Mission Rescue for 11 to14s
Mission Rescue is a programme aimed at 5- to 11-year-olds, but you may have some young people who wish to come along to your club. This might especially be the case if they have been to the holiday club in previous years and want to carry on, despite now being too old. The activities here are designed to help you put together a section of the programme specifically for 11- to 14-year-olds.
There are a variety of activities here, designed to keep your 11 to 14s engaged in their own group, but you should also consider when to include them in the times when the whole club comes together.This is particularly useful when the team members are introducing themselves and when the key theme is explained.For example, it might be appropriate for you to include the 11 to 14s in the Active Agents activities with the younger children as this is when the main Bible story is introduced and explored each day.However, there are also suggestions below as to how to address this in a small peer group setting.
Each day has four parts.Agents’ Briefing will help the young people access the theme of the day.ActiveAgents will encourage them to dig into the Bible passage. Going Undercover helps your group respond to what they have discovered and think how it applies to their lives. Finally, Agents are Go! is a time for them to reflect on the session and write down some of their thoughts.
Mission 1
Undercover
Key passage: Exodus 2
Key aims
- To welcome everyone and begin to build relationships in the group
- To discover that God has a plan to rescue his people
- To start to understand that God protects us
Key story
God rescues Moses. God prepares Moses for his own rescue mission.
Agents’ Briefing
10 minutes
You will need: pens and paper
You might like to participate in the Spy Base challenge and/or the Secret Identities activity with the rest of the holiday club, in which case see the explanations on page 52.
Use this time to help the group get to know one another better, being particularly mindful of those young people who have not come with a friend. If you are not participating in the general introductory activities, use any icebreaker activity to help the group learn names and at least a little information about one another.
For example, provide each person with a pen and sheet of paper and ask them to write down three things about themselves, two must be true facts, but one must be false. Ask them to write their name on the paper and hand to a leader. Include responses from the leaders as well. Read each set of ‘facts’ out loud and the name of the person to whom they are related. Invite the group to use their spy skills to find out which of the statements is untrue. They can do this by asking a few questions, or simply by using their spy’s intuition.
Active Agents
45 minutes
You will need: Bibles, pens, paper
It may be useful to participate in the activities with the younger children in this section, so that the main Bible passage is discovered and the young people are introduced to the other leaders.
However, if you are not joining with the rest of the club, this is the time to introduce the Bible passage and the key themes of rescue and protection.
Introduction to the theme
Explain that during this week we are going to be exploring the theme of God’s rescue plan. In today’s Bible story, which we will hear in a moment, we will hear how God rescues Moses several times and then later we will discover that God wanted Moses to be part of his own rescue plan.
Ask the group to share ideas about favourite movies that include exciting or dramatic rescues. Be prepared to share your own ideas, which might include characters such as Spiderman and Superman and films such as Schindler’s List, Proof of Life, The Day After Tomorrow, Saving Private Ryan and Star Wars.
Bible focus: Exodus 2
This passage could be read directly from the Bible, using the group to read it out loud, or you could use the following script to retell the main points of the story. Tell the group to listen carefully as there will be a quiz following the story!
Bible story
Long ago, God’s people (that’s the people who loved God and followed his way, known as the Israelites or the Hebrews) were in trouble. They were living in Egypt, but the people of Egypt were scared of them! The king – he was called the Pharaoh – was scared too, and he made them into slaves. That meant they had to do everything the Pharaoh said; they had no choice. But God had not forgotten about his people. He wanted to rescue them and lead them into a new country, where they would be free to follow God’s way and not be slaves. But first God had to rescue one person, and it was a very dangerous mission!
The Pharaoh wanted to get rid of all the Hebrew baby boys, but the mother of one Hebrew baby boy wanted to save her son. So she got a basket and painted it with tar to make it waterproof. Then she put her baby in the basket and put it in the river where it floated off. The baby’s sister, called Miriam, went undercover and watched the basket to see what would happen.
The basket didn’t float off too far, but got stuck in some tall grass next to the river. And who was having a bath in the river but the Pharaoh’s daughter. She saw the basket in the long grass and sent one of her servant girls to get it out of the river. When she opened the basket, what did she find? A baby boy! She realised it was a Hebrew baby, but instead of telling her dad, the Pharaoh, so he could get rid of it, she decided to keep the baby.
Miriam saw what had happened and went up to the princess. ‘Shall I find someone to look after the baby for you?’ she asked. The princess thought for a moment and then agreed. So Miriam went off to get her mum. So, the baby’s mum looked after him for the princess. Then, when the baby was old enough, he went to live in the palace. And the Pharaoh’s daughter called him Moses. God had rescued Moses, because he wanted Moses to play a big part in his rescue mission!
But Moses wasn’t out of danger for long! For one of God’s agents, he certainly knew how to get into trouble. One day, Moses saw an Egyptian hitting one of the Hebrews. Moses saw that no one else was around, so he killed the Egyptian. He tried to rescue the Hebrew, but he wasn’t following God’s plan! Before long, everyone had heard about what Moses had done, even the Pharaoh, and Moses ran for his life!
