‘Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven’

You may like to start by asking the group to re-cap on previous weeks

Introduction: Today we’re going to be thinking about the Kingdom of God and what it would look like.

Quiz!

Ask the group to stand up if they agree or sit down if they disagree…you could start with everyone squatting!!!
(It would be good to discuss these as the quiz progresses)

1. The Kingdom of God is not a real earthly Kingdom, it’s a spiritual kingdom – Agree/Disagree
2. The Kingdom of God is something Jesus didn’t really talk about – Agree/Disagree
3. The Kingdom of God has not yet come. It will come when Jesus returns – Agree/Disagree
4. The Kingdom of God is something only church leaders can see – Agree/Disagree
5. The Kingdom of God is something all Christians are meant to build – Agree/Disagree
6. The Kingdom of God is as small as a mustard seed but stretches across the world – Agree/Disagree
7. The Kingdom of God is something Jesus said had arrived – Agree/Disagree
8. The kingdom of God is located in Jerusalem – Agree/Disagree

Answers/Notes

1. It’s spiritual but also impacts the real world
2. Wrong – Jesus’ whole ministry was proclaiming the Kingdom
3. It has come in part but will be completed perfectly at the second coming
4. Wrong – all Christians can see the Kingdom
5. Yes – All disciples are called to build God’s kingdom
6. True – it starts in the heart but impacts the world
7. True – See Matthew 4:17
8. False – it’s located in the hearts of Christians

Quiz taken from ‘The Word Through Sound’ by Steve Adams

Ask: What do you think the Kingdom of Heaven is?

Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of Heaven was near. What do you think He meant?

Explain: When we talk about the Kingdom of Heaven we can mean lots of different things, but if we think about how the Kingdom of heaven would look we can see that it is not complete on earth. If we look around we can see aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven in our world but there are also lots of things that don’t show the kingdom of heaven

Ask: What things around you do you think show the Kingdom of Heaven?

What things around you do you think don’t show the Kingdom of Heaven?

Video: OSBD Creation Video (this is downloadable from osbd.org at a small cost)
(Pay particular attention to the part of the video where they talk about ‘sensing the Kingdom’

Ask: The man in the interview talks about being able to ‘sense the kingdom’ and as we talked about earlier Jesus calls his disciples to build his Kingdom.

What do you think it means to build his Kingdom?

Explain: As disciples of Jesus building his Kingdom means many different things, it can mean looking out in our world for the hungry, thirsty, needy etc. It can mean living our lives in a way which reflects the way which Christ lived His. The same way which Christ revealed the Kingdom of heaven through his actions we can do the same.

So when in the Lord’s prayer we ask for God’s Kingdom to come and his will to be done we don’t just ask God to make the world more like he’d have it we also commit to showing his Kingdom to the world.

Psalm Writing Exercise

You may wish to help the young people with this!

To finish hand the young people a piece of flip-chart paper and ask them to try and write a ‘Psalm’/Poem/Vision of what the Kingdom of God would look like for them, it was be as modern or traditional in language as they like.

Hints: You may like to ask the young people to jot down ideas first before trying to make it into a psalm/poem/vision…looking at a Psalm could help them to get the idea…or even looking at something like the 24-7 prayer movement vision could help!

Read the psalm as a prayer to close