5. Heart for Loving

God gave me a heart to love.

LESSON POWER POINT HERE

“Heart for Loving”  Unit: Getting a Sense of God                 

LESSON PURPOSE:  God gave me A heart so i can love others.

EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORK:      Heart for Others

MATERIALS:

  • Pin the Heart on the Child of God - picture of child, heart cutout, tape, blindfold

  • Interactive Lesson Part 1: measuring cup, tape measure, watch                                                                                                      

SONG IDEAS:  

  • Put A Little Love In Your Heart

  • Open the Eyes of My Heart                                                                                                            

PICTURE BOOKS:   

  •  A Love Letter from God by P.K. Hallinan                                                                                                                                  

SCRIPTURE: 

 “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” -John 13:34

“God will fill our hearts with such love that we can embrace the whole world and the whole cosmos.” -Rev. Moon

AS CHILDREN ARRIVE: Choose 1:   

  • Playdoh- put out playdoh and have children make hearts from it! Can also add in heart shaped cookie cutters.

  • Geoboards - Challenge the kids to create a heart shape using rubber bands!

  • Pipe Cleaners - Shape pipe cleaners into people and hearts. Then glue on paper.

INTRODUCE the Lesson (Engage)

WELCOME: SONG, PRAYER, TP Greeting

REVIEW & TