Truth and Dare—Straight Out of Scripture!

Truth-and-dare, Jesus-version: that's Wild Truth Bible Lessons—Dares from Jesus! Are you and your junior-high students ready to Hear the Truth and Accept the Dares from Jesus? Each of these 12 lessons sends students straight into the words of Jesus to discover the Ttruth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. Then it dares them to live that truth today.

Drawn from Wild Truth Journal—Dares from Jesus, these exciting lessons are based on something Jesus said, challenging both our perceptions and commitments ... and the defining Jesus' implicit or explicit action steps—or dares—in the teachings.

• Wanna Play? grabs your groups attention to prepare them for what's ahead.
• It's the Truth takes your students into the Bible to reveal the Truth at the core of Jesus' teaching.
• Truth in Action reveals Jesus' challenge in response to the Truth, and fleshes out what this looks like in the life of a young teen.
• Take the Dare challenges your students to accept the Dare from Jesus and put it into practice in practical ways.

Every lesson in Wild truth Bible Lessons—Dares from Jesus is way cool, designed as user-friendly for you, the teacher; and speaking to kids in their language. Every page overflows with lessons, exercises, tips, insights, games, worksheets—as well as humor, passion and... truth!

Here, also, are dozen and dozens of worksheets and activities that can be reproduced as handouts...or downloaded, totally adaptable for your needs, from the Youth Specialties Web site!

Download a PDF of chapter 1 from Wild Truth Bible Lessons: Dares from Jesus. You'll need the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDF sample.

Lesson 1
Get Past It

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. "Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court.

Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny." —Matthew 5:21-26

Destroy and Repair

Divide your students into teams. I'll probably explain this over and over in this book: you decide the size of the teams, based on the overall size of your group. I won't treat you like an idiot in this book but as a peer who will tweak and modify what I write here, even if I don't tell you to do so! So if you have a tiny group (4-7 kids), don't even break up into two teams for this exercise—it will work fine. Otherwise, your teams can be anywhere from 3- 4 kids each to 10 kids each. The larger the team, the more helpful it will be to have an adult leader in each team.

Give each team a magazine ad, or better yet, a poster (in other words, something graphic that's not too small). Also give them a pair of scissors. Don't give them the tape yet (or even let them see it)—you don't want them to know that they'll be repairing the damage you'll ask them to do.

Now tell them to destroy their ads or posters. Give them about two minutes to cut or tear or otherwise mutilate the original. If your kids are normal junior highers, this will be a fairly quick process—especially for teams that are predominantly boys. Destruction is part of the DNA of a junior higher!

After all the teams are done with their destructive work, pass out a role of cellophane tape to each group. Tell them they'll have 2 minutes to get the ad or poster back together. Then say, "go!" Some may whine and complain that you hadn't told them they'd be putting the pictures back together. Give them your best "tough luck" grin, and mention that their time is running out.

Modify the two-minute time limit. In other words, if no group is even close to completing their reconstructive work after two minutes, give them a bit more time. You can either declare the first team finished to be the winners, or you can wait until most are done and judge the winners as the best reconstructed original. Consider awarding a small candy prize to the winning team.

The Hug Fest

Make a transition out of the opening activity by saying something like: Just like you put those pictures back together— God really cares about a big word called "reconciliation," which means to put relationships back together.

Now ask for volunteers to participate in a Spontaneous Melodrama (or recruit them before your group meets). They won't have to learn any parts or lines. They just have to be willing to ham it up and act out the drama as you read it. Instruct the actors that when they do have spoken lines, you'll read them, and they should just repeat the lines in character.

The characters are:

• Joe
• Jake
• Joe's friends (2-3 actors)
• The Preacher

One caution: you should try to recruit a fairly secure student for the role of Jake, since he's such a weird kid. If you recruit an outcast for this role, it could turn into a situation where kids are laughing at him rather than with him—and that's generally considered a no-no in effective ministry! If you have doubts that any kid in your group could handle the part, recruit a mature high school student or adult leader to play the part.

You'll also want to be ready for the second scene by having two empty seats out in the "audience" (your group) for Jake and Joe to sit in.

Now read the script, pausing for the actors to play their parts. After you read the scripted line of a character, pause for the character to repeat the line. Coach or direct a bit when necessary, encouraging the actors to get into their parts.

