Relying on God's Strength

Materials
You'll need a Bible and enough canned goods for each person to have two cans. You can also use barbells, bricks, stones or other heavy objects. 1 liter water bottles willed with water are also effective.

Activity
Give every person two cans, and have them hold the cans with their arms straight out from their bodies. Challenge the youth to hold their arms this way for one minute. At the end of a minute, note how many students still have their arms out.

Debrief
· Was that easier or more difficult than you thought it would be? Why?
· What would make the task easier-aside from setting the cans down?
· In what ways does God give us strength?
· How does this apply to us when issues or circumstances weigh us down or overwhelm us?

Continue
Have students form pairs, and have one partner hold his or her arms out again, holding the cans This time, ask the other partner to help by holding up his or her partner's arms under the biceps. How much longer can they last now?

Application
We may not have the strength to do things on our own, but with God's strength we can do anything. Sometimes God's way of giving strength to us is through members of the body of Christ supporting and giving help to each other.

Variation
Use a stopwatch and hold a competition to see which class representatives can hold an object out to the side the longest.

This test of strength reminds us that our strength is limited, but God and other Christians can give us the strength to do the things we cannot do ourselves.