This includes: 1. Leader Preparation 2. Lesson Guide GOD S BIG STORY Week 2: Fall The World is Now Broken 1. LEADER PREPARATION LESSON OVERVIEW This lesson moves into the second part of God s Big Story, building on the first week s focus on how God created the world as it ought to be, and he saw that it was good. This week, we see that God, in his perfect love, gave humanity the capacity to love him back. The first humans Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Through that decision, sin entered the world, and now everything is broken, including the relationship with God. LESSON OBJECTIVES 1. WHAT: When Adam and Eve chose to sin, our world became a broken place. 2. WHY: The pain and brokenness we experience in life are rooted in the choice Adam and Eve made and in the continuing effects of sin in our world. 3. HOW: Students will examine the choice Adam and Eve made, how our world now suffers the consequences of that choice, and how our choices affect our lives and the lives of people around us. PRIMARY SCRIPTURE Genesis 3 SECONDARY SCRIPTURES Isaiah 64:8 and Romans 3:23 TEACHING PREP The short overview below is designed to help you prepare for your lesson. While you may not want to convey this information word-for-word with your teenagers, you ll definitely want to refer to it as you lead your lesson. Read Genesis 3. This passage from Genesis reveals how sin entered the world. Adam and Eve are enjoying the perfection and splendor of God s creation in the Garden of Eden. But they choose to submit to temptation and disobey God, and the world becomes broken. Each lesson of this four-week series has two key words associated with it. This week s words are Choice and Broken. These key words form an easy handle for your students to remember each lesson s theme and the central story of God s work in this world. God gave Adam and Eve the choice of whether they would obey or disobey. This is a reflection of God s perfect love, because if God forced us to love him, it wouldn t truly be love. So now the world is broken filled with pain, trouble, unanswered questions, trials, hardships, and evil. This brokenness is rooted in our sin and the separation we experience from God. Ultimately, this will lead us into the third lesson and the third part of God s Big Story, when God provides a solution to our brokenness and sin.
If you re using the flowerpot illustration in Getting Things Started, you ll want to display the pot from last week. You ll also need a hammer and a small towel or something to catch the shards of pot that will fall as you break the pot this week. THE BEFORE & AFTER [optional] Text Message Questions We ve provided a couple of different text message questions to send out to your students prior to your meeting. Feel free to use one or both of the questions below. As with the rest of the curriculum, edit these questions to fit the needs of your ministry. What do you think is the worst sin someone can commit? Let s talk about it at small group tonight. Why is there so much pain in the world? Get ready to discuss it tonight at small group.
GOD S BIG STORY Week 2: Fall The World is Now Broken 2. LESSON GUIDE GETTING THINGS STARTED [optional] If you re using the illustration of the flowerpots, you ll need the pot from last week, a hammer, and a small towel. Welcome your students and invite them into your meeting area. Open in prayer, and then Last week, we studied part 1 of God s Big Story. Who can remember the two key words we discussed? [ Creation and Good ] Over the past week, what are some ways you ve been reminded that God s creation is good or that God is good? Last week, I encouraged you to write a letter to God expressing how you feel about being made in his image and being made exactly as God wanted you to be made. Did anyone bring that letter with you today, and would anyone like to share what they wrote? Tell us about something of value you have broken an ipod, cell phone, your arm, or something else. How did it happen, and what was the experience like? After your discussion, hold up the flowerpot that you introduced in the first lesson, set it on the small towel, and ask someone to read Isaiah 64:8. SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Last week we introduced this pot, and we saw in Isaiah 64:8 that God is the potter and we are like the clay that God is forming and molding into something awesome. In the first part of God s Big Story, we focused on the words creation and good to help us remember that God created our world perfectly. But today, in part two of God s Big Story, God s good creation is broken because of a choice. [Take out your hammer and quickly break the pot but make sure neither the hammer nor the pieces of the broken pot hit any of the students.] Sin enters the world, and the world becomes broken, just like this pot. [If you re not using the flowerpot illustration, you ll still want to communicate the information from this section just skip over the references to the flowerpot.] Each week in this series, I m giving you two words to remember that help sum up that lesson s big idea. These will be easy words, and I d love for you to remember them. Today, our words are CHOICE and BROKEN. If you came up with an opening activity, movie clip, or game that worked well with your group, and you d like to share it with other youth workers, please email us at ideas@simplyyouthministry.com. TEACHING POINTS The goal of the Teaching Points is to help students capture the essence of each lesson with more discussion and less lecture-style teaching. The main points we have chosen here are (1) Adam and Eve made a CHOICE, (2) Things are now BROKEN, and (3) Our CHOICES also have consequences.
