INCREDIBLE HULK AN EDGE NIGHT ON PEACE AND SELF-CONTROL
SCRIPTURE KEY WORDS MEDIA Matthew 5:9 Peace SUGGESTIONS Matthew 21:12-17 Self-Control • YouTube: “Hulk – ‘I’m Philemon 1:3 Always Angry’ 1080p” by Hebrews 12:14 SUPPLIES NEEDED 5teveHxCGaming • 15-30 various sized • Edge Video: "Word Fight" CCC cardboard boxes (Edge Video Support 19) 736 • Red and black paint 2633 • Two sets of Hulk Smash Fists • Six (+) green balloons YOUCAT 300 395 396
EDGE NIGHT GOAL Night ends in a time of prayer for an increase in the The goal of the Edge Night is to draw upon the fun fruits of self-control and peace. superhero example of the Incredible Hulk to help the youth learn more about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit ENVIRONMENT of peace and self-control, two fruits of Holy Spirit. Decorate the main meeting space with the colors black and green. Get black and green balloons, OUTLINE crepe paper, streamers, etc. Purchase or print of
EDGE NIGHT AT A GLANCE The Edge Night begins with some fun Hulk themed diferent pictures of the Hulk and the Hulk smash games. The Proclaim uses the Hulk as the example fst. At the front of the room put up large signs of what happens when you have no self-control and with the words peace and self-control written the lack of peace there is when you cannot control on them. For more ideas on decorations go to your emotions. The teaching encourages the youth Pinterest and search “Hulk Birthday Parties.” to practice their self-control and proper use of their emotions and desires. The youth will have a chance to discuss the teaching and act out skits about the
INCREDIBLE HULK right and wrong way to react to situations. The Edge
38 EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE CORE TEAM FORMATION • Do you feel at peace in your relationships? Are Self-control is the ability to rightly direct and control there over-dramatic friends you need to step away our emotions and desires. Peace will naturally follow from? when we live lives of self-control and in accord with justice and charity. It is important to remember that • What can you do in your daily life to practice self- emotions are not a bad thing, but how we direct control? and act upon those emotions can be good or bad. Self-control is central to the Christian life as it is an TO THE PARENTS act of self-mastery and the more we can master This week at Edge we discussed self-control and our emotions and desires, the more we will also be peace, two fruits of the Holy Spirit. We used the able to overcome our temptations to sin. In living a example of the Hulk to demonstrate what it looks life where we can control how we act, we will have like to have no self-control and how that leads to a greater peace within us and in the relationships in life with no peace. Your son and daughter learned our lives. The more self-control is fostered in our the importance of learning to control his or her communities, the greater peace we will have in emotions before acting and discussed diferent our world. Jesus calls all of us to be peacemakers ways that he or she can practice self-control in daily (Matthew 5:9), but in order to have a greater impact life. Here are some questions to ask your son our as peacemakers we must frst make peace within daughter this week: ourselves. Since self-control and peace are fruits of the Holy Spirit they will naturally fow from our lives • What does it mean to have self-control? the more and more we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives and follow His promptings. Use the following • How do we fnd peace in our daily lives? questions for discussion or personal refection: • What are some things you can do to control your • How often do you let your emotions alone direct emotions and desires before you act upon them? your actions? What has the result of this been?
• Do you feel at peace in your life? What do you think the root cause of this is?
To make the boxes look like a wall, paint them before the Edge Night. To do this paint one side of the box GATHER that will be facing out red. Once that is dry use black paint and paint squares on the red to look like bricks. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION If you do not have the time to paint the boxes you (5 min) can simply leave them the way that they are.
