Do Not Be Alarmed

Note to the Teacher

As students begin to discern whom to listen to from the many voices directed at them, they learn when to trust their own instincts and when to seek wisdom and guidance from experienced sources.

1. Icebreaker – What Did You Say? (10 minutes)

Option 1: Low-Tech

Play the old-fashioned game of telephone, starting with a volunteer who whispers lines from the nursery rhyme “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater” (or another lesser-known, fall-inspired poem). Each person shares what they hear with the next person until the last person repeats aloud what they hear. Talk about how the message changes if the speaker doesn’t enunciate clearly and/or the listener isn’t really paying attention. Can you always trust what you hear or trust every listener to understand what you say?

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her,
Put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well!

Option 2: High-Tech

Play the first five minutes of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, including the scene where Lucy holds the football and pulls it out from under Charlie Brown. Discuss the concept of trust and how difficult it is to rebuild trust when someone says one thing but does the opposite.

2. Read Scripture (5 minutes)

The author of Mark’s Gospel shares warnings also found in Matthew and Luke – that the Temple will be destroyed and that trouble is on the horizon. Here, Jesus reminds his followers to be ready for wars, natural disasters, and false prophets as part of history. Read Mark 13:1-8 CEB.

3. Discussion (15 minutes)

Ask students to think about recent history, starting with the last two or three decades. So much has happened in our world during the twenty-first century, which is just twenty-four years old!

• The Temple was the center of life in Jesus’ time, but Jesus had to remind his disciples that even that cornerstone wasn’t permanent. What changes have you seen to important structures in your lifetime? Those structures could be physical, such as buildings, but they could also be laws or systems that provide structure to our lives.
• What do you think future historians will write about wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip, and other places?
• Does your list of personal worries focus more on family matters, school and friend issues, or national and international concerns?
• Where do you turn when you feel troubled by what’s going on in the world or alarmed by things that affect the circle of people closest to you?
• How can your church community and your worship/prayer life provide hope and assurance of God’s presence when times are tough?

4. Activity and Discussion (20 minutes)

The color green is used for the season of Pentecost because it represents growth, new life, creation, hope, and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. This season takes us through autumn and nearly to the beginning of winter, before greenery returns at Christmas. Life outdoors can lack color, and the return to shorter days can be challenging for many people. Using green and other bright colors, provide students with paper, pipe cleaners, and markers to create a timeline of their lives, with at least one personal milestone per year, such as baptism, confirmation, start of school, moving, adding, or losing a family member or pet, and so on. After the students have completed their timelines, ask them to insert an exclamation mark or teardrop at points they remember feeling afraid. Beside each exclamation mark or teardrop, ask them to write the name of the person, circumstance, or event that helped calm their fears. Offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for signs of God at work during difficult times in our world.

NEEDED RESOURCES:

• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving video and device on which to play a clip
• Construction paper, pipe cleaners, markers, and/or other art supplies (green and other bright colors)
• Bibles or the Mark passage in the CEB translation.