Remember those team-building seminars that had you fall backwards into the arms of your co-workers? That trust fall activity was about building trust and forming community, etc. The video below is something like that, but a lot more fun to laugh at.

Let me give you all the background first. In the Sunday a.m. service, I preach a straightforward, classic sermon on faith. Genesis 15 and Luke 8 were used as the main texts, and other examples from the Old and New Testaments were illustrated briefly. In the first text, Abram’s faith was counted to him as righteousness, and the second is the story of the woman with the issue of blood for twelve years. I explained that faith was more than believing, it was about trust. Faith causes us to act. In the Sunday evening service, I read the many examples of how people of faith took action found in Hebrews 11. Then we did the fun stuff.

Each of the volunteers was taken out of the room and kept in isolation, being brought back in one at a time. What they were told was that after being blindfolded, we would be raising them up 5 or 6 feet, and asking them to jump. I told each to have faith that we would be providing for their safety, and they wouldn’t get hurt if they took the leap of faith. In reality, they were never more than about 6 inches off the floor. They could feel the sensation of movement, while at the same time I’m kneeling down. In all the times I’ve done this, I’ve never had a kid not jump. Most fall (as do our 3 people of faith in the video), since they expect to drop several feet to the floor.