Gather in all the youth, introduce any youth who To play this game set up two brick walls at the front are there for the frst time, and recognize any of the room by stacking the cardboard boxes. birthdays. Give a brief introduction to the night Then call up two volunteers to “Hulk Smash” the and begin in prayer. wall. Assign each youth their own wall and have OUTLINE the rest of the youth participate by cheering the HULK SMASH loudest for who they think will smash down the (10 min) wall the fastest. Give each youth a pair of the Hulk Smash Fists (these are boxing gloves that Supplies: look like Hulk hands – they can be purchased at • 15-30 various sized cardboard boxes most toy stores, or you can simply use boxing • Red and black paint gloves). Time the youth to see who can smash the • Two sets of Hulk Smash Fists wall the fastest; the wall will be ofcially smashed down when no two cardboard boxes are touching INCREDIBLE HULK
EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE 39 each other. Play this with as many diferent youth volunteers as time allows. BREAK HULK BALLOON POP (10 min) SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION (15 min) Supplies: Break the youth into small groups, begin in prayer, • Six (+) balloons and use the following questions for discussion: • Hulk Smash Fists • What do we learn from the Hulk about anger? Clean up the cardboard boxes and keep out the Hulk Smash Fists. For this game bring up six • Are emotions bad? What are we supposed to do balloons. Again call up two volunteers to the front with them? to compete. Give each youth a set of Hulk Smash Fists and three balloons. The point of this game is • How are self-control and peace related? to pop the balloons while wearing the Hulk Smash Fists. The participants can only use their hands • What is your perfect idea of peace? Do you think (the gloves) to pop the balloons. They cannot step that is attainable? on them or use any other body part to try to pop them. The frst youth to pop all three balloons • Why do you think Jesus wants us all to be wins. Continue to play this with new volunteers peacemakers? for as long as time allows. • If you fnd yourself being overcome with Since this is another up front game, make sure emotions what is one thing you can do before to have lots of crowd involvement. For example, you act so that you act rightly? have all the youth jump up and down and cheer for the one they think will win. Throughout the competition continue to rally the crowd for the TAKING IT DEEPER: SMALL GROUP participants. ADAPTATIONS FOR 8TH GRADE For the 8th grade youth looking to go deeper, use the following questions for discussion: PROCLAIM • Do you think that you have self-control?
• How does self-control help us to overcome “INCREDIBLE HULK” TEACHING temptations? (10 min) • Why is it important to be able not always to act This teaching can be found on pages 42 to 43. upon our emotions? Here are the main points from the teaching: • Have you ever seen negative consequences of • The Hulk shows us the negative results of not acting quickly upon emotions? having self-control and letting anger take over. OUTLINE • Do you have peace in your life? • When we have self-control, we can react properly and respond to our emotions and • What robs you of your peace? desires, which will lead to peace. • What can you do to increase peace in your life? • We can use every situation in our lives as an Do you have certain friends who you need to opportunity for prayer and practicing self- walk away from? control. INCREDIBLE HULK
40 EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE • Why is it so important to have self-control? What can you do in intense situations to practice self- control? SEND
REACTION CLOSING PRAYER (10 min) (15 min) Gather the youth into the large group and close Keep the youth in small groups and have them with a prayer for an increase in self-control and use the following scenarios to act out skits. peace. The following are suggestions for prayer. Instruct them to make two one minute skits – the frst one should be a comical skit of what they O Lord Jesus Christ, Who said to Your Apostles: "Peace should not do and the second one should be a I leave with you, My peace I give to you," regard not skit of how they would practice self- control and my sins but the faith of Your Church, and will to give do the right thing. For example, if the scenario her peace and unity according to Your Will: Who live was that someone at school walks past you in the and reign, God, world without end. Amen. hallway and slams your locker shut in your face, your frst skit would be the wrong response and Grant me the grace of self-control, That I may not you trip them or throw your books at them and display any anger. Should I have such an outburst, the second skit would be the proper response of instantly remind me to seek amends, For such is kindly asking them not to do that and calmly re- ofensive to You. Anger is Yours alone to avenge! opening your locker.
Here are some examples of scenarios – add to or FURTHER ADAPTATION IDEAS alter them as you see ft: • Have a few Core Members do examples of the skits for the youth. • Someone in class throws paper at you. • Instead of doing the Reaction skits during the • Your younger sibling calls you a mean name. Break, utalize the video "Word Fight" from EVS 19 and discuss what it reveals about the nature • Your parents tell you that you cannot go out of social media and how the fruits of self-control with your friends until you clean your room. and peace can help us to avoid these situations.
• One of your friends posts a mean comment about you on social media.
• Your brother eats the last piece of cheese pizza.
• You lose your favorite shirt. OUTLINE
INCREDIBLE HULK
EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE 41 INCREDIBLE HULK TEACHING
KEY WORD Self-Control - The ability to DEFINITIONS control oneself, particularly one’s emotions and desires and the responses to Peace - A freedom from chaos them, especially in difcult and disruptions, a goal of the situations. Christian life. It is a work of justice and charity and Christ calls us all to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).
THE INCREDIBLE HULK It is difcult to describe Marvel's jolly green giant as a superhero. Dr. Bruce Banner, AKA the Incredible Hulk, transforms into a giant green monster whenever he loses his cool, thanks to some exposure to gamma radiation. "Normal" Bruce is a compassionate, mild-mannered scientist. But when he lets his rage take control, he (almost literally) becomes another person. In both of the current Avengers movies, and in many comics, he battles his fellow heroes nearly as often as the villains. Hulk is a monster afraid of his own power. When he lashes out, his explosive temper turned green monster sweeps up innocent people in the crossfre.
