TED and Theology - 6 week study for youth
By
Jen Kidwell
TED talks are a great resource for generating conversation in groups. Experts speak about their life’s work and their deepest passions; it’s easy to connect with many of these speakers and to use their mini-lectures as springboards of reflections on a whole host of issues. I love to use resources like TED talks for both youth group and adult engagement for many reasons:
This is a guide for how to use 6 popular TED talks to engage youth, ages 6th-12th grade. The talks I feature are:
Each lesson includes the following components:
As is often the case, there will be more questions in the discussion section than you can realistically use, but each talk has multiple jumping-off points for great conversations and I wanted to provide plenty of options so that this usable across many different groups. You could expand some of these talks into multi-session discussions, depending on the interest of your group and themes you want to highlight. I’ve occasionally suggested multiple scriptures and you can either use all of them, or to choose the one that best fits the direction you intend to take the conversation.
I’ve tried to include decent representation across gender, sexuality, race, and age though if you’d like to feature additional brilliant Black speakers, the following lectures are amazing, and you can review the introduction in the preview to learn more about why I didn't include them in this series:
You’ll notice that Brene´ Brown is missing from this list. This is because I love her talks too much, and am building a full 2020 Lenten series for my youth around shame, vulnerability, and confession! I’ll use her two wonderful talks though the study won’t be exclusively TED talk reflections! If you’re hoping to use one or both of her talks in this series, I also included “The power of vulnerability” in my adult TED study, so you can listen to the audio devotion that comes with that study if you’d like my reflections on the talk in light of Ephesians 3:14-21.
I hope this format inspires you to expand the study and investigate how to use the great resources of TED talks to enhance the connection and growth in your ministry!
- It introduces participants to leaders, speakers, voices, and ideas that they might not otherwise learn about
- In youth groups especially, it gives leaders the opportunity to model how to put the “secular” ideas and advice given in TED talks in conversation with scripture and the history and traditions of the church
- It translates well to a virtual setting
This is a guide for how to use 6 popular TED talks to engage youth, ages 6th-12th grade. The talks I feature are:
- Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work (Matthew 5: 3-12)
- Erica Chenoweth: The success of nonviolent resistance (Matthew 5:38-41 and/or Mark 12:28-34)
- Takaharu Tezuka: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen (selections from Proverbs)
- Drew Dudley: Everyday Leadership (Romans 12:4-8)
- Mena Fombo: No. You cannot touch my hair! (Romans 14:13-19 and Matthew 7:12)
- Dylan Marron: Empathy is not endorsement (1 Peter 3:8-16)
Each lesson includes the following components:
- Link to the TED talk (youtube)
- A summary for group leaders
- A meditation/devotional prep for group leaders, which can be incorporated into the discussion as desired
- A few warm up questions to use before you watch the talk as a group
- Reflection questions and scripture engagement for your discussion
As is often the case, there will be more questions in the discussion section than you can realistically use, but each talk has multiple jumping-off points for great conversations and I wanted to provide plenty of options so that this usable across many different groups. You could expand some of these talks into multi-session discussions, depending on the interest of your group and themes you want to highlight. I’ve occasionally suggested multiple scriptures and you can either use all of them, or to choose the one that best fits the direction you intend to take the conversation.
I’ve tried to include decent representation across gender, sexuality, race, and age though if you’d like to feature additional brilliant Black speakers, the following lectures are amazing, and you can review the introduction in the preview to learn more about why I didn't include them in this series:
- Bryan Stevenson’s “I want to talk about an injustice” [note: included in Adult TED study]
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The danger of a single story” [note: included in Adult TED study]
- Megan Ming Francis’ “Let’s get to the root of racial injustice”
- Kimberle´ Chrenshaw’s “The urgency of intersectionality”
You’ll notice that Brene´ Brown is missing from this list. This is because I love her talks too much, and am building a full 2020 Lenten series for my youth around shame, vulnerability, and confession! I’ll use her two wonderful talks though the study won’t be exclusively TED talk reflections! If you’re hoping to use one or both of her talks in this series, I also included “The power of vulnerability” in my adult TED study, so you can listen to the audio devotion that comes with that study if you’d like my reflections on the talk in light of Ephesians 3:14-21.
I hope this format inspires you to expand the study and investigate how to use the great resources of TED talks to enhance the connection and growth in your ministry!
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