Goal of this Edge Night
The goal of this Edge Night is to help the youth keep in perspective the things they want and desire in life. If they can recognize the difference between wanting and needing something, they can avoid falling into traps of greed and getting caught up in the materialism of the world.
Edge Night at a Glance
Greed and materialism is a difficult topic for us to explore because it challenges all of us to take stock of what we have, what we want, and how blessed we truly are. We read in Scripture, “Do not love the world of the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). To have material goods is not bad, but the Church warns us that we should not be consumed by the desire to have material goods. Greed and materialism take our focus off of loving God and our neighbor and place it on loving “things.” The focus of tonight will be on differentiating between our needs and our wants – and on sharing the excess that we do have.
For the Edge night tonight, we will start out by making commercials trying to sell something the youth come up with. This will give a glimpse into how we are all convinced we need things that we really do not need. It would be great for someone who has been on a mission trip to give the Proclaim for this night – to
help give the perspective of how blessed people who have less than us truly are. The youth will be creating lists of what they want for their birthday, what they own now that they truly need, and what they own now that they do not really need. Those lists will lead to a reflection on recognizing how much we do have and a challenge to share with those who have much less.