Youth Weekend: First Bible Stories and Learning to Ask Questions
During the youth weekend, the first stories of the Bible were read and the young people learned to ask questions.
This year’s last youth weekend took place on the last weekend of November in Haapsalu. The theme was “What if Lucifer wasn’t lying?” and the youth leader was our union missionary Daniel Meder.
Meeri Pajula, the youth leader of the union, explained that this question was chosen as the theme after discussions with Daniel. “I have already met him and heard what he has to say, and since I really liked how he talked about the logic of the Bible and what the Bible actually teaches and how we should understand it, we chose the same focus,” said Meeri, adding that the idea behind the title was to suggest that the purpose of the youth Bible school is to ask questions and think about whether, when we read and learn about the Bible, we really understand what we believe.
Meeri emphasized that it is important to ask strange questions and think them through. “The idea of this weekend was to find connections between stories and create understanding so that young people’s faith could be something that really speaks to them, not just information they hear.”
Together we studied the stories from the beginning of the Bible: the creation of the world, Cain and Abel, the flood, and a little bit of the stories of Abraham and Job. We looked at where the theme of the great battle comes in and what is happening between God and Satan behind the scenes of our world. On Sunday, we finished learning and practicing the inductive Bible study method. We read the story of Cain and Abel in small groups and asked questions,” said Meeri. “The young people participated well in the discussion and asked their questions after reading—they were sincere questions, and there was no sense of ‘how can I not know this’ or ‘how can I ask this’. The important thing was to ask questions and think through these stories for themselves. When we read the Bible and don’t understand it, the main goal is to come to understand that these stories and God’s plan are logical.”
In addition to the discussions led by Daniel, the young people listened to presentations by Hanna-Liisa Schönberg. “Hanna-Liisa spoke from her own life about how she has grown in her relationship with God,” said Meeri. “This tied in nicely with Daniel’s idea that faith can become our own.”
As is usual at youth events, in addition to spiritual food, there were also fun and interactive activities. On Friday evening, there were games and a quiz based on the Bible stories that Daniel had started to talk about – to get everyone ready. On Saturday afternoon, in keeping with the Advent season, there was a gingerbread building competition, in which teams participated.
Sunday began with an inspirational morning, where Tiina Rätsepso spoke about her Arise experience and Meeri introduced other opportunities for young people to get involved, such as the One Year in Mission program and next year’s youth congress.
Each young person received a bookmark with the verse Romans 14:5, which says that everyone should be confident in their own thinking. “This is a reminder of the idea behind our weekend, that if we believe, we should be confident in our faith, that we have thought it through and feel that it is our own. This bookmark is a reminder to let this idea sink in,” said Meeri.
The next youth weekend will be February 13-15. Information about it will be available closer to the date.