Signs

Touchstone Pictures
PG-13

Signs of aliens, or signs of God?
Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan follows up The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable with the summer thriller Signs, starring Mel Gibson. From the previews, you might gather that this movie is about Aliens and crop circles, but the plot really revolves more around faith.

A former priest in Pennsylvania finds a crop circle on his farm, with no explanation. As the movie goes on, more crop circles appear, and people speculate on who formed the crop circles on his farm and all over the world.  Most suspect aliens, and think the purpose of crop circles is to map out a plan of attack on earth.

That is the main plot. While all of this is going on, you learn the priest (Graham) quit the ministry after his wife died (I guess he was Episcopalian). He lost his faith after that event, and the story of her death unfolds during the movie. Along with that, you hear discussions about whether or not there is a God, with this quote from Graham: “You have to decide what kind of person you are. Are you the kind of person who sees signs, miracles? Or are you the kind that thinks its just coincidence.” Without giving any more away, events in the movie follow this question up.

Study questions

• The priest talks about two different kinds of people in the world—what are they? Do you agree with his opinion of two categories of people? Why or why not? Are you the kind of person who believes in miracles, or do you believe we just get lucky sometimes?

• Graham talks about how the people who believe in God will "see those lights out there and have hope. The others will look out there and think it’s a 50-50 chance… but deep down, they will fear." Why would faith remove fear? Why would people who don’t have faith be afraid? How have you/would you react to experiencing a miracle—with fear? Joy?

• Graham gets upset one day during dinner when someone suggests that maybe they should pray, saying, “I don’t want to waste one more minute of my life on prayer.” Is it a waste of time to pray? How often do you take time to pray? How do you pray?

• While Graham claims to believe there is no one out there watching over us, when his son suffers an asthma attack, he is overheard praying to God, “Don’t you dare do this to me again. Not again.” Can you say that there is no God and still blame God when things go wrong? Have you ever known anyone who felt this way before? (to talk about this topic, you could also play the song “Dear God” by XTC, which talks about all the horrible things in the world that God created, so clearly He can’t exist.) 

• When you go through bad things, are you more likely to respond to God in anger, or seeking for help? Do hard times produce faith in you, or make you less likely to believe? Have you ever known anyone who gained faith or lost it because of a tragedy in his or her life?

• Have you ever experienced God before, or witnessed something that you think was God? Would other people call your experience coincidence, God's work or just plain strange? How does it make you feel when people doubt your experience or faith?
  

Biblical texts to use in your discussion
Stories of miracles abound in the gospels. Though the authors never talk about other people doubting Jesus’ power to heal directly, one might imagine that when the story was told, people thought it was just “coincidence” that someone got better on the same day they touched Jesus. Here are some examples of miracle stories:

• Luke 5:17-26 A Paralyzed man is lowered through the ceiling and healed. This passage ends with, “Amazement seized all of them and they were filled with awe, saying ‘we have seen strange things today.’”

• Luke 7:1-10 A Jewish slave is healed from afar.

• Luke 8:40-48 A Woman is healed by touching Jesus’ clothing.

• Matthew 8:1-17 Several healing stories briefly told.

• A good closing to a discussion on seeing the signs of God is found in Isaiah 6:9-10 “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but will never perceive…” When Jesus repeats this prophesy in Matthew 13:14-16, he ends in verse 16 saying, “but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.”

Other ideas
Find youth or adults who have experienced loss and had something positive or healthy come out of it, or something “miraculous” pointing only to God. Ask them to come and talk with your youth about the experience. Realize that with loss comes grieving, anger and other responses or stages. Some people may not be able to identify anything positive or healthy at a given point in grieving.

Resources for helping youth with loss and grief:
Helping Teens Cope with Grief
Teen Age Grief, Inc.

Closing
God is more active in our lives than we often give God credit for. It's tough to see the big picture and understand everything that is going on, but if we look, we can see “Signs” of God—sometimes, even miracles. Close your session with a prayer or song that talks about learning to see God in our lives, such as “Open the Eyes of My Heart.”