Our focus value this half term is love, and we are exploring what love means to us.
We have discussed different types of love:
- Love for our parents/carers and siblings
- Love for our friends
- Romantic love (the hearts and flowers type of love)
- Love for our favourite food
- Love for our pets
We discussed agape love – a Greek word which speaks of unconditional and selfless love. We shared 1 Corinthians 13 which describes love. It describes love being about action. It tells us what love is and what love is not!
1 Corinthians 13:1-8a
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
We then thought about examples of ‘love in action’ in the Bible. We started with a Christian key verse, found in John 3:16.
Exploring other events in the Bible, or teachings of Jesus, we thought about these examples of love in action. We talked about how the people’s life experiences , even though briefly shared, revealed the ‘ows’, ‘wows’ and ‘nows’ of life.
We talked about ‘outcasts’ – those treated differently because of where they were born, the job they did, or an illness they may have had.
- Healing the blind
- Calling Matthew the tax collector
- Taking time for people others didn’t care for
- Feeding the 5000
We thought about stories from other cultures showing love in action, sharing The Monkey Bridge. It is the fable of how a human king’s greed puts a tribe of monkey’s in danger, while a monkey king’s sacrifice restores peace to his kingdom.
Over to us!
How can we show love in action in our school, our homes and our community? This is what we are continuing to share and discuss.
Some ideas so far:
- Support the homeless
- Be more eco-friendly (aware)
We are exploring ideas and actions in class so watch this space and join us as we actively demonstrate love in action.