From the lives of 12 more wild Bible characters come...Wild truth Bible Lessons 2!

Time to introduce your junior highers to yet another dozen people from the Old and New Testaments! Jump into their biblical adventures and check out the character qualities they exemplify—real people who, in wild Bible stories, did really wild things for God:

• Shad, Shaq, & Abe, the Firemen Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego (standing up for what your believe)
• Joe's Bros, the Sibling Sellers Joseph's brother (responding when someone offends you)
• Hammerhead, the Nap-Time Monitor Jael (doing difficult things for God)
• Richie Rich, the Material Boy the rich young ruler (materialism)
• Roof Club, the Extra-Mile Friends the stretcher bearers who lowered their friend through a roof to Jesus (meeting your friends' needs)
• Andy and Sophie, the King and Queen of Lies Ananias and Sapphira (lying)
• Bad Luck Boils Job (when life is unfair)
• Weather Man Jesus (his power in the middle of your problems)

You won't believe all the off-the-wall discussion starters, video ideas, scripts, games with a point—and, of course, Bible passages you can use to springboard junior highers into topics that don't just mean the world to them, but are the world. Making decisions. Prayer. Standing up for what they believe in Materialism. Each lesson reaches back into history to underline for junior highers the reality of Old and New Testament people and principles—and then reaches forward, challenging your students to make better decisions, better friends, better lives.

Lesson 7

Roof Club
The Extra Mile Friends

The stretcher bearers who lowered their friend through a roof to Jesus, on meeting your friends’ needs

Students will—

• Learn how to look for their friends’ needs.
• Understand the importance of meeting those needs.
• Make a plan to meet one need this week.

 

Bible passage: Luke 5:18-26 For whatever reasons, there was no stopping the stretcher bearers. Maybe the paraplegic (or quadriplegic) had recruited a few strangers off the street with the offer of money. Maybe he had nagged his roommates until they finally gave in just to shut him up, and took him to the upcountry healer who was rumored to be in the neighborhood. Most likely, though, it was a deep, empathetic friendship that propelled the stretcher bearers to the house where Jesus was, up to the roof when the crowd wouldn’t give way, and—in a burst of ingenuity or desperation—through the roof and down to the floor where Jesus stood. At this point, St. Luke reports an intriguing detail about the friends and the paraplegic: Jesus saw their faith, then forgave his sins.

Jump Start
The Friendship Challenge

You’ll need— copies of Handout The Friendship Challenge pens or pencils

Pass out copies of The Friendship Challenge and a pen or pencil (or some other writing utensil—stick of lipstick, crayon, tube of white-out, etc.) to each student. Tell them not to begin the challenge until they’ve heard all the rules.

Say: Here are the rules.

1. You can complete these items in any order you want.
2. You must get someone’s initials (as many as the item asks for) to prove you completed it.
3. For items that call for you to get other people to help you, you can’t always get together with the same people. Mix it up a bit!

4. You can only get a person’s initials one time—all initialed items must be done by different people (for groups over 10) or you can get one person’s initials only one or two times (for groups under 10).
5. When you finish, write your name on the top, and bring it to me. The first four people to do so win.

Now start the game. This will probably take your group about five minutes. You should only let the game continue until you have the first four completed forms in your hands. Then call off the game, and have students return to their seats. Announce the winners with showy fanfare. You may want to award some kind of small prize to the first-place winner—like, maybe, a trip to Europe or something.

After the mayhem has subsided, ask these questions:

• How would you describe a friend?
• What are the characteristics of a good friend?
• What’s the single most important characteristic of a good friend?
• What’s the worst thing a friend could do to you?
• How do junior highers go about getting friends?

Getting the Point
Need Watchers

You’ll need— one copy of Guess My Needs

Say something like this: One of the most important characteristics of being a good friend—and the whole point of our time today—is recognizing the needs of your friends and trying to meet those needs. How can you recognize the needs a friend might have? [Listen a lot; look for clues that a need exists; get to know your friend.]

Now tell your group you’re going to give them a little practice at spotting needs. Tell them you’re going to read some stories about some junior highers, and they’ll have the assignment of figuring out the character’s needs. Explain that you realize this might be a little unrealistic since they don’t know the characters.

