(This is the second meeting in our Jr. High Ministry’s semester study of the Bible. See the Curriculum page for more information.)

Planting the Kingdom

“. . . [The Church] receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is on earth the seed and the beginning of that kingdom” (CCC 768) [emphasis mine].

Large Group

Busted

• Put students into groups (If you have permanent or semi-permanent small groups DO NOT use those small groups for this game).
• Groups will be competing against each other, so pair them up . . . or you could have three, four, or more groups competing against each other.
• Each group receives an equal number of uniquely-colored balloons (one group has 50 red balloons; another has 50 blue balloons, etc.)
• Groups blow up their balloons and all balloons go into the center of the competing groups.
• Explain the rules:
  • We’re going to have a race called BUSTED.
  • You have two goals:
    • to steal as many of the other team’s balloons as possible – Stolen balloons are worth 100,000 points each.
    • to keep as many of your group’s balloons in the center as possible – Your balloons in the center are worth 500,000 points each.
  • Everyone in your group must be touching your group’s base (a chair, table, barn-yard animal, whatever you have on hand).
  • When the music begins, one person from your group races to the center, steals one balloon from the pile, and brings it back to your base.
  • Only one person can be off your base at a time.
  • When the music stops, if someone from your team is caught not touching your base, two of your team’s balloons in the center will be busted.
• Play loud, upbeat music.
• Stop the music intermittently, like in musical chairs.
• End the game before it gets boring, calculate the scores, and announce the winning team.

Small Group Time

1. Our Lives (Spend a lot of time just chatting and getting to know the teens here.)
   1. What is the most trouble you’ve ever gotten into?
   2. What is the worst punishment a teenager could ever receive?
   3. What do you think is the worst punishment an adult could ever receive?
2. Our Faith (Make sure every teen has a Bible. You probably won’t have time to answer all these questions. If you have some extra time to prepare for this Bible study, you might want to read these paragraphs from the Catechism 390,396-421)
   1. The First Sin - Genesis 2:16-17 and Genesis 3:1-19
      1. What is the one rule God gave Adam?
      2. What did God say was the consequence for breaking his one rule?
      3. Who is the serpent? (Rev 12:9)
      4. What did the serpent promise Eve that convinced her to break God’s rule?
      5. How did Adam and Eve know God was near?
      6. How did they react?
      7. Did Adam and Eve ever admit they had done anything wrong?
      8. What punishment did God give the serpent?
         ___________________________________________________________________
         Genesis 3:15 **This is the most important section of this study**
         • What is “enmity?”
         • Who is the woman’s offspring?
         • If you saw two ninjas fighting, one of them kept getting karate chops to the head, and the other kept getting karate chops to the heal, who do you think would loose?
         • What does this verse imply about the battle between us and the devil?

         “. . .This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium (”first gospel”): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers” (CCC 410).

         “Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8b).

         • Even at the moment of the Original Sin, God had a plan to restore our relationship with him. What can we learn about God’s character from this?

      ____________________________________________________________________

      9. What punishments did God give to Adam and Eve?
      10. How did Adam and Eve’s sin affect us—What would we have and what would we be free from if Adam and Eve had not sinned?
   2. The First Murder – Genesis 4:1-12
      1. Why was Cane upset?
      2. What advice did God give him?
      3. How does this verse say we can master sin?
      4. Did Cane take God’s advice?
      5. What punishment did Cane receive for murdering Able?
      6. How do you think Adam and Eve’s original sin affected Cane?
      7. Did Cane ever admit that he did anything wrong?
      8. Which do you think would show more love: God loving us so much that he never disciplined us, or God loving us so much that he disciplines and tries to correct us?
      9. How is can discipline be a sign of God’s love?
         1. “11 The discipline of the LORD, my son, disdain not; spurn not his reproof; 12 For whom the LORD loves he reproves, and he chastises the son he favors.” ~Proverbs 3:11-12
   3. The Wicked World – Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1
      1. When God searched men’s hearts, did he find any desire for goodness?
      2. Do you think it is difficult for a person to learn to be good when their father is a murderer?
      3. Can you see a progression of sin from Adam and Eve to the world in Noah’s time?
      4. Noah found favor with God. Who received God’s blessing because of Noah’s faith?
3. Connecting Our Lives and our Faith
   1. What is the commandment God gives us? (Luke 10:27)
   2. This commandment seems so simple; why do we have so much trouble keeping it?
   3. How do you think your life would improve if you were able to keep this commandment all the time?
   4. What do you think the world would be like if every individual person chose to life by the great commandment?

Closing Prayer

• Lectio Divina

“But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” ~Romans 5:8

Here is an adapted form of Lectio Divina I have used to close most of my small groups for the last couple of years. I started doing this after reading Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli and over the past two years I adapted his technique based on the suggestions of my teenagers. I enjoy doing this for two reasons:

1. The students have told me they like doing it – always a plus.
2. On the days when everything goes wrong I still feel like we’ve done something good after closing with this prayer.

