I'm writing a sermon on "Hope" for a Youth service tomorrow night at Wallingford. I've been given Romans 5:1-8 as the passage. The talk is coming together but suggestions are welcome, really looking for some creative stuff to run as a Powerpoint back drop though, anyone?
A short story which is apparently true is about some scientists doing experiments on Rats. They put spme rats in a tank of water and then timed how long it woukd take for them to give up swimming and die. They lasted a couple of hours. They then di the sam e experiment with the same typw of rats but this time every time they looked like they were going to give up they would pick them outy for a few seconds then drop them back in. Apparetly they lasted around 24 hoours!! The hope that they would be saved kept them going!! This goes dwn realy well with a group of veggies!!
For added visual effec t you could even reproduce the experiment live!!
Totally unoriginal - but it looks very much like a case of, "it's Friiiiiiiday, but Sunday's comin'!"
Could you do some kind of Jim'll fix it rip off game - wishes coming true, etc, and point out the difference between wishing for something and hoping for something?
Hope it goes well! k :)
don't know whether this is in time to be of any help:
you could show pictures of people who have been reduced to nothing but hope in someone else - hostages, the tsunami surivors etc. people who have had nothing left but their hope in something greater and life after the event. maybe they didn't rejoice in their suffering but they kept the hope that they were going to make it alive, just as we keep the hope of heaven even when things are difficult.
just my random ramblings...