BACKGROUND PREPARATION: Think about all the situations your young people find themselves in every day, what power they hold in these situations, or who has power over them. If you have members who tend to dominate the group verbally or physically, or shy people with little ‘power’, pray that God will speak to them during the session.

NOTES FOR ADAPTING: You could miss out the Bullying example if you have a large group, or ask them to try it in pairs. If you want to keep an equality of the sexes, mix boys and girls in the ‘Quiz time’.

Show the film clip from Spiderman where Uncle Ben warns Peter Parker of the responsibility that power brings (chapter 9 of the DVD – the two sitting in the car) Introduce the topic and brainstorm different forms of power together. 

Ask the group to stand in a circle. The idea is that a leader is chosen to lead the group in whatever actions they choose (clapping, stamping etc). A detective person is sent out of the room and the leader is chosen. When the detective comes back in, he/she has to detect who is leading the group. The leader must change the actions every 30 seconds or so without being spotted. The detective has three ‘guesses’. This is an adaptation of the old ‘wink murder’ game, which you could play instead.

At the end ask the group who was the weakest and who was the strongest in that game. Who had the position of most power?

KEY POINT: When someone has power over others, they get to control what everyone does. Where there is power, there is usually weakness found too. 

This is a demonstration that aims to show the power of words over people. It is essentially a mind game, one of those clever pub tricks designed to impress. Ask a volunteer to hold one arm out straight in front of them, and to keep it there. Standing in front of them, look them in the eye and tell them they are strong. Continue to repeat words to that effect (‘you are really strong, you are tough and made of metal, you are stronger than you think….’) while pushing down on their arm with your own hands and weight. They should be pretty tough to move. Their arm should stay rigid. Now tell them to continue holding their arm up. Change your tone and words, tell them they are weak (‘you are feeling pathetic and weak, you are so limp and breaking up, you are weedy and weak’) and the difference should be obvious. Their arm should go weak and you should be able to push it down easily.

Make the point that this is how a bully works – by telling someone they are weak, eventually they will believe it. Ask the young people to think about a time when they were made to feel weak by the way someone else acted or spoke.

KEY POINT: Words have incredible power. Verbal abuse can do severe damage to someone – especially if it is repeated over time. 

Using coloured pens and paper, ask your young people to draw a ‘web of power’ for their lives. Placing themselves in the middle, ask them to write or draw the 15 or 20 people they come in contact with every day. Mark a figure with an X if they feel that person has power over them in some form, or with an O if they have power over that person. Ask them to also add arrows that link them to these people – arrows going out to the ‘weaker’ people and arrows coming from the ‘powerful’ people. Ask them to privately consider the number of arrows they have running from themselves and away from them. Does this surprise them? Why? 

Split your group into two teams. Hand both teams a short quiz that has the same (quite tough) questions for everyone. However, one team should receive the questions with the answers provided at the bottom of the page. Ask both teams to complete the quiz together as quickly as possible. The team with the answers should finish much sooner. Run through the answers altogether – it should become apparent that one team is a lot smarter than the other. Ask them to reveal why they got so many right. Discuss this:

KEY POINT: Sometimes it seems power is handed out unfairly. Some people are born with the privilege of power over others. It is our responsibility to treat those we have power over fairly.  

Ask your young people to get into groups and consider one of the following Bible passages in each group. Then answer the questions for their passage.

Mark 10: 46-52 (Bartimaeus receives his sight – power over the physical body)

John 11: 38-44 (Lazarus is raised from the dead – power over death and life)

Matthew 28: 23-27 (Jesus calms a storm – power over nature and creation)

Come back together and discuss each group’s answers.

 

Visit www.Azlyrics.com and print off the lyrics for ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah song’ by The Flaming Lips. If you own the song, play it. It begins:

If you could blow up the world
with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everybody poor
just so you could be rich
Would you do it?

The chorus asks the listener what they would do if they had ultimate power, then continues with more loving acts of power. Ask your young people to get into pairs and consider what they would do if they were given three days of ultimate power over the universe. If they could control everything, how would they change things? ‘With all your power, what would you do?’ When they feedback, ask them to justify their decisions and consider how their ‘subjects’ would react.

Using the popular game of ‘Jenga’, ask two teams to have a competition to see who can keep their towers up longer. If you feel like giving one team a weakness, ask them to remove bricks from the bottom only. The other team can be empowered by taking bricks from nearer the top first. This is a good fun game to end.

 

Celia Hyland is a Journalist working for Youthwork Magazine, UK and a volunteer youth worker in Kent.

 
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