Youth Group Lesson on Identity
Written by Mike Sheley
Junior High Youth Group Lesson on Identity
Between the movie-craze over comic book super heroes and the wide variety of costumes that roll out at the end of October, junior high students understand secret identities and even pretend to be someone else.
Even if they don’t dress up and run around with a towel-cape like they used to as kids, their understanding of different identities and disguises is a great way to talk about the “new creation” language of Paul when he talks about the change that happens when a person becomes a follower of Jesus! (for real)
Description: Junior highers enjoy playing video games,watching movies and reading comic books about people with secret identities. This lesson will help them see that when they follow Jesus, he actually helps them change into a new person, not temporarily, but permanently.
Supplies: Masks-cheap ones that cover the eyes will do, but full head masks are even better. If you can get full costumes, that would be over the top! Small, individually wrapped candies. Post-it notes and pens/pencils (5 notes per student)
GAME: GUESS WHO?
Invite 5 parents to help you with this by contacting them a week ahead of time. They need to be willing to wear a costume and be at your youth group. (For an added bonus/fun element, see if you can get a Grandparent to be one of your five!)
- On the night of your lesson, have the parents get their masks, (and if possible full costume), on.
- Have each one enter your space, one at a time.
- Each time, have students stand or raise their hands if they believe that person is one of their parents.
- Have students write down their guess as to whose parent each character is, writing the name on a post-it note.
- Keep repeating this until all costumed-parents are standing side-by-side.
- Then, reveal the parents by having them take off their masks, one at a time.
- Give each student with a correct guess on their post-it note an individually wrapped candy reward.
- Do this for each of the five parents.
Transition out by saying: “Sometimes, even people we know well can surprise us when they change their appearance. Today we’re going to look at a similar change that Paul says happens when we follow Jesus, but it’s not a game and it’s not temporary.
TEACH
2 Corinthians 5:11 – 6:10
“Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too. Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart. If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit.” (2 Corinthians 5:11–13 NLT-SE)
This sounds like something you’d expect someone to say who works with junior highers! “If it seems we are crazy.” Or maybe this is what describes you as junior highers yourselves! Paul is telling people here that if what they are doing looks crazy in talking to others about Jesus, it is to bring glory to God.
He shows us here that in following Jesus and telling others about him, we won’t look and act like everyone else. And we don’t do it to draw attention to ourselves. We do it to draw attention to Jesus. He goes on…
“Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15 NLT-SE)
Paul is talking about life-change here. He describes how we live before we know Jesus as “our old life.” He says that the change in how we live is so strong, that it is like we “die” to that “old life.”
“So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!” (2 Corinthians 5:16 NLT-SE)
Before you know who Jesus is, you may have heard of him and just thought he was some famous person from history, but still just a person. Once you realize he is God’s Son, it changes how you think about him and that changes how you think about others.
Paul says we stop looking at other people just how we normally used to think of them. That means we see other people as people who were made with some of the same characteristics of God like we are but who also sin and don’t fully live out those characteristics. We see them more with humility and compassion instead of being judgmental.
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT-SE)
When the parents came out here in costume, you knew that the costumes were just a change in appearance, but that the real person was inside. They hadn’t changed who they are. They just changed how they looked.
Some people treat church this way. They think they just need to go to church or youth group and behave a certain way, but that when they leave, they can act totally different at home, school, with their friends, etc.
That’s not what Paul is teaching us here. He says that we become a new person. He says we do change who we are. Following Jesus isn’t about pretending, imagining or changing our appearance temporarily. It’s about changing who we are, for real, and allowing that change to continue to happen so that we keep living more of our life more like Jesus.
There’s more to what Paul writes here. Think of what we just read and talked about like the preview for a movie. If you want to learn more, then go through and read the whole letter of 2 Corinthians this week sometime.
Or, if you just want to learn more in a bite-sized way, keep reading through the end of chapter 5 and through 2 Corinthians 6:10. Paul teaches more about this gift of grace, how Jesus provided it for us, and how important it is for us to be sharing it with others.
For now, let’s focus on this first part of a change in identity and talk more about it in our small groups.
Small Group Questions
- What was your favorite costume as a kid?
- Who is your favorite super hero who has a secret identity?
- Give an example of a time you acted one way at church and totally different at home or school.
- Sometimes at school or in our community, you can join a club or team with people who have similar interests to you. But that doesn’t have to affect your everyday life. How is following Jesus different than just joining a team or club?
- If we are supposed to live our lives differently when we follow Jesus, describe what that looks like: in how we talk; how we think about other people; our actions; and even our attitudes.
- Explain how following Jesus is more like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly than it is a super hero changing into their secret identity.
- How can we pray for you to help you with this? To think about following Jesus? If you have become a Christian, do we need to pray that God will help you live out this change in your everyday life better?
If you liked this idea, check out another free lesson for junior highers here: Dude…Not Perfect
Mike is the Middle School Pastor at Mount Pleasant Christian Church in Greenwood, Indiana, where he oversees their ministries for 5th-8th graders. He’s been in full-time youth ministry over 15 years with most of that time focused on preteens and junior highers.
Bat Boy Photo by Jonas Seaman. Used under the Creative Commons License. Original: https://flic.kr/p/7aQi17