Gathering Time/Introduction: (Coach)

1. The Coach leads the opening routine. Name tags are available. This week all middle and high school students with their family guest(s) will gather in the fellowship hall

2. Explain and ask for the offering.

3. Welcome all participants and ask them to sit with their families. Invite any youth who do not have their families with them to join another family group for this class.

4. Introduce the Guide, who leads the workshop lesson.

Workshop Lesson Procedure: (Guide takes over from here)

Scripture

1. Hand out copies of Isaiah 65:17-25 (attached). Divide the class roughly in half and ask the two halves to read each verse responsively.

2. Review for newcomers to the class some of the ideas gathered in previous classes. Note especially:

· That this passage is a vision that Isaiah received from God of a peaceful world.

· That the passage conveys certain promises about God’s intentions for the world.

· That these promises concern wholeness and well-being in our physical, emotional, spiritual, social, economic, and political lives.

3. Ask each family group to briefly answer the following questions:

· Recall and describe a time when your family enjoyed doing something together.

· What made these times go well?

· During these times, what aspects of Isaiah’s vision were reflected in your family experience?

4. Give families about 5 minutes to answer these questions, then bring everyone back together. Record their answers on flipchart paper.

Mural

1. Create a cultural mural. Start by asking questions about what interferes with family life and good times together? What does society say is a “successful” family?

In individual family groups, brainstorm these ideas on paper. Someone in the group should record, without filtering, whatever the kids and family members say about activities, pressures, demands and conflicts in family life. This discussion doesn’t need to reflect your own family experience, but that of society. Spend only about 5 minutes on this to get everyone thinking.

2. Distribute a collection of magazines. Ask everyone to look through the magazines and newspapers to look for pictures that represent the reality of many families in society today. Focus on images that divide or conflict with family life. Roughly cut out the images and be ready with glue sticks to post on the appropriate section of mural paper. (10 minutes)

3. What does God say? Review some of the scripture and bible verses that describe God’s images for families. Go back to the flip chart paper and review God’s promises.

4. Compare the list describing God’s promised vision with mural images.

Neighborhood

1. With everyone, quickly brainstorm a list of places that families or individual family members go during the week. Eg. Office, work place, gas station, Dr. office, grocery store, other stores and public buildings, church.

2. Ask for family volunteers to create one or two places on the list. Try and get all the buildings or places assigned.

3. Create your place using glue and boxes, card board or poster board. Use markers, scripture and pictures to decorate your place with ideas and images as God would have it – not as society thinks of it. Decorate your space with any or all of the following:

· Name of it

· Godly attributes of it

· Scripture verses that describe how it could or should be

· Magazine pictures that indicate God’s vision for it

· Images or words of how it contributes to peace (the complete meaning of peace)

1. Place each building on the foam board to add to our town.

Wrap-up:

1. Ask families to tidy up.

2. Give each family an opportunity to share the building they have built. Encourage each family to describe some of the things they have used to decorate their building and why they chose their particular images or words.

3. Hand out index cards and give each family a few minutes to write a brief prayer that addresses thanksgivings, or hurts, or confessions for the spaces they have built today. Encourage them to refer to issues raised in the scripture, the mural, or their buildings. Tell the families that these cards will be collected and their prayers incorporated into a closing worship at the end of this unit. They are not required to put their names on their cards.

Closing (Coach):

1. The Coach conducts the closing prayer time. Invite families to share the prayers they wrote in the closing prayer time.

2. Announce that families may return next week and invite a member or family in the congregation who is not part of their immediate family.

3. Collect the index cards and the scripture copies (for use next week).

4. Close/lock the door and turn off the lights.

Guide preparation in advance:

1. Check out your room setup and supplies.

2. Memory verse written on the board or in a prominent place.

3. Supplies: see list in overview section.

4. Gather materials for buildings. Poster board and boxes in various sizes for buildings: cereal, gift boxes, half gallon or liter milk/juice containers, etc.

5. Prepare flip chart paper for discussion of aspects of peace in Isaiah discussion.

6. Write prompts on flip chart paper for writing index card prayers

7. Post side by side, the high school and middle school murals made last week.

8. Begin to assembled the town, deciding where to put the various residential and commercial areas. Start to glue down the homes and create streets with paint. Carole Rhodes is willing to assist with figuring this out. You may wish to get a group of kids to stay after worship and assist with this work.

9. Mural paper taped to the wall with the caption: What is society’s image of families?