OPTION 1: I’M A WANNABE

Choose a famous person you know your participants will be familiar with (a movie star, sports star, a professional singer, etc.) and ask for a volunteer to come up and impersonate him or her to the rest of the class. The goal is for the volunteer to get the rest of the participants to guess who the famous person is. If no one can guess successfully, allow the volunteer to give the group one clue at a time until someone gets it right. You may want to have several names prepared ahead of time, or ask each participant to write down one or two names on their own before the game starts and put them all in a hat for the volunteer(s) to draw from.

You can also try this activity using the names of people in your church rather than famous people, or even with well-known characters from the Bible. If you choose to do the second, you could possibly do one round focusing on people from the Old Testament (Joseph, Daniel, Abraham, Moses, Esther, David, Ruth) and another round focusing on people from the New Testament (Peter, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Paul, Judas).

OPTION 2: BUILD UP OR TEAR DOWN

We feel the impact when others build us up or tear us down. The well-known proverb that says, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” simply isn’t true. Those in leadership receive a greater amount of feedback than other people—both good and bad—because they are in the public eye. For them, it can seem like everyone has a comment or opinion about how they’re doing.

Print out the “­ and ¯” handout and cut each phrase out onto a strip of paper. Then gather all those phrases and put them into a hat or bowl or box. Ask your participants to take turns picking a phrase from the hat, reading it, and sharing whether hearing someone say that to them would affect them in a positive, negative, or neutral way.

TRANSITION

As we consider the lesson for today, keep in mind that there are times when people both want to emulate leaders and be them. Can you identify with either of those desires? Maybe there are lots of people in your life you feel that way about. You may even feel that way about one of your parents, teachers, or leaders in your church! The Scripture passage we’re studying today is talks about some people who wanted to replace Moses and Aaron as leaders of the children of Israel. We’re going to call these people “wannabes.”

OPTION 1

Create a video clip that illustrates leadership or failure to follow good and godly leaders. As young people find themselves leading more often and more and more people, it can be easy for them to question or put down the leadership of others. This can be especially easy when they don’t know the whole story. But even leaders need to be able to follow others—at the right time and at the right place. Some people also confuse leadership with popularity. But in reality, leadership is about how well you can serve others! After you create a clip that reflects all these ideas, remember to create a list of follow-up questions as well so your participants can discuss it afterwards.

OPTION 2

This 6:12-minute iBelieveBible video, called “I Send My Scourge,” is about the controversial topic of when God chooses to send death and destruction to his people. Some today can’t imagine a God who would ever do something like this, attributing all such actions to either Satan or the absence of God. But the Bible does say that God did this. We can read about one example in Numbers 16-17. This video is about the judgement God passed on Egypt when he sent the ten plagues to the Egyptians, which we already covered earlier this year. It may not be about the topic we’re studying today, but the principles it covers are closely related to it.

QUESTIONS

• Does God ever send or command punishment? Give evidence.
• Does God ever kill? Explain.
• Why did God send the ten plagues to the Egyptians? Which of the plagues did God’s own people suffer?
• Why didn’t the Egyptians turn to Yahweh instead of resisting so stubbornly?
• Why did the Israelites Korah, Dathan, and Abiram stubbornly resist God’s choice of leaders in today’s Scripture study? Would you have resisted them too? If so, why?

OPTION 3

For a humorous (and short) clip on different ways Christians can say no, check out this 1:17-minute video by Christian comedian John Crist.

QUESTIONS

• Which of these ways of saying no did you like best?
• Have you ever used any of these?
• It is often difficult for some people to say no. Why do you think that is?
• Why do you think it’s easy for some people to say no?
• Why do you say yes to people?