PEACE AND SELF CONTROL So how can we learn about the fruits of the Holy Spirit of peace and TEACHING self-control from the Hulk? Often in diferent stories and scenarios we will see people who live out these Christian ideals, but sometimes Key Words we can learn lessons too from those who live out the opposite. We do not necessarily see the perfect example of what to do, but rather the consequences of what not to do.
Anger is the Hulk's misery and it is a constant in his life. It robs him of his peace. Self-control takes anger and hones it into a mighty weapon. Self-control is not the opposite of anger, but rather it is the ability to capture our emotions and properly direct and express INCREDIBLE HULK
42 EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE them. There are times in the Hulk’s story where he can to hone his anger to defeat the bad guys – but it is wildly inconsistent. We can see that his lack of self-control leads him to the misery of not being YouCat 396 able to control his anger. He cannot control who he hurts when he YouCat 395 becomes the Hulk, and this leads him into isolation and loneliness. YouCat 300 When we utilize proper self-control in all areas of our lives directing our actions more and more to the good, we will be able to live in harmony with others and with ourselves and we will fnd true peace.
It is important to understand that being angry is okay since it is a natural human emotion, but losing self-control is not since that is acting wrongly upon our anger. It is important to know that there is such thing as righteous anger, which Christ exemplifed when He got angry at the money lenders in the temple. He fipped the tables and chased them out of the temple. He knew that was the appropriate response for the ofenses they made against His Father’s house. He also knew what Matthew 21:12-13 was not the appropriate response, like blowing up the world, which He could have done if He wanted to. In this case, Jesus had the appropriate self-control to bring about the peace and order due to His Father’s house. Righteous anger is okay because it is anger that sees injustice and desires for people to be treated properly or to do the right thing. Righteous anger ultimately desires the good of others, whereas anger usually leads to hateful desires of revenge and destruction.
OUR DAILY LIVES The Holy Spirit is at work in our lives and wants to teach us and guide us to be people who have self-control. He wants to help us be people who can properly channel our emotions and have the right responses in diferent situations. When we can achieve this, we will fnd peace in our daily lives since self-control usually helps us avoid CCC 736 a lot of drama. We will also fnd peace within ourselves since we will be able to control our emotions and responses better. To grow in self-control, we need to become more self-aware of our usual reactions to diferent situations, recognize them, and pray for the wisdom to have the right reaction.
There are times when we can channel our anger, sadness, or any other emotion and turn it into a prayer of ofering for someone else. If we know what the right response is to a certain situation but CCC 2633 are tempted to lash out in anger or jealousy, we should step back and take a breath. Think of someone who needs prayers and then practice self-control to do the right thing.
For example, the next time you stub your toe instead of shouting as TEACHING loud as you can and declaring how much you hate all corners and doors, bite your lip and think of someone you love who is sufering (preferably worse than a stubbed toe) and say, "Lord, take this anger in me for insert name of loved one here." When you do something like this, you take your anger, and you turned it into a mighty weapon of prayer and ofering and placed it in the hands of the Almighty. God will do amazing things with these little acts of prayer and self- control. INCREDIBLE HULK
EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE 43 INCREDIBLE HULK CHECKLIST EDGE NIGHT CHECKLIST
EDGE NIGHT DATE: WEEK PRIOR TO EDGE NIGHT:
______⃞ Hand out/email the Edge Night to the Core Members EDGE NIGHT TOPIC: ⃞ Assign duties to the Core Team ______⃞ Pick videos and/or songs
CORE TEAM ASSIGNMENTS: ⃞ Gather all the supplies
Environment ______⃞ Email Core Team the Edge Night Core Formation
Opening Prayer ______WEEK OF THE EDGE NIGHT: Games ______⃞ Prep for games and the environment Proclaim ______⃞ Meet with the Core Member doing the Proclaim Closing Prayer ______(if applicable)
Videos: ______DAY OF THE EDGE NIGHT:
______⃞ Email parents the information about the Night and any announcements ______⃞ Gather and set-up for the night Songs: ______⃞ Pray! ______
______
CHECKLIST Notes
______
______
______
______INCREDIBLE HULK
44 EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE INCREDIBLE HULK EVALUATION EDGE NIGHT EVALUATION INSTRUCTIONS: Evaluation is a key to successful ministry. Use the following questions to discuss and evaluate your Edge Night.
What is going well at our Edge Nights? What can Would you be interested in leading prayer, we improve? explaining games, or giving a Proclaim teaching?
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
Was there one particular part of this Edge Night Are our Core meetings efective? How can I you did not think was necessary? What and better serve you as a youth minister? What can Why? we do to better serve our youth?
______
______
______
______EVALUATION
______
______
______
______
______INCREDIBLE HULK
EDGE SEMESTER PLANNING GUIDE 45