Remember: All throughout these lessons, it s up to you to choose (1) how many questions you use, and (2) the wording of the main points keep ours, or change the wording to make it clearer for your students. Read Genesis 3 together as a group. Consider allowing one or more of the teenagers to read the text. SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Genesis 3 reveals how one choice led to brokenness in our world. Let s spend a few minutes seeing what we can learn from this event. 1. Adam and Eve made a CHOICE In the beginning, Adam and Eve were perfect and sinless. What do you think it would be like to be perfect and sinless? Why do you think God would give Adam and Eve the capacity to choose even though it meant they might make the wrong choice? What does this tell you about God? How do you define the word sin? What are some of the real, deep, underlying reasons we choose to sin? SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Adam and Eve chose to sin. They disobeyed God s instructions. But perhaps the most remarkable truth in this whole story is that God made a choice before Adam and Eve made their choice: God, in his perfect love, chose to give humanity the capacity to love him back. If God forced us to obey, it wouldn t be true love. We display our love for God by choosing to obey and honor and worship and follow and trust God. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve s choice had some big-time consequences. 2. Things are now BROKEN Ask students to pair up and read through Genesis 3 again. Have them identify consequences from Adam and Eve s choice evidence of brokenness that entered the world. Give pairs about three minutes, and then bring everyone back together. Then ask your teenagers to share what they found. Use the list below to augment the answers your students provide: Verse 7: Shame (Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness shame itself isn t a sin; it s the feeling you get when you realize you did something wrong) Verse 8: Alienation (a fancy word for withdrawal, isolation, or distance; separation from God and from other people) Verse 10: Deceit (Adam lied about the reason he hid from God) Verse 12: Blame (Adam did not want to take responsibility for his actions, so he blamed them on Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent) Verse 15: Enmity/hostility Verse 16: Pain/conflict Verses 17-18: Toil (hard work) Verse 19: Death Which of these consequences do you see most regularly in the lives of your friends or other people in your daily life? Which of these consequences have you experienced in your own life recently? How did it affect you?
SAY SOMETHING LIKE: When Adam and Eve sinned, evil was introduced into the world the world became broken. It was no longer good like God had originally created it to be. When things break, they lose their ability to function as they were intended. And when you look at our world, you see so many reminders that things don t function the way God intended. It can leave us wondering if there s any hope and if there s an answer or remedy to our problem. 3. Our CHOICES also have consequences What are some ways your choices have negative consequences on your life or on other people s lives? Give some examples. What are some ways your choices have positive consequences on your life or on other people s lives? Give some examples. SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Each day, you make tons of choices. In fact, if you tried keeping track, you d probably lose count of all the big and small choices you face in the span of just 24 hours! Here s something to think about: Every choice has either positive or negative consequences it all depends on the kind of choice you make. As a follower of Jesus, you have the opportunity to become a person who makes better, wiser choices. Being aware that ALL of your choices have some kind of consequence helps you in this process. ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION [optional] Read Romans 3:23. How would define God s glorious standard or the glory of God? If you choose to sin, how might that make it easier to commit that same sin again and perhaps even fall into a pattern or lifestyle of sin? APPLICATION How can you learn to make better, wiser choices with better consequences? What are some tools that might help you? What role might we play in helping each other make better, wiser choices in life? Give each participant a 3X5 card or a small notebook to carry around for the following week. Ask each student to keep a running list of sin, pain, and consequences that can be traced back to the choice Adam and Eve made. Have your teenagers bring their lists to the next gathering for discussion. Take time to pray as a group. Ask God to open your eyes to the sin in the world around you. Ask God to begin giving each person in the group a heart of compassion for the world and for people who are trapped with little or no understanding of their own sin and brokenness.
SUMMARY End your small group lesson here. Provide your teenagers with a quick summary or takehome challenge based on (1) the content of this lesson, (2) the dialogue that took place during the lesson, (3) your understanding of the issues and struggles your teenagers are facing, and (4) the big picture of your youth ministry and what your leadership team wants accomplished with the teaching and discussion time. FOR KEEPS [MEMORY VERSE] Encourage and/or challenge your teenagers to memorize the verse below. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God s glorious standard (Romans 3:23).