The Hero's Heart

This week is another fun one for me. I get another chance to speak to the youth, granted it is the middleschoolers which is not the level I'm used to anymore. I'm not going to complain! This Sunday we are having a sort of field trip to the local I-MAX theater to see Spiderman 3. This is a bit violent and dark, but as much as I think we should be careful about it I also understand that these kids (at the ages they are) have seen and are dealing with much worse. Plus, this is an awesome opportunity to talk about good and evil as the Spiderman plot is without question steeped in such things. Even the sub-title of the film is about internal battles of good and evil. The real downside is that I can think of 4 very good topics to this movie that could easily require hour long lectures to touch on, but all I have is 20 minutes. I figure (being junior high kids) they will be interested and ready to talk about heroes and villains so we'll stick to that.

Start off talking about comics and heroes a bit, I happen to be an ex-comic junkie so I figure it's safe ground for me to start on and might even get a good connection going. Then we'll approach different questions (that I have answered for myself as a guide) like:

-What makes a hero a hero? The idea here being that we can take time to understand that being a hero is not about having powers but what we choose to do with our lives. Do we choose to help or hurt, good or evil? The powers are really of no consequence to whether we will become heroes or villains.

-What do villains to that make them villains? I need to be careful here because if I'm right their will be at least one boy who will act as though a villain is the better of the two, that it is "cool". So I have ready verses that say otherwise; Romans 12:21, 3 John 1:11, 1 Peter 3:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:22, and Isaiah 5:20.

-What heroes can you name? (and) Are their any heroes alive today? Just some exploring into their thoughts and a few thought provoking answers I hope.

-What about heroes in the Bible? Here I hope to shift the view a bit, back to the Bible and the a Christian view. Detailing figures like Daniel, David, Noah, as well as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Showing how the Word of God has a criteria for heroes and it has nothing to do with special powers, but instead it is about faith in God and right living.

After having defined what makes a hero a hero and the difference between heroes and villains, we can move on into the personal struggle we face with good and evil (which happen to be the same problems that heroes and villains also face). Things like revenge vs. justice, being mean to weaker or unpopular people, being tempted to steal, feeling pressure to lie, being tempted to cheat, or that prideful need to be better than other people that we all have felt at some point in life. At the end of all this I'll be asking whether we can be heroes and how which should act as a summary and a closing to the lesson.

Ultimately, I'm not going for great lengths here because it is the middleschoolers I'm talking to. They might be a lot smarter than this, but they might have a hard time keeping things straight as it is. (I don't have any experience to gauge it will yet.) Even if all we accomplish is to bond a bit and shine a spotlight on ourselves in terms of good and evil I'll be happy and I don't see a reason that this won't occur.

*Edit: I just found out that I'm speaking to more than just the middleschoolers. Some 15+ kids in all, so this will need a bit refinement now. (o.O) Glad I found out ahead of time, I was expecting 3-5 middle school kids only.