Justice and Judgement

The following game was submitted by Tara who wrote about this game in her blog (now closed). Thanks for sharing Tara!

Justice and Judgement

Each night before we delve into the talk and then the bible study, our youth group likes to do a little “something” to introduce the main idea to the kids. Think of it as the appetizer to a theological dinner. It’s small, fun, full of flavour and leaves you wanting more.

Last week our youth group looked at the idea of God’s justice & judgement from Hebrews 10:29 – “For man is destined to die once and face judgement.” As usual, I will be going through What we did, how it went and then should you run it?

What we did:
To help our youth engage in the idea of justice, we held a mock trial. We had a leader being prosecuted for what he had done, and another leader acting as the defendant speaking out that they were a good person because they went to church and did all these nice things for people. A third in the crowd occasionally stood up and yelled out things like “that’s not fair! We want justice!”

After the mock trial the youth were asked to speak to one another and work out whether to vote for guilty or innocent. They stopped to consider what caused someone to be guilty or innocent before the judge.

How it went: I was actually surprised at how the youth picked up on the idea of justice. I am usually hesitant with skits where the youth are expected to sit and watch – I always feel that involvement is a good thing. The kids at our youth group started a chant demanding justice throughout the trial, and a majority voted guilty. When asked why they picked guilty, some said “because he did it – even if he does do nice things!”

Should you run it?

I thought this was a great way of getting people to really start thinking about what justice is, and what’s a fair judgement. Having the kids vote worked really well.

Perhaps you could also get kids to act as the defendant and the persecutor, and have the kids come up with arguments as to why a person would be guilty or innocent. That would mean more involvement.

By getting the kids to think through and make a judgement call that reflected justice, they were prepared to listen to a talk on the justice of God and understand it in a personal manner.

 




Features
  • Free / Low Cost
  • Night
Objectives
  • Discipleship / Bible
Space
  • Indoor
  • Small area
Age
  • Primary or Elementary School
  • Teens (Age 12-15)
  • Teens (Age 16-18)
  • Young Adults

Group Size
  • Small Groups (1-9 people)
  • Medium (10-29 people)

Duration
  • Medium (11-29 mins)
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