback your thoughts from the small groups.

Explain: We all have different gifts and different ways to communicate our faith to others. If we’re really good at telling stories we might tell people stories of what God has done in our lives, if we’re good at serving we might find opportunities to serve.

We all have a part to play in reaching out to others.

Small Groups: Back in small groups again look at the sheets of paper from the previous session and invite the young people to pick one for themselves that they could genuinely ‘go out’ and do. They might choose to work with others for this.

Feedback: Feedback from the small group discussion.

Response: Give each young person 2 post-it notes and invite them to write their name and the thing they can do on both post-its. Invite them to stick one in their bible to remind them and to swap one with someone else as a reminder to pray for that person as they do that thing.

Prayer: Close the session with prayer