After the Melodrama is over, give the actors a big round of applause, then have everyone turn in their Bibles to the dare from Jesus (or display the passage in a way that everyone can see it). I'd discourage you from simply reading the passage without letting your group see it. Junior highers are greatly helped by seeing scripture—it helps focus their attention (at least a tiny bit!), and it helps them grasp the passage more.

Read Matthew 5:21-26. Then ask these questions:

• What's the dare from Jesus? Seek reconciliation with others. Try to repair relationships you've damaged. And don't wait to do it!
• Why do you think Jesus cares about us repairing hurt relationships? It's one of God's biggest goals—to help us experience healthy relationships. It's also one of the ways we show the world we're different—by how we love each other.
• Can you think of an ultimate example of reconciliation that Jesus provided for us? When Jesus died on the cross, he opened the way for us to be reconciled with God!
• Why do you think Jesus wants us to get to this right away—not to wait? When we put stuff off, it's easy for it to never get done!
• Why is it so difficult to reconcile with people we've wronged? They might not want reconciliation. Peoples' pride gets in the way. It's easy to justify the wrong we do to others as paying them back for something they did to us. We don't see many people doing it!

Reconcilers, Inc.

Have kids work individually or in pairs to fill out the "Job Application" on the Reconcilers, Inc. Wildpage. It's simply a set of three case studies where your students will think through what reconciliation looks like in the life of a young teen.

After kids have had about five minutes to work through the sheet, debrief it by walking through each scenario and asking for possible solutions.

Non paper option: Duh, this would be a great small group discussion without giving out copies of the Wildpage.

Do I Dare?

You'll need something for students to write on. If you used Wildpage (Reconcilers, Inc.) for the last exercise, you can just have students turn it over and write on the blank backside. If you didn't use the Wildpage, or if you are just a freak about handing out lots and lots of papers to your students (yup, that's me too), make copies of the Do I Dare? bookmark page and cut them into strips.

Walk your group through four questions:

• Who have I done harm to?
• How did I do harm?
• What can I do to reconcile with this person?
• Do I Dare?

Ask the questions one at a time (have your kids write them down if you're using blank paper), and have them write an answer. Talk about each question and different responses kids have before moving on to the next question. Some of your students might have a difficult time thinking of someone they've harmed. If this is the case, ask the group to brainstorm different ways junior highers tend to harm each other. These could include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Physical harm
• Gossip
• Rumors
• Saying mean things
• Intimidation
• Bullying
• Ignoring
• Degrading or Teasing
• Judging
• Creating foul smells around each other
• Many, many more ways!

The last question—"Do I Dare?"—is the challenge. It's asking the students if they're willing to take the dare and try to reconcile with the persons they've just described. If their answer is "no," they should simply write so. Berate them and call them "wimps" (I'm kidding). If their answer is "yes," they should write a time and place for carrying out this reconciliation work.

Be sure to close your time in prayer, thanking God for his ultimate reconciliation work with us of having Jesus die on the cross (and that was reconciliation offered for something we had done, not something He did!). Also ask for courage to carry out these reconciliation action plans.

1. Get Past It!
The truth about reconciliation—Jesus dares us to mend broken relationships (Matthew 5:21-26)

2. Take Them in Pairs
The truth about retribution—Jesus dares us to not seek revenge (Matthew 5:38-42)

3. Go Long
The truth about investing—Jesus dares us to store away good stuff (Matthew 6:19-21)

4. Don't Waste Your Time
The truth about worry—Jesus dares us not to be anxious (Matthew 6:25-34)

5. Don't Be Foolish!
The truth about wisdom—Jesus dares us to obey him (Matthew 7:24-27)

6. Get Along!
The truth about human relationships—Jesus dares us to get along with others (Matthew 18:15-35)

7. Give Big
The truth about generosity—Jesus dares us to really give (Luke 6:38)

8. Don't Be Greedy
The truth about ownership—Jesus dares us not to be greedy (Luke 12:15)

9. Prove It
The truth about responsibility—Jesus dares us to prove ourselves worthy of trust (Luke 16:10-12)

10. Live in the Light
The truth about honesty—Jesus dares us to be agents of truth (Luke 16:10-12)

11. Know You're His
The truth about security—Jesus dares us to be secure in him (John 10:27-28)

12. Die
The real truth about reality—Jesus dares us to experience real life (John 12:24-26)