You may not like it that students forgot your talk on temptation, but remembered your mouse trap object lesson . . .

. . . but the fact remains that nothing brings a lesson to life more vividly and concretely?or wakes up a drowsy Sunday school class faster?than a good object lesson. In Everyday Object Lessons for Youth Groups the authors (who are youth workers and teachers of youth workers) pool their most effective 45 object lessons into a collection that's perfect for both junior and senior high youth groups.

Here are no-prep and low-prep object lessons for devotionals, Sunday school lessons, talks at camps and retreats?even for sermons. Inside you'll find object lessons about?

• beauty (using a kiwi fruit)
• regret (a mirror)
• divine protection (sun block)
• anger (Alka-Seltzer and 7-Up)
• the power of words (popsicle sticks)
• priorities (manure)
• confession (hydrogen peroxide)
• temptation (a mousetrap)
• the person of Jesus (keys)
• conformity (Play-Doh)
• endurance (bricks)

?and 34 more quirky and attention-getting object lessons. Use them to open your lessons . . . to dramatize your talks . . . to close your Bible studies with a demonstration. However you use them, you have Bible references and provocative discussion-starting questions with each object lesson to help you take it in any direction you want. And with both a topical and a scriptural index, you can find the perfect object lesson fast.

Learning from Hard Knocks

The topic: Learning the hard way, repentance

The object: Get one or two battery-operated or wind-up trucks or cars that move in one direction until they bump into an obstacle and then reverse directions. When you do this object lesson with your group, you may want to seat your students in a circle so the cars operate within the circle. Then, while the cars are bumping into your students and reversing direction, you can present the object lesson.

The lesson: These cars are a combination of batteries, aluminum, teeny rubber tires, a few metal sprockets, and an inch or two of wire. But what makes the toy so intriguing is that it never gives up?it never stops running, even when it crashes into an obstacle?and when it does, it?s smart enough to turn around and choose another course.

Sometimes when we?re in pursuit of a worthy goal, we find we have to keep moving ahead, even when we run into obstacles. Then perseverance is a good thing. But more often we run into obstacles and crash into stuff because we?ve gotten off course. In cases like that, to keep banging our heads against the wall is a bad thing. Sometimes God uses the negative circumstances and hard knocks in our lives to get our attention so we can see our need to turn around.

The Word: Exodus 7-11 (note especially how Pharaoh, hard-hearted and hard-headed, was willing to endure all kinds of plagues before he would release the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt as God had commanded.): 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
-- See also Acts 9:1-18; Luke 15:11-24; Proverbs 14:12

Discussion starters

1. Why do we keep doing things that get us nowhere and continue to hurt us?

2. Why do you suppose Pharaoh, who had already agreed to let the people of Israel go, decided to wait one more day to do so even though it meant spending one more night with the frogs (see Exodus 8:2-10)? Why is it some people never learn except in the school of hard knocks?

3. When you?re facing an obstacle, how do you know whether you should try harder or turn around?

4. What are some of the walls we run into when we get off the course of God?s will?

5. How is changing course, or turning around, like what the Bible says about repentance?

6. What is the difference between regret and repent (see 2 Corinthians 7:9-10)?

Life changers

1. Are there any obstacles in your life that God might be using to change your course (lousy relationships with parents, problems with friends, trouble with the law, bad health, bad grades, guilt)?

2. What are some of the reasons that you might be choosing to spend another night with the frogs?

3. Enduring the plagues, living in a pig sty, kicking against the goads?all these once seemed right. Do you need to rethink the course you?re on today and turn around? What would it take to get you to change your course?

Quick Object Lesson Locators
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All about object lessons & how to use them

No-prep & low-prep
Everyone has this stuff lying around the house. At worst, you can pick up the objects cheap at the grocery store, drug store, Home Depot, or Toys-R-Us.

Some prep, for big results
You may have to make a phone call or two to get your hands on these objects. Then again, they just might be sitting in your closet or garage.

Serious prep for special events If you have these objects around the house, you\'re either a crackpot or a felon. To borrow them, you\'ll need to put on your suave salesperson persona. Or have a connection. But the dynamite effect on your kids is worth the considerable preparation. You\'ll probably want to save these for big or special events.