A Beautiful Tune

Materials
1. Eight (8) glasses of the same shape and size to be placed on a large table. Glass dinner glasses or wine glasses work best.
2. Source of water. (Can be a bucket or large jug)
3. Bowl with small peices of shredded paper
4. Pencil
5. towel
6. Permanent Marker or marker that can write on glass (for preparation)

Preparation
1. Before the talk, number the glasses from 1-8 for easy reference.
2. Fill the eight glasses with water so that they produce a musical scale of a single octave. Use a piano, guitar or another instrument to tune the glasses (Add or remove water until you have got them right all at thge right pitch). Chck the pitch by lightly tapping each glass with a wooden pencil
3. Mark of a line on each of the glasses where the water level should be so that later all you need to do is fill them to the line
4. Set the materials out for the talk.

Activity
1. Allow eight of the children each to fill a glass with water from the container right up to the mark on the glass.
2. Help them to adjust the water level if it is too little or too much
3. After the glasses are filled, tell the class that the way to find out if the group had done a good job is to play a simple tune (such as "Doe A Deer A Female Deer" or "Mary had a little lamb") by striking the glasses lightly with the pencil.
4. After playing the tune, praise the children for a job well done.
5. Now empty the glasses into the water container and repeat the whole process with another group of 8 children. 6. Again test the results by playing a tune.
7. You can repeat several times with different children, but for the last group you will do something different. When the last team comes on, plant a volunteer within it, whose job is to fill his/her cup not with water but with pieces of paper from the bowl.
8. Now, try to play a tune from the glasses. The tune will be missing one of the notes. One glass will be out of tune.

Application
1. Ask the class what was wrong with the music in the the last team (it did not sound right, something was wrong with it, etc.).
2. Ask the children to identify the cause of the problem and listen to their answers. Someone will likely answer that one of the glasses was filled not with water but with paper.
3. Affirm their answers and say, "You know, our God is big and wonderful, ready to give us all kinds of blessings; but we often feel empty, alone, and sad like those empty glasses. "
4. "God is like this water. If we invite God to come into our lives, He can make a great difference in us. It's like filling those empty glasses with water. When God is in our lives, he can use our lives to bring music and joy to others. "
5. "But if we fill our lives with things other than God, such as toys, television, playing with friends, school that become more important to us than God, we will not bring music and joy to others. Instead we will bring dischord and noise. It's like trying to play a tune from a glass filled only with paper. It’s no wonder we don’t feel much of God's love and joy and wisdom in us. Watch carefully what you are filled with -- God or the things of this world.”