The Bible bit
Read the following Bible verse to the group: ‘We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the Church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love’ (Ephesians 4:15-16, NLT).
What is MY own special work?
Reflection and prayer What can we do next?
Sometimes it’s not obvious to us what our gifts, talents and abilities might be, but ask your friends what they think – you might be surprised at what you hear! Give a piece of paper and pen to each member of the group and get them to write their name at the bottom. Now get everyone to pass their paper once to the left, asking each person to write something encouraging about that person’s skills, talents or character at the top. Then fold it over and pass it on. When everyone has received theirs back, get the group to open up their piece of paper and read it to themselves or out loud (if they feel comfortable).
Would you agree with what was written? Had you seen these gifts before? How can you use them to help others? Take a few minutes in silence to reflect and pray about what’s been written, asking God to tell you what He thinks your ‘special works’ are.
There are plenty of ways you can continue exploring the work of MAF as a youth group. We need the support, prayers and enthusiasm of young people, and together we can make a life changing difference.
• Why not invite an MAF Youth Representative to your next meeting and get up close and personal with our work? We bring action, activities and over 60 years’ experience of working with some of the world’s poorest people – and you get a night off! • We’d love to see more youth groups commit to regularly praying for us. Appoint one of your young people as a Youth Group Rep and we’ll sent updates from the field, prayer requests and breaking news to keep you close to the action. • Want to go deeper into God’s Word? We recommend MAF Stories – a free download for youth leaders. We take four stories from our pilots and link them to issues facing young people today. Use it as a devotional tool or conversation starter. It’s a five-minute window into MAF’s world and God’s Word. For more information, visit www.maf-youth.org/resources.php
YOuth Resources
Search ‘MAF Youth’ W maf-youth.org E youth@maf-uk.org
The Value of
TEAMS
The following activities are suggestions for getting young people to think about the importance of working in a team. If you do more than one activity, keep the teams the same so they can reflect on the changes they see in their team dynamics, according to the skills needed for each task.
Easypeasy
Getting tricky
Only for the brave!
Get the group back together to them Bring discuss what they observed from thinking the activities. Teamwork: What were your team’s main strengths? What could you improve upon? How did you share the responsibility for completing each task? Did your team working improve? Communication: Why is communication important to working in a team? What does successful communication look like? How can we make sure that everyone feels heard?
You will need: Bananas and a pen. As the group arrive, take a quick note of who is there. If you have two leaders or more, get one of them to write the name of each young person on a banana (one for each person) and then hide them around the room. If there is just one leader, ask the young people to sit in a circle and close their eyes while you quickly hide the pre-prepared bananas. Now divide the group into teams and make sure they know the names of all their teammates. At your signal, they need to find their banana, and help their teammates find theirs. But each team member can only pick up the one with their name on it. They can yell at someone and tell them they’ve found theirs, but each person has to pick up their own banana. The first team sitting down with all their bananas wins.
You will need: Children’s building blocks. The leader builds a small sculpture with some of the building blocks and hides it from the group. The group should then be divided into teams of four. Each team should be given enough building blocks so that they can duplicate the structure you’ve already created. The leader should then place their sculpture in an area that is an equal distance from all the groups but obscured from view. One member from each team then comes up at the same time to look at the sculpture for ten seconds and tries to memorise it before returning to their team. After they return to their teams, they have 30 seconds to instruct the others about how to build an exact replica of the leader’s sculpture, but mustn’t build it themselves! After 30 seconds of trying to recreate the sculpture, another member from each team then comes up for a ‘sneak peek’ before returning to their team and trying to recreate the sculpture. The game should be continued in this way until one of the teams feels they have successfully duplicated the original sculpture and stops the game. The leader then checks if it’s correct. If it is, they’ve won – if not, the game continues until someone gets it right!
You will need: Buckets of water and towels. Get four group members to lie down on their backs in a small circle. They need to have their legs facing inwards, sticking up in the air, with their shoes on. Their feet should be touching, making a kind of ‘table top’ with their feet held flat. Next place the bucket of water on their feet! The aim is for all the young people to remove their shoes without spilling the water. This means keeping the bucket balanced while one or two players take one foot away at a time and remove their shoe. Perhaps you could have a practice round with an empty bucket first so the teams can discuss and plan their strategy for staying dry!
Team MAF Watch the Day of Prayer 2013 film together.