I Will Pour Out My Spirit
"Science" (aka "Object Lesson" or "Demonstration") Workshop

Building a "champagne glass tower" using cheap plastic champagne glasses to demonstrate "pouring out of the Spirit" that flows from glass to glass, person to person.  (See list of possible 'points' below.)

I've done this as a children's sermon and as a classroom activity. It's a classic "object lesson" (demonstration/illustrating with objects) -- the kind of which we often do in a "Science" Workshop.

You can adapt and run with this depending on your age range and time allotted. In the children's sermon version, we didn't have time to write on the plastic glasses.

Use "coupe" style shallow round champagne glasses because they stack nice, don't require a lot of fluid, and your liquid will flow nicely down the stems and round bases.   Notice that the video found different colors which is interesting.

Pour slowly and carefully as the plastic glasses can EASILY shift if you pour too fast.

Pour red colored water for visibility to represent the Spirit.

Start with 4x4 rows and build up.

Things the tower, liquid, pouring, and glasses can be used to discuss...

What does the tower represent? 

It's a visual demonstration of flow, not a heirarchy of who is closer to the Spirit. The glasses at the top are not more important. The bottom is not people who need YOU to receive the spirit. (I demonstrated this by placing individual glasses around the tower for a direct pour.

The flow down the tower can represent how we spread God's Word of Love to more and more people.

Whose glasses have we received from? Write the name of someone who has shared or helped you feel God's Spirit. Whose glasses are we helping to fill?

Blocking a glass. People can refuse to receive the Spirit. I demonstrated this by covering a glass with a 3x5 card and letting the water spill over it. What can we tell, do or show that person about being "open" to the Spirit?

How "open" are you? How full do you feel?

Note:  Feeling empty is a spiritual condition too!  If you Hunger and Thirst for God and you will be filled.  Do we always feel "full"? (no).

Where and how does God pour out his spirit? What things "pour out of" God's Spirit?  (faith, comfort, joy, endurance, justice, mercy, etc)

What if you run from the Spirit? I demonstrated that God's Spirit can follow you, or meet you where you are.

What invitation could you write on your glass to invite God's Spirit into your life?

Write the name of someone you care about that you pray to feel God's life changing comfort and presence?

Empty and reset, then alternately pour TWO OTHER colored liquids to ask about and demonstrate the "other things" God wants to fill our lives with.  (Use yellow and blue which will create green when they mix in the glasses.)

You can also discuss how we ASK God to fill us, and that everything we ask for is something we should also give away (support) in others (faith, strength, peace, desire for justice, kindness, etc.)