Girls' Brigade New Zealand

Hold up the picture of Jesus and Paul walking on water.  Who can spot what is weird about this picture?  Hopefully they figure out that its weird to have people appearing to be walking on the water instead of sinking, especially as having the boat there shows that it is deep water.  They might also mention the clothes are weird, which you can agree that yes this picture is from a story that happened long ago in a different place with a different culture where they wore different clothes.  

 

I’ve got another water experiment to show you this week.  We are going to try and make paperclips walk on water.  Drop a paper clip into a bowl of water, express disappointment when the paper clip sinks.  Naturally paper clips sink, just like naturally people don’t walk on water. 

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Now I have an idea, what if we make a paperclip holder?  Bend paperclip into L shape.  Put a new paper clip onto the seat of the supporting paperclip and gently release the paper clip into the water.  Watch this video and try this prior to familiarise yourself.

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Sometimes in life we need to have a holder to help us do what seems impossible or hard too.  We couldn’t walk on water ourselves, but maybe if we have a holder like the paper clip did who would support us and help us we could do impossible things.  Did you know that there is a Bible verse that says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.  So Jesus Christ is just like the paperclip holder and will support us when we are doing things that we are scared off or things that we think are too hard.  Sometimes we need to ask him to help us to remind ourselves that he is there with us.  This is a very cool promise, as I know that each one of us will sometimes have things happen in life that aren’t very nice, just like a storm.  So it’s great to know that we have a God that cares for us and will help us.  You may like to do an extension and talk about what might happen to the paperclip (and people) if you are relying on the wrong kind of holder i.e. other people instead of God.  Try bending a holder paper clip into different shapes and then roughly put the paperclip into the water so that it doesn’t float.  There is also an extension on how doubt sometimes creeps in and knocks us.  This can be shown with by adding dishwashing liquid to the water.  It breaks up the water molecules that are holding up the water.  How could doubt stop you from being brave and doing what God designed you to do?

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Read the story of Peter walking on water.