Opening activity
An icebreaker or something to get people focused as you begin.
OPTION 1: EYE C (OR: I SEE)
If you have access to an optometrist or an ophthalmologist, ask for their help with this
activity. The purpose is to help people realize that our eyes often need help in order to see clearly. Also, what one person sees clearly might appear unclear to another person.
Get a few eye charts. You can print something off the internet, purchase an inexpensive set, or borrow from a doctor or nurse. The major equipment isn’t usually something that can easily
be transported out of an office. Just use a simple eye chart and test for correctness at a given distance. Put the chart at a distance from which most people can read at least the first
or second row. Test with one eye covered, then the other, and then with both eyes. Alternate between several eye charts to prevent over-familiarity or cheating.
You can choose to give a prize or simply let the testing and results be their own reward.
For a bit of variety, provide several sets of glasses and see how people do looking through the glasses that aren’t meant for their eyes. You don’t want to give them a headache
by having them spend a lot of time doing this (a brief exposure at the start of Sabbath School won’t hurt their actual eyesight), but you do want them to see how looking through someone else’s lens can terribly distort their perception. Point out later that the glasses that distort the chart for some people actually bring the chart into focus for others. Different people certainly do see things differently.
OPTION 2: 5 JOKES
Pick out five jokes prior to Youth Sabbath School. Choose them based on the target group you expect will attend. Select five of the 10 jokes provided below, or feel free to substitute your own. Better yet, ask some of the youth to share a joke they think is funny. Practice telling the jokes in advance, as the way they are told often makes the difference whether or not people laugh
Prior to telling the jokes, have one participant preview them and guess which one will get
the most laughs, which one will be #2, and so forth, all the way to #5.
Then register the laughter or have the youth rank the responses as they perceived them. Try to get a consensus or ask for individual rankings. The purpose is to see whether the laughter response is uniform or individual.
TRANSITION: As we consider today’s lesson: "No Laughing Matter," one part of this tragic story includes laughter—when Lot’s relatives thought he was joking when Lot told them to get out of Sodom before it was destroyed. Most of the story is a real downer. Because of this story, the terms "Sodom and Gomorrah" have special significance in other parts of the Bible, and they continue to carry a message today. This week we’ll look at the original story from Scripture and consider how it might be helpful for us today.
Download Jokes
