Well it is pancake day and so I thought I’d throw out a few ideas of how you could use that with your youth in a fun way and also to get a point accross. Obviously it’s the start of Lent so that’s an open goal so I’m going to suggest some activities and a talk outline for you – I hope it’s helpful!
Games:
1) Masterchef
-Either buy some ready made pancakes or if you have the facilities/training cook them with your youth.
- Bring a load of different ingredients e.g. Ice cream, bannanas, strawberiess, chocolate spread, peanut butteret…
- Give the Youth a challenge to prepare the best looking and tasting pancake.
- Get a leader to judge the pancakes and a award prizes for things like best taste, best presentation and most creative.
- Get Youth to eat their pancakes! (Maybe during a talk or Bible study)
2) Pancake art
- You will need similar stuff to the previous challenge. The difference is that the aim here is to make a work of art out of the pancakes (that can still be eaten!
3) Pancake Race
- This is an old tradition. I suggest you do it as a relay with pre-cooked pancakes and a cold frying pan.
- Youth take turns running a course (up and down the church hall for example) whilst flipping a pancake in the pan. They must flip the pancake at least 4 times before they can hand the pan on to the next person in their team.
Teaching:
1) Jesus tempted in the wilderness.
Matthew 4:1-11
- The temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness is where the Christian tradition of Lent comes from.
- In it we see Jesus refuse to be pushed into the world and the Devils way of doing things. Each temptation was a chance for Jesus to take the easy root but would ultimately have led him away from his true mission.
- Jesus was able to resist temptation because he was fully God however because he was also fully man he shows us an example of how we can resist temtpation.
- Jesus could resist temptation because he has spent time in fasting and prayer before God and deliberately given up his comforts so he was setting a pattern that he would take the right road not the easy road.
- Jesus knew the scripture. So he could spot a wrong idea a mile away. Every time satan tempted him to do something that seemed plausible he tested it against scripture and rejected it.
- Jesus loved God more than anything else. When Satan tempts Jesus to bow before him Jesus responds by saying: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ Jesus is again quoting scripture of course but he is also pointing us to his greatest passion: to bring glory to the Father. Jesus walked in love and obedience to the father so he could resist temptation.
Application:
Pancake day was a way of using up fat and sugar before Lent. A time when people give up certain luxuries so they can focus more on God and follow in Jesus’ footsteps. It is a good principle to take time out to focus on God. In giving up luxuries we show that God is more important to us than they are. We can also spend the time focusing on getting to know our Bibles better and spending more time with God in prayer so that we will know when we are being tempted to do wrong amd remember that we have a God who is so much better than anything the world could offer us.
johnsettatree
cynllunefe
rjscreatives
