Tapestry of Faith: Heeding the Call: A Program on Justicemaking for Junior High School Youth

Alternate Activity 1: Forgiveness Recipe

Activity time: 15 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Cookbooks (one for every small group)
  • Pens and paper

Description of Activity

Youth explore what makes up forgiveness.

Create small groups. Give each group a cookbook, paper, and pens. Tell them they will work together to create a Forgiveness Recipe. Ask them to look at the cookbook for a few minutes to familiarize themselves with what is included in a recipe. Explain that they will now use the basic elements of a recipe to create their own Forgiveness Recipe and that they will share their recipes with the larger group after about ten minutes. You can ask everyone to create a recipe to seek forgiveness or to give forgiveness or ask half of the groups to do one and the other half, the other.

When they share their recipes, ask them to notice anything that all of the recipes share. Ask them to pay attention to anything unique about a recipe. Invite participants to explain why they chose what they included in their recipes. Ask if it is helpful to explore forgiveness as a step-by-step process that is similar to using a recipe? Is this an approach they can use in everyday life? Just for fun, ask if forgiveness were a food, what kind of food would it be?