He ran and ran till he got to a land called Midian, where he sat down next to a well. He must have thought everything had gone wrong – he was so far from home, and he couldn’t go back, because he had done something really bad. But God didn’t leave him sitting there. Some girls, daughters of a man called Jethro, came along. They were looking after some of their father’s sheep. Moses helped them and they took him to Jethro. Jethro was a friend of God, and he looked after Moses. God had rescued him again. But was Moses ready to find out his part in God’s rescue mission? We’ll find out tomorrow!
Quiz
Divide the group into smaller groups or into pairs. Give each group/pair a sheet of paper and a pen and ask them to write the numbers 1–10 down the left side of the paper. Explain that you are going to quiz them on what they have remembered from the story and give them some possible answers. They must choose their answer and write down A, B or C next to the number of the question.
Note that the quiz is not meant to be taken too seriously, but will hopefully help the group remember the key facts of the story! Give the answers to the questions as you go along.
Question 1:
God’s people were called:
A)The Israelites B) The Infidels C) The Incredibles
Question 2:
God’s people were living as slaves in:
A) IsraelB) EgyptC) England
Question 3:
The ruler of Egypt was called the:
A) KingB) PharoahC) Princess
Question 4:
When Pharaoh planned to kill the Hebrew baby boys, one boy escaped in:
A) a basketB) a boatC) a bed
Question 5:
The baby who escaped being killed was called:
A) MiriamB) Matthew C) Moses
Question 6:
The baby was watched over by his sister, whose name was:
A) MiriamB) MaryC) Sharon
Question 7:
Moses tried his own rescue when he saw an Egyptian hitting a Hebrew. What did he do?
A) He called the policeB) He screamed for help C) He killed the Egyptian
Question 8:
Moses ran away to a place called:
A) MidianB) the MidlandsC) Middle Earth
Question 9:
In the story, God rescued Moses – how many times?
A) OnceB) TwiceC) Three times
(as a baby, escaping from the Pharaoh after murdering someone and through Jethro taking him in)
Question 10:
Why did God rescue Moses and provide people to care for him? Because Moses…
A) was a really good person B) had some special skillsC) was part of God’s rescue mission
Recap
Sum up the main points of the story and link to the theme of today:
- God knew that his people, the Israelites, were in trouble and had a plan to rescue them (which we will hear more about throughout this week.)
- God wanted Moses to be part of his rescue plan – even after he messed up. God protected Moses and provided him with people who looked after him.
- God has a plan for us too. And even if we feel like everything has gone wrong, God will always be with us and protect us.
Share your story
This is a great time for you or another adult to share a story from your own experience of how God has protected and cared for you. You might like to consider inviting someone else from your church or Christian community to come in especially to share a related story.
Going Undercover
45 minutes - including refreshment time
You will need: paper and pens
Discussion time
Lead a discussion on the key themes, using the following questions to guide you:
- How do you think Moses’ family felt when they had to put Moses in a basket in the river?
- If you were Moses’ brother or sister, would you have trusted God to protect Moses?
- In what ways would Moses’ life in the palace have been different from his life at home?
- Do you think Moses was sorry for killing the Egyptian?
- How do you think Moses felt when he had to leave his home and run away?
- If God rescued and protected Moses, even though he messed up, what does that tell us about God and how he might rescue and protect us?
After the discussion, give the group a chance to retell the story in their own words. This could be done in a variety of ways. Here is one idea:
Ask each person to imagine they are Moses in Midian at the end of today’s story and that he wants to write a letter home to share his story. Invite the young people to either write a letter or draw a storyboard (a series of pictures) which detail the story of Moses from today. Encourage them to see the story from Moses’ perspective and to include details of how he felt at each stage of his journey. Ask them to include details of how he feels about God’s protection and care.
Agents Are Go!
25 minutes
You will need: a Bible, Post-it notes, pens, umbrellas or a parachute, newspapers
You might like your group to join in with the wider group again at this point, in which case you could pray during the debrief time at the end. If you are not rejoining the younger children, take this time to focus on prayer.
Pray for protection
Remind the young people that you have been learning about God protecting and rescuing.
Ask one of the young people to read Psalm 121.
Give each of them a Post-it note and ask them to write a place or situation where they want God to protect them. It might be at school or home or when they have to do something they don’t like.
You will need either a play parachute or one or more large umbrellas, depending on the size of your group. At this point open the umbrellas or parachute and ask the group to huddle together underneath. Explain that these items are used for protection and are a symbol today of God’s protection over us.
Inviteeach person to stick their note onto the umbrella or parachute. They might like to read it out if it is not too private. Ask them to think of each other being protected by God in all these situations and places. Lead a prayer for God’s protection.If possible leave the parachute/umbrella up in a corner for the rest of your time together.
You might also like to include time to pray for God’s protection over world issues. If so, before you invite the group to sit under the parachute/umbrellas, spend some time discussing anything that is going on in the world, perhaps situations they may have heard about in the news. You might like to invite them to cut stories out of the newspapers or simply to write their ideas on Post-it notes. Continue on as above and include these items in your prayers.