High School SS :: Loyalty Bracket

In Sunday School the last few weeks, we've been talking about Loyalty.  Its cool how God works.  Sarah had decided that A PORTION of our Sunday School time would be debating which biblical character was the most loyal (excluding God and Jesus).

She gave them all a few minutes and told each student to pick a character and write one or two reasons why they are the most loyal character.  The students came up with many good ones, Moses, the Disciples, Ruth, Jonathan, Hosea, Abraham, John the Baptist, and Job.  It was by no means an exhaustive list, but it was a good list.

In the spirit of March Madness, I decided to make this into a tournament-style bracket.  The students would present their person, then debate which character would win that match.  The ultimate winner in our bracket was Hosea.

What happened next was awesome.  The bracket challenge took our whole time.  Now, I don't know who real winner should have been...I would not have picked Hosea over many of these others...but the winner wasn't the point.  These students were engaged in a way that I've never seen them on a Sunday morning.  There was a lot of talk, and even after Sunday School, there was tons of talk about why Hosea shouldn't have won.

It was really cool!  The bracket ended up lasting the whole Sunday School time.  The students will remember this for a long time, and they've now taught each other these characters and their stories.  Nothing is more powerful than students teaching students!