The stories from Guess My Needs are arranged so that you can read them in sections. The first section doesn’t reveal much about the real need at all—there are hints about it. The second section begins to reveal the need a little more clearly, and the third section comes right out and says it. This simulates the levels of intimacy in a friendship. Some kids never get past a superficial friendship level with their friends, which makes it difficult to spot needs. After reading each section, stop and give kids the opportunity to offer their opinion on what the character’s needs are.

After you finish all three stories, point to one wall and declare it the I-wouldn’t-lift-a-finger-for-my-friends wall. Then point to the opposite wall and declare it the I-would-go-to-extreme-lengths-to-help-meet-my-friend’s-needs wall.

Now ask your kids to stand up and move to one wall or the other or somewhere in between to show their answers to the question: How extreme will you be in meeting your friend’s needs?

Flashback

The Roof Club

You’ll need— Bibles

If your group has more than 10 kids in it, divide it into groups of about six or seven. (Yeah, I know that math doesn’t add up. About seven kids per group would be the ideal size, okay? It would be really ideal if you had an adult leader for every group.) If your group has more than 35, you’ll want to use groups that are closer to 10 in size. If your group is over 70, you’ll never make it through seven dramas so consider making the groups around 15 in size and don’t require everyone in the group to be active in the drama.

Ask the groups to read Luke 5:18-26 and come up with a modern-day retelling of that story. Tell them they’ll have about five or six minutes to come up with the drama. You should roam around to the different groups (especially if you don’t have other adults in them) and offer a little help and direction.

After the six minutes or when most of the groups seem to be done (they may need extra time), have the groups come up one at a time and perform their dramas. Make sure you wildly praise each group for their efforts—if they exert any effort at all.

After the groups are finished, ask:

• How extreme were the actions of the friends? [Massively extreme! It was no more appropriate to rip a hole in someone’s roof in Jesus’ time than it would be today.]
• What do you think gave the friends the courage to take such radical action? [They believed that Jesus could heal their friend.]
• What was the reason Jesus gave for why he would heal the guy? [The faith of the friends! This is an important point. The text doesn’t say anything about the faith of the crippled man—he may or may not have had faith. But Jesus says he will heal the man because of the faith of the friends.]

Say something like this: We can have a big impact on our friends with our faith. The example of this story teaches us that 1) we need to recognize our friends’ needs and bring them to God in prayer with faith, and 2) God, in some way and at some time, will respond to our faith.

Fast Forward
I’ll Meet That Need!

You’ll need— copies of I’ll Meet That Need! cut in half pens or pencils

Pass out I’ll Meet That Need! to your kids. They should already have pens or pencils from the opening exercise. By now they’ve probably left permanent markings on the students on both sides of them. If they were using pencils, the points have been broken off (but there should be lots of little lead bits being ground into your carpeting or tile. Okay, I’ll move on.)

Tell your kids it’s time to get personal—time to apply all this understanding about meeting friends’ needs to their own lives.

The Wild Page is self-explanatory—fill out the questions, creating a plan of action for meeting one specific need of a friend. Give them about four minutes to work, then ask if a few will share their answers out loud.

If you have time, it would be great to divide your group into clusters of three or four and have them pray for each other—that God would help them follow through on meeting their friends’ needs. If you don’t have time for this, ask two or three students to pray for the whole group.

INTRO

1. Shad, Shaq, & Abe, the Firemen Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego (standing up for what you believe)

2. Hanny, the Wannabe Nanny Hannah (prayer)

3. Joe's Bros, the Sibling Sellers Joseph's brothers (responding when someone offends you)

4. Hard-Knocks Pablo The apostle Paul (on persecution and hardships)

5. Andy & Sophie, the King and Queen of Lies Ananias & Sapphira (lying)

6. Richie Rich, the Material Boy The rich young ruler (materialism)

7. Roof Club, the Extra-Mile Friends The stretcher bearers who lowered their friend through a roof to Jesus (meeting your friends' needs)

8. Hammerhead, the Nap-Time Monitor Jael (doing difficult things for God)

9. Bad Luck Boils Job (when life is unfair)

10. Sam, the Mighty Man Samson (making choices based on values rather than on experience)

11. Giddy, the Frightened Wimp Gideon (how God sees us)

12. Weather Man Jesus (his power in the middle of your problems)