Sweet grapes or Sour grapes?

Materials
Place a bowl of seedless grapes in the middle of the room. There should be enough grapes for everyone to have one. You may have additional grapes to be used as a snack.

Activity
Ask everyone to sit in a circle around the bowl. Have each person to look into the bowl and choose a grape, remove it from the bowl, and study it carefully.
* How did this grape grow?
* What is the purpose of this grape?
* What determines a bad grape from a good grape?
Have everyone return their grapes to a different bowl. (These might not be edible again after they touch them and possibly mangle them) Mix up the grapes and see if the youth can find their original grapes.
* Are you sure it is the same grape?
* How can you tell?
* What special marking or color does your grape have?
* Who has the best grape? Why?
* In what ways are we like these grapes?

Debrief
Like the grapes, no two of us are alike, but we all have the same purpose in life: To abide and reproduce. What determines a good or bad grape is what lies beneath the skin. The skin doesn’t matter. A grape may be nutritious, good, tasty, sweet, sour, rotten, worm eaten, hard or soft. People may have sour personalities, rotten, eaten inside by sin, hard hearts or soft hearts. Other people may be sweet, good, a delight to be around, and beneficial to others.

Application
The vine, the roots of the vine, water, sun, circumstances, and drawing from the vine what it needs all determine what the grape will be like. In the same way, the source from which we fulfill our needs, the Living Water in our lives, the SON, and circumstances all affect what we are like. How consistently we draw from our Source (abide) also affects us. Circumstances and sin may cause us to be bruised or if it becomes sin becomes the primary characteristic of who we are we become rotten or sour. (See John 15)