Teaching Youth During Peace Month
We hope that this month people will learn about the history of Friends on issues of peace and social justice, and that people will also share their own stories, questions and sense of calling around issues of peace and social justice.
We suggest you introduce youth to Friends throughout history who have lived their faith in such a way that they have responded powerfully to God’s call to loving action on the part of their neighbors, even their enemies. For many this included suffering and death in their teenage and young adult years. You can use the biographical sketches (linked above), or if you have favorite historical Friends you want to highlight, by all means please use their stories instead.
A Sunday school or youth group session might look like this:
- 1. Introduction: Tell the story of the person/people.
2. Scripture: Connect their story to Scripture through a passage they found meaningful or a passage you think they especially exemplified.
3. Discussion: What stands out about the lives of these people? How does their example challenge or encourage us to live now?
4. Challenge: How is God calling me to live in light of this person’s story and what I know of Scripture?
Included below are possible discussion questions you could use to get your group to take these stories to a deeper level. Make sure that as you close the discussion, you help them apply it to themselves. This could be done by giving them some space in silence to listen about how God is calling them, or spending time journaling, drawing, talking with their neighbor, or whatever will work with your group.
For the fifth week, you could invite a guest speaker who is working in a peace and justice field, or tell about the work of someone you know (or know of). This could be someone who runs a soup kitchen out of your meetinghouse, someone who is a social worker and advocates for a voiceless population, someone who visits prisons, or someone who travels overseas to help people who are being treated unjustly. Invite them to tell their story, including how they started feeling called to this particular work. Then give space for the youth to talk about ideas they have or burdens for particular people groups or situations. End by helping each youth to set a concrete goal for how they will either listen more about how God is calling them or begin to take action on their leadings.
Also, note the “other options” listed at the bottom of this page. If you don’t think your group will connect with hearing the stories of early Friends or if you don’t want to overlap too much with what is being done in the gathered worship sessions, feel free to use these other options or come up with your own ideas.
Week 1 Discussion Questions: George Fox, Margaret Fell & the Valiant Sixty
- 1. What stands out to you about George Fox, Margaret Fell and the Valiant Sixty?
2. Have you ever experienced a time of questioning and seeking like George Fox did? Did you ever feel an answer or a leading in a particular direction? What was that experience like?
3. Early Friends were very “evangelical” in that they were extremely vocal and intentional about spreading the good news of Christ in their lives, but this “good news” was not always received as “good” by those with power and authority. What similarities do you see in this area between early Friends and Evangelical Friends today? between early Friends and you?
4. Do you think Friends today should continue acting like Fox, Fell and the Valiant Sixty? Should more Friends travel, spreading the good news, and act in ways that get them thrown in jail or killed? Or were those actions only for their specific time and place?
Week 2 Discussion Questions: John Woolman
- 1. What stands out to you about John Woolman?
2. Do you sense any callings like John Woolman felt about slavery?
3. What is one step you could take to begin acting on that calling?
Week 3 Discussion Questions: Lucretia Mott
- 1. What stands out to you about Lucretia Mott?
2. Abolition of slavery, equal rights for women and peaceful resolution of conflict were the issues she felt needed the most work in her day. What issues like that do you see in our world today?
3. What do you learn from scripture about how we as Christians are called to act regarding the issues you mentioned?
4. Are there ways we can live in a more Chist-like way this week on these issues?
Week 4 Discussion Questions: Elise Boulding
- 1. What stands out to you about Elise Boulding?
2. What do you think Elise Boulding meant when she imagined George Fox saying, “We didn’t think we were inventing a new religion. We were only rediscovering an experience and a way of life already lived and taught by Jesus, and forgotten by most of the people of our time who called themselves Christians”?
3. How do you think true listening would impact conflict at a one-on-one, group, community, national or international level? How can we begin to implement this in our own lives?
Week 5 Discussion Questions: Our Stories
- 1. What stands out to you about the story and ministry of this person?
2. What are people or situations around which I’m feeling stirred by God to take action?
3. Why does this particular situation or people group stand out to me? Why might God be pointing them out to me?
4. What can I do to begin acting out this sense of calling in ways that show love toward these people?
Other options:
“Friendly Fencing” skit
If it’s something your group might enjoy, you could use the skit “Friendly Fencing,” available at link above. Have youth read it and/or act it out, and discuss the positives and negatives of construction vs. destruction. How might we focus more on constructing good things together? Why might it be important as Christians not to act destructively toward others? What does the Bible have to say about these concepts?
You could even coordinate with the people leading worship and present the skit during worship.
“Walk in the Light” discussion
We’ve included a pamphlet that discusses the origin of “The George Fox Song,” which many of your youth may know from camp. You could sing the song together and discuss George Fox and the meaning of each of the verses. If you don’t know the song, listen to the MP3 recorded by Nate Macy.
(If your youth know the song, they might find this YouTube video entertaining. It’s of youth and young adults at New England Yearly Meeting “singing” the song like a death metal band! If your youth have never heard the song, don’t show the video to them, because it’s really a cool song and they might not think so if they saw this first.) If you need the chords please contact us at peaceeducation[at] nwfriends.org.
