Moses and the Burning Steel Wool Bush
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About the lesson:
This is a great visual way to tell the story of Moses and the burning bush. You have a tree covered in very fine steel wool. You then take a 9 V battery and simply touch the steel wall anywhere with the two battery terminals and magic happens. The steel wool begins to sparkle and appears to be on fire. When you’re done the tree looks like nothing has happened to it.
What you need:
- A tree of some sort that is made of metal. You can either rig up something yourself using coat hangers or wire, have a friend that knows how to use a welder make you up something or far easier you can go to Hobby Lobby or some other similar craft store and purchase a household art object that will work.
- A couple of bags of 0000 steel wool which can be purchased at Home Depot or Lowe’s.
- A 9 V battery
Preparation:
- Cover the tree with a layer of steel wool (preferably 0000 grade) by simply unrolling it and wrapping it around the tree. Make sure that all of the wool is connected and touching.
- Cover a table with aluminum foil and place the tree on top of it. Make sure that there are no smoke alarms, heat sensors or sprinklers above or near the tree and that there is plenty of clearance from the top of the tree to the roof. You want at least five or 6 feet. This doesn’t necessarily put off any flame or smoke but it does generate a lot of heat.
- Make sure that you keep the battery away from the steel wool until you’re ready to do the demonstration. One small touch will set it off.
Lesson:
Let me tell you the story of Moses. He was born a Hebrew and as a young child he was saved when his mother put him in a small ark made of reeds and put them in the river Nile where he was rescued by the daughter of Pharaoh. This allowed him to be spared many of the terrible things that were happening to the rest of the Israelites and put him in a position to do great things for God.
He grew up in Pharaoh’s house and for a long time he was trained by the Egyptians but he never forgot where he came from or who the one true God was. Then after 40 years, due to a variety of circumstances he left and went to the backside of the desert and spent another 40 years being a shepherd to some sheep.
But the Bible says that he saw something in the desert that was very odd and that caught his attention. In the middle of the desert there was a bush. This bush was on fire but it was really weird because while it was burning it was not being consumed. It wasn’t going away and so Moses said, “I am going to go see this great sight”. As he approached the Bush he heard the actual voice of God beginning to talk to him which said Moses, “take off your shoes for you are standing on holy ground”.
Now I wasn’t there, and I don’t know exactly what it looked like but I have a feeling that it was pretty impressive and probably looked something like this.
Take the 9 V battery and touch the terminals to various portions of the tree. You will see the entire tree begin to sparkle and appear to catch on fire. It looks very similar to sparklers at Fourth of July. Make sure not to touch the tree while the reaction is happening. It does get quite hot.
God will talk to you in a variety of ways. It may not necessarily be through the burning bush but God will talk to you in some way so be listening. God uses situations and people to talk to us. Maybe it’s your pastor or your teachers are your parents or even good friends that go to church.
Whatever it is, make sure that you are ready to listen whenever God speaks.
If you have any ideas to make this object lesson better or different lesson that we can teach with the same object please let us know. We will post your ideas on the website to make sure that we all get better together.
