The Family Feature Friday this week is “How to Train your Dragon” (2010). It is rated PG and runs 1hr and 38min. It can be purchased or rented HERE. It is a movie about how an awkward, but inventive, viking teenager has to learn how to help his village despite his lack of brute strength. He ends up going on an unexpected journey, befriending a dragon, and teaching the rest of his village how to do the same. As a note, they do reference norse (viking) gods, but in our Christian belief, we affirm one Trinitarian God.
1. Hiccup is the weakest viking of his age, but he vows to slay the most dangerous dragon that no one else has salin. When you were a kid, what grand claims about your future did you make? What did Hiccup do about his promise? What have you done about it?
2. The whole time, Hiccup has told himself that he desired the approval of his father and his village that he can also be a great dragon slaying viking. So why couldn’t Hiccup finally slay the dragon? What did he do to empathize with the traditional enemy of the vikings?
3. After his father disowns him, Hiccup begins to doubt everything about himself. Who is there for him to help encourage him and give him new direction? How important are good friends to help us in our darkest times? How can we be a good friend?
5. Hiccup finally wins his father's trust and approval by the end of the movie. How did he do this? Same question for Astrid? And the rest of his peers? Why didn’t he have it in the first place?
6. Hiccup does not follow quite in his father’s footstep. In the Jesus’ time it was tradition that you either were discipled by a Rabbi (teacher) or you followed the career path of your father. Jesus makes new of this tradition by saying “Follow me”. Everyday we are called to be Jesus’ disciples. How then are our lives different because of the call to follow Christ?