As students join your group time, hand each person a sheet of crisp paper. Do not give students any specific instructions other than to let them know that they will be making a paper airplane out of this sheet of paper. Scissors are not necessary; however, you may want to have a few pairs of scissors available for students who want to cut their papers smaller, etc. Do not let students have additional sheets of paper to retry making their airplanes if they fail to fly. One try is all they get.
Draw a target on the whiteboard or set up some other object in the room as a focal point. Let students know that their objective is to fly their paper from a certain spot and have it land on or near the target/object. Give each student only one try to throw their paper airplane and attempt to have it land on or near the target. Forming a line may be the most efficient way to orchestrate this part of the activity.
Regroup. Ask students to raise their hands if they think they succeeded at creating a paper airplane that flew well and also if they were able to come close to flying their airplane near the target. Next, ask the students who were not successful and experienced failure at making and flying their airplane to explain what they think went wrong.
Making a paper airplane and getting it to fly properly is not an easy task. Some of us experienced success; others experienced failure. Thankfully, this activity doesn’t have much of a consequence either way. It was just for fun and to see if we could accomplish something.
In life, failures often have severe consequences. Failure can lead to feelings of inadequacy and even depression if they happen repeatedly. The following video clip is about famous people who started out failing miserably. Put yourself in their shoes and think about how you might have felt if you were the one failing. Would you have been able to try again?
Share this video with your students [2:19]:
CELEBRITIES WHO FAILED
Ask:
- Whose failure surprised you the most? (Answers will vary.)
- Why is it good to deal with failure but also keep trying? (Answers will vary. Giving up and quitting are not how people get ahead in life.)
- How do you think Einstein and Beethoven’s parents felt when they were told their child would not succeed? (Answers will vary. Obviously, these parents did not give up on their children.)
- What can you learn about failure from this video? (Answers will vary, but may include, failure doesn’t have to be the end of your story.)
Today we’ll look at ourselves and our failures and discover we don’t have to be perfect or successful to find Jesus’ favor. Let’s dig into today’s lesson and look at how this concept can affect our lives.