Goals for the Early Teen Class

As we start up a new class we want to determine what we want our class to be. We will discuss this in the first few classes, what do you want from your Early Teen Sabbath School Class, what areas of religion do you want to look into etc.

My goal is to make the class fun and develop close relationships between the class members. Some of you likely have gone to school with each other, perhaps for years others go to different schools and know hardly anyone in the class. The purpose of the class then is build friendships. To build friendships we need to first get to know each other...that takes time and activities. So we will play various games which will be fun and designed also to get to know each other.

One of the games is Zobmondo's Would you Rather...? This game asks questions which the players have to answer. Such questions as "Would you Rather as a man, have your grandmother's first name OR her haircut? To answer that question the player must use their reasoning power and be able to communicate their reasons in a semi persuasive or way. It also offers the opportunity to delve into each others personal feeling and thoughts.

We want to encourage a thinking religion, it is not sufficient to say that I believe and leave it at that. People want to know why you believe what you believe.

The other part of the class will deal with Biblical stories and instructions. We will ask the questions:
What do you think the first people who heard this story thought about it?
What do you think they understood as the point of the story?
What do you think the story says to you?
How does 2000-3000 years of history and knowledge change our understanding of the story?

None of these are answered with yes or no and none of them are proven by quoting a Bible verse. Early teens have reached the age of reason and we intend to reason together in this class and provide everyone an answer for the hope we have found in God.

Check this blog every week for information related to the coming week topics