HEAVENLY SUPERHEROES
The idea of this activity is how we can all be superheroes through our connection and faith to God. While fictional heroes have technology or superpowers to save others, our spirituality can help us and others in living better lives. Just as how Iron Man builds new and better suits or the Flash keeps training to become faster, the more we build our spiritual habits, the more well equipped and stronger we become. Heavenly superheroes exist in our lives, whether they may be True Parents, our (main/youth) Pastor, a first gen or BC that we know, or our own family members, who act as an example to lead by and encourage us to grow/help us in our times of need.
1. Start off the activity with a talk pertaining to this idea, mentioning this analogy. You can have one or more staff members give a testimony of a “heavenly superhero” in their life and how they inspired/empowered you to improve your spiritual habits. You can also give a testimony on how your own spiritual habit/”power” has helped you live a better life.
2. Now tell everyone that today, they can become a “heavenly superhero” as well! Present a list of powers to everyone (ex. praying, HDH, living for the sake of others, natural witnessing) and have everyone decide what they want their power to be (this should be an area of their spiritual life that they feel they need to work on/become stronger in) and split off into groups. One or more staff members should be the leader(s) of each group.
3. Discuss with your group about their intention for choosing this power; each person can briefly explain why, as well as how they can become spiritually stronger with this power.
4. Once everyone has discussed, hand each person an index card and any drawing supplies they may need. This shall be their hero ID. Have them create a hero name for themselves and draw their own superhero persona! On the back, they should write down what their power is and intention.
5. Each group is now a hero agency/team specializing in that power! Create an awesome team name for your group!
6. Once your team has been “assembled,” create a group chat with every member of your team. If you’d like, Facebook Messenger has the ability to change the chat name and give nicknames to each person. Make the name of the chat into your team name and set each person’s nickname as their hero name!
7. Tell your team members that you are now officially a hero team! Members should “report into headquarters” and “debrief” how they used their power every day into the group chat. (If your group is focusing on praying every day, then have them report in daily mentioning when and what they prayed about. For HDH, report in mentioning about what they read and what they gained from their reading. etc.) It’s crucial that the leaders of each group remind members to report daily on the chat and that you yourselves also debrief as well! Everyone on the chat is now accountable for another and all working towards building this spiritual habit into their daily lives. When someone reports in for the day, everyone should acknowledge one another as well!
8. Once all group chats have been made, each hero team is now official! Close out the night by having each group present themselves to everyone, with each member of the team declaring who they are (Ex. “I am [Hero Name]!) and then the entire team declaring “We are [Team Name] and our power is [spiritual habit]!” Of course, you can make your team declaration even more awesome if you’d like, whether that be with adding some flair like epic music, or parodying a scene from a superhero movie/show!
9. Starting from the day after, have everyone report into the group chat daily and make sure everyone does. Acknowledge one another too! You can keep continuing throughout the month and even afterwards if this really helps!
Submitted by Yuji Torikai, Bridgeport, Connecticut Community