• For the reading, use the Sunday’s Gospel whenever possible.
  • Use the short version or trim it down if it is too long.
• Use a candle to change the room’s lighting to help make the atmosphere more prayerful.

1. Have everyone sit in a circle around the candle.
2. Begin with the sign of the cross.
3. Read the passage.
   1. Pause.
   2. When you do this for the first time you may need to encourage the students to try and be comfortable with the silence. I went through a period of awkward giggling, but now the students tell me they enjoy the silence.
4. Read the passage again
   1. If you are just beginning to use this prayer technique, then before the second reading encourage the students to listen for a word or a phrase that stands out to them. When that word or phrase comes to them, they should try to meditate on it for a while. After explaining this a couple of times you can eliminate the explanations entirely and the prayer will flow more smoothly.
   2. Sometimes the students don’t calm down entirely until after the first reading. So, for the second reading, I try to subtly add a little “James Earl Jones” sound to my voice and to make the scripture come to life.
   3. Take a long pause after the second reading to give the students time to meditate.
   4. I tell the students they have three options (listed below) and then go around the circle.
      1. Pass
      2. Share the word or phrase
      3. Share what they think God is trying to tell them through that word or phrase. (I am often amazed by the insights that the obnoxiously rowdy boys have. . .and by the fact that they are the ones who actually share their thoughts for a change.)

5. After everyone has shared, say a quick impromptu prayer of thanks then continue the prayer by ask the students if there is anything going on in their lives, or anyone in their lives they would like us to pray for.
6. Close by asking God to grant all of our spoken and unspoken prayers, in the name of the Father . . .

At 2pm today, I’ll get on a bus with over 100 teenagers and head out to D.C. for the Pro-Life march.

It’s a 22 hour drive, one-way, and we will be returning next Wednesday.

I would appreciate it if you would take a few seconds to pray for our youth and for all the adults who are trying to empower our teens to be disciples of Christ.

One question teenagers ask me regularly is: “Why do Catholics believe we have to go to Purgatory even if our sins are forgiven?”

Here is the simple answer I give them:

(I begin with a question.)

“When your sins are forgiven, are you, at that moment, perfect?”

(Take a dramatic pause and let the teenager think about the question.)

“Before you answer, let me read a verse from the Bible.

(I have two reasons for cutting the teenager off before they answer the question: 1. If I’m having this discussion in a group, I don’t want anyone to feel embarrassed for giving the wrong answer—yes, there is a wrong answer. 2. I’ve found that when some people give the wrong answer they will argue their point-of-view endlessly and won’t listen to the simple logic behind the Catholic Church’s theology of Purgatory.)

“Matthew 5:48 says: ‘So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’”

(Sometimes I add another short dramatic pause here.)

“When your sins are forgive, are you, at that moment, perfect? . . . no, we really aren’t. What keep us from being imperfect? Well, one example is, after we’re forgiven we still have an ‘inclination to sin’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1426). We still have selfish desires: greed, lust, arrogance. If we were perfect . . . when we are perfect in heaven, we won’t have those sinful desires anymore.”

“So, after we’re forgiven, we still aren’t perfect.”

“Now what does that have to do with Purgatory? The second thing you need to understand comes from Revelation 21:27 which says: ‘nothing unclean will enter it.’ ‘It’ is heaven. Nothing unclean will enter heaven.”

“The Church takes this Bible verse very seriously. In heaven, there won’t be any more selfishness, greed, or jerks.”

(Here’s the Catechism’s quote, but I usually don’t read it because this point is pretty much universally accepted: “She [the heavenly city of Jerusalem] will not be wounded any longer by sin, stains, self-love, that destroy or wound the earthly community” CCC 1045.)

“That’s not because jerks don’t go to heaven. God forgives jerks to. . .if he didn’t, I’d be in big trouble. But before he lets them into heaven, he will strip away their jerkyness.”

“We can’t make ourselves perfect, only God can do that. You die, you face your particular judgment, and you’re forgiven for the last time. Before you enter into God’s full presence, he has to purify you; he rips all of you selfish desires out of you so that you will never sin again. That experience of God purifying you is purgatory.

(One last dramatic pause.)

“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030).

(There are several other characteristics of Purgatory that cause questions, but you can’t have those discussions until people understand the basic necessity and logic of Purgatory.)

The USCCB published a catechism that is super easy to read. The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, basically takes the CCC and re-works the sentences using simpler sentence structures so they are easier to understand. Here is an example:

CCC 404 on original sin:

It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

Here is the information presented in the USCCB’s US Catholic Catechism for Adults:

Do we commit Original Sin? “Original sin is a sin contracted and not committed–a state and not an act” (CCC, no. 398 [sic]). Each of us inherits Original Sin, but it is not a personal fault of ours.

What I also like about this book is that they begin each chapter with a story or lesson of faith which is often about an American Catholic, such as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and César Chavez. These stories highlight the history of the Catholic Church in United States and helped illustrate why this theology is relevant to our daily lives.

The chapters end with two or three discussion questions, and I know of at least one small group in our church who is using these questions to study the text.