When Justice and Peace Kiss Week 1

We just had our first night of “When Justice and Peace Kiss.” It went great!

Our theme for this year is “Our hopes and dreams.” We started off the night telling the story of Moses and Israelites crossing the Red Sea through a short skit. We then broke everyone off into smaller groups based off what type of art they were most interested in. We had a group for music, theatre, rap/poetry, visual art, and dance. In these groups we had them write reflections based on themes from the bible story. In the passage the Israelites were about to have their dreams come true; they were finally able to leave the oppression of the Egyptians and say goodbye to their life of slavery. But after leaving, Pharaoh changes his mind and sent his army after them. As the Israelites see the Egyptians army coming toward them, it seems as though all their dreams are crushed. We had the youth reflect on ways they have had dreams that were crushed or broken.

Thankfully the story does not end there. In the passage we see how God took this situation where it seemed that all hope was lost and revealed his power and love for the Israelites. He parted the Red Sea so that they could pass through and then sent the water back over the Egyptians, drowning them. He provided a miracle to save them. We had the youth reflect on ways that they have seen God come through for them or a dream that was fulfilled.

Then it was time to respond artistically. We had a bunch of images cut out from magazines and had them make collages that represent dreams for their family, career, community, and what kind of person they want to become.

Then we had them take pieces of broken garden pots and write downs dreams that they have had that have been broken. They put the broken pieces at the bottom of the cup and added soil and seeds. We encouraged them to think about what God can grow out of something that seems broken. How do we want God to take our broken dreams and grow something new this summer?

Lastly we had them give us ideas about what type of art they wanted to create this summer. I worked with the theater group. I will get to hear more about how the other groups went later this week.

It was a little bit difficult at first to get them to think about dreams that have been broken or fulfilled. They responded well to the collaging and seemed excited to make it. When it came time to come up with ideas for a theatre skit they actually had a lot of ideas which I wasn’t expecting. They came up with an idea for a story that that is very true to their experiences and relevant to their life.

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