Christian Education Publications PO Box A287 Sydney South NSW 1235 Australia Ph: +61 2 8268 3344 Fax: +61 2 8268 3357 Email: sales@cepstore.com.au Website: www.cepstore.com.au Published May 2014 Copyright © Tim Clemens 2014 This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism and review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without the express permission of the publisher. Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc. National Library of Australia ISBN 978-1-925041-22-4 Author—Tim Clemens Managing editor—Julie Firmstone Theological editor—Tess Holgate Design—Bethany Abbottsmith
Looking for life CONT ENTS
How to use this manual
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About the author
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Unit overview
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Lesson 1
Jesus brings truth
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Lesson 2
Jesus brings clarity
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Lesson 3
Jesus brings satisfaction
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Lesson 4
Jesus brings cleansing
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Lesson 5
Jesus brings certainty
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How to use
this manual Looking for Life is part of a series of curriculum products written by Tim Clemens for year 7–10 students studying Christian studies in independent schools and Special Religious Education in State schools. As with all Christian Education Publications, Looking for Life is grounded in the belief that God is the source of all truth and his word, the Bible, is where God reveals himself and his saving purposes. Each lesson aims to teach students directly from the Bible or, when this is not possible, to engage them with issues from a biblical perspective. This unit is intended to provide you, the teacher, with reliable, engaging and ready-to-use material. With a total of five lessons, Looking for Life is designed to run for one school term. Each of these lessons is structured to run for 40 minutes to one hour, but can be shortened or extended to suit your needs.
Preparation B E FO R E YO U T E AC H E AC H L E S S O N :
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pray for students to have open minds and hearts to receive God’s word
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read through the lesson plan and the Bible passage(s). Think through how you will lead the discussion and what you will share with students about your own experience
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watch the relevant DVD section and make sure you have the equipment ready to play the DVD at the appropriate time in the lesson
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have the Student handbooks and Bibles ready to hand out (one per student)
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gather together any additional props or materials you will need to run the games and activities.
Lesson format The lessons in this unit follow a basic format from week to week. PRAYER INTRODUCTION/ RECAP
An opportunity to commit the lesson to God and get the students used to praying and talking with him. Lesson 1—A brief overview of what will be covered in this unit. All other lessons—a short revision of the previous lesson’s big idea.
DISCUSSION OR ACTIVITY
An interactive section designed to get the students talking and thinking about the topic.
LINK
A bridge between the activities and what you have shared, and the Bible teaching to come.
DVD
A segment of the John: The Visual Bible DVD as it relates to the day’s lesson topic.
READ THE BIBLE
A chance for students to read the Bible themselves. Get a confident reader in the group to read the passage for the day aloud. Key passages are printed in the Student handbooks for easy reference.
STUDENT HANDBOOKS
REINFORCE THE BIG IDEA
A resource for students to complete with a variety of questions and activities based on the teaching. Be sure to allow time for students to share their answers with the class and for you to see how well they have understood the material. See the note on page 6 for more information. A way to finish the lesson with the key points from the study.
CHAT
An invitation to students to challenge you on any point they disagree with or find difficult to accept or understand. Encourage any young person to approach you after class with questions or comments, and offer to pray with any student who wants this support.
ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS
Some examples of difficult questions you may get asked by students on the main issues discussed in each lesson, together with appropriate and helpful responses.
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A NOTE ABOUT THE STUDENT HANDBOOKS Each student should have their own handbook. Hand them out at the start of each lesson and collect them again at the end of class. This will give you the opportunity to review and mark (if you wish) their work, and to see whether the students have understood the material. At the end of the last lesson, allow the students to take home the Student handbooks as a record of what they have covered that term and a potential resource for any unanswered questions.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tim Clemens is passionate about reaching youth with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He has been involved in youth ministry since 2006, and began teaching Special Religious Education (SRE) at St Ives High School in Sydney in 2009. Tim’s desire is to develop material which will engage and challenge high school students as they hear the gospel.
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Unit Overview
The Looking for Life unit introduces students to Jesus as the bringer of life. After laying the foundation that Jesus is God in the flesh, Looking for Life focuses on four interactions that Jesus had with different people: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, his disciples and Thomas. This unit seeks to expose students to Jesus, the bringer of eternal life, and encourage them to trust in him.
THERE ARE FIVE LESSONS IN THE UNIT: 1. Jesus brings truth. Jesus brings purpose to life by revealing the truth about the Father and enabling us to become his children. 2. Jesus brings clarity. In order to enter heaven we must be born again through faith in Jesus. 3. Jesus brings satisfaction. We were made to worship Jesus and only he will satisfy our deepest desires. 4. Jesus brings cleansing. When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet he gave them an example of service and a parable of his cleansing death. 5. Jesus brings certainty. True life comes through trusting in Jesus the resurrected Son of God. A key part of Looking for Life is the film, John: The Visual Bible and Bible reading. Each lesson revolves around watching an excerpt from the DVD and reading the corresponding passage in the Bible. This has the benefit of reinforcement, keeping students engaged, and giving them an opportunity to read the Bible for themselves.
UNIT AIMS This unit aims to: 1. challenge students with the concept of Jesus as the bringer of life 2. help students to see that eternal life is only found in Jesus 3. persuade students to hear and obey the God-man, Jesus Christ.
ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE It is assumed that, in beginning this unit, students will have: • an understanding standing of the Bible as the inspired, inerrant and reliable word of God • good skills in reading the Bible and locating Bible passages • a fundamental understanding of the Christian faith including: i. God as Creator ii. Man as sinful iii. Christ as Saviour • a good understanding standing of what it looks like to live as a Christian • a detailed ailed knowledge of the person and work of Christ.
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Jesus brings clarity BIG IDEA
In order to enter heaven you must be born again through faith in Jesus.
OUTCOMES
In this lesson students will: • discuss how people get into heaven • understand the concept of the new birth • wrestle with the relationship between good works, faith and salvation • be challenged to put their faith in Jesus.
KEY PASSAGE
John 3:1–21
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Today's lesson PRAYER Begin by praying something like, ‘God, thank you that we can learn about the new birth. Thank you for the clarity that Jesus brings about how we can enter heaven. Help us to trust you and be born again by your Spirit. Show us what this means for our lives today. Amen’.
R EC A P Ask the students what they remember from last week’s lesson. Perhaps you could provide a reward for the first student who reminds the class of the big idea: Jesus brings purpose to life by revealing the truth about the Father and enabling us to become his children.
ACTIVITY The following activity is designed to help the students think about ‘gaining access’. Announce to your students that you are having a party and would like to invite a select group of people. Without giving away your criterion, proceed to invite all of the students with blonde hair to come to your party. Invite them to stand up at their desks, and then ask the class (including those standing) to guess why you invited these students to your party. After someone guesses correctly, ask the students to sit down and repeat the exercise using other selection criteria. Use the following list as inspiration for the kind of criteria to use: • • • • • 14
At a co-educational school, invite students of only one gender. Invite those with a certain eye colour. Invite those who have pencil cases on their desks (or those who don’t). Invite those who wear glasses. Invite those who play a certain type of sport.
DISCUSSION Facilitate a discussion in which you ask students to describe the types of people they think God will allow (or invite) into heaven using these questions: • • • •
What kinds of things do these people do? What words would you use to describe them? What do they believe? Are there any kinds of people that God will not allow into heaven?
Note: You may like to write their answers on the board or ask a volunteer to write them on the board for you. This will help the students to answer a question in their Student handbooks later.
LINK Many people are confused about what heaven is like and how we get there. Today we are going to meet a man named Nicodemus who was confused about how to get into heaven. He thought you got into heaven by being a good, religious person. In today’s lesson, Jesus will explain that to receive eternal life we need to be born again.
DVD Watch John: The Visual Bible from 20:05 to 23:25 minutes. This covers John 3:1–21. Use this time to hand out the Bibles and Student handbooks.
READ THE BIBLE Ask for a volunteer to read John 3:1–21. This is also printed on pages 13–14 of their Student handbooks.
STUDENT HANDBOOKS Instruct the students to start answering the questions in their Student handbooks. Go around the class and help them as they do this. 15
Depending on time, you may like to get your students to complete one (or both) of the Get creative activities as well. If you choose Get creative 1, you might like to turn it into a competition and award the best performance with a lolly (or an appropriate alternative).
REINFORCE THE BIG IDEA Make sure the students understand that we do not get to heaven by being good, religious people. We are far too sinful for that to work. According to Jesus, to enter the kingdom of God we must be spiritually born again. This happens when we put our trust in Jesus. When we do this, God forgives our sin and gives us his Spirit. The result of the new birth is that we receive eternal life.
CHAT Invite any students who have questions or who wish to talk further about the concepts in this lesson to speak with you during or after class.
ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS How do I know if I’ve experienced the new birth? This is an important question. As Jesus says in verse 8, the new birth is like the wind: you can hear it but you cannot see it. This seems to imply that while you cannot actually see the new birth take place, you should be able to see its effects. So what exactly might these effects look like? According to Galatians 5, God’s Spirit produces fruit such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in the life of Christians. Therefore, if someone has been born again by the Spirit, the Bible leads us to expect that over time they should begin to display these characteristics. That being said, like fruit that grows on a tree, spiritual fruit often takes time to grow. We may even go through some cold winters when we see little or no fruit in our own lives. For this reason, it is important to realise that Jesus didn’t give Nicodemus a
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checklist to test whether he had been born again. Instead, Jesus told Nicodemus to look to him, rather than focusing on himself. The danger of focusing too much on ourselves is that it often leads us into the same problem as the Pharisees. We end up thinking that God will accept us because we have produced enough fruit. In verse 14, Jesus calls us to look not at ourselves but at the Son of Man (Jesus) as he has been lifted up (has died on the cross) and to believe in him. Those who believe in Jesus can have confidence that they have been born again. Does this describe you?
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