Leader Guide

Theme
Compassion

Objective
Students will learn to adjust their perspective to see those around them in need.

Warm Up
Discomfort – Bring something small (pebbles, marbles, bits of newspaper) and have the students take off one of their shoes. Students should place one of those items in their shoe, put the shoe back on, and walk around the room for a set amount of time. Consider making them walk while an entire song plays. You could also make them walk around the room during some other activity you would already be doing. After this time, have them take the object out of their shoe and ask them how it felt walking around.

Transition
Explain that the main point of this activity was to make them slightly uncomfortable. Say, “Sometimes, if we are willing to adjust our perspective, we will discover things that make us uncomfortable. The question is: what we will do when we experience this kind of discomfort?”

The Song
Hand out the Student Guides and encourage the kids to fill in the missing lyrics as they listen to Jason Gray’s “With Every Act of Love” song. Here are the missing words: bothered broken through kingdom love love kingdom shame medicine forgiveness you you 

Transition
Say, “The Bible explicitly commands us to take care of ‘the least of these.’ Let’s discover together exactly what that means.”

Bible Study
Ask the students to share about a time they saw someone who was clearly in need. Ask them how they felt about the situation and if they did anything about it. Explain that you do not want to make anyone feel guilty, but rather to do some honest evaluation.

Explain that in Matthew 25:40, Jesus was describing part of what will happen when we get to Heaven. He said, “The King will say to you, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of one these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Those are pretty powerful words. We are all on equal footing in Jesus’ kingdom, and we should understand how deep His love and compassion extends to each of His children.

Ask, “How often do we really see the people around us? Sure, we look at them, but do we really see them? Do we find out what is going on in their lives? What do we do for them when they need help?” Now is a perfect time to share your own personal story about when you have looked the other way when you knew someone in need. This kind of authenticity will breed trust and better conversation with your group.

Say, “Proverbs 19:17 says, ‘He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his good deed.’ God cares about each one of us, and we should care about the people God has connected us to. Think about it. You’re part of a fam- ily. You go to school. You belong to this youth group. We could probably think of dozens of ways to help those around us and show compassion.”

Read 1 Corinthians 12:25-26. Say, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to suffer! God teaches us to care enough about the people around us here that if they are going through something tough, we should be right there with them, going through it together instead of being caught up only in what is going on in our own world. We can all work on this. Suffering is uncomfortable, but sometimes we need to be uncomfortable—that is when God shows us what to do to serve others, and we grow more into the people He wants us to be.”

Say, “Or, we can continue to ignore the things going on around us and stay comfortable. We don’t want to live in a bubble. We need to learn to walk with a rock in our shoe. We want God to prod our hearts and point us in the direction of someone who needs to be shown His love. Jason Gray sings, ‘God put a million, million doors in the world / For His love to walk through / One of those doors is you.’ Make no mistake about it, there are things that you will do for God’s Kingdom that only you could ever possibly do. Let’s challenge each other to open our eyes and really see the people around us!”

Wrap Up
Say, “Jason Gray talks about several acts of love in this song that range in size and scope. Let’s think about the people around us in our sphere of influence and brainstorm some ideas to show acts of love.” Have your students write down three different acts of love that they will commit to praying about: one for the youth group to do, one for their family, and one for themselves. Ask them to commit to praying about them for a week and to come back next week sharing what they heard or discovered. You may even get some great ideas for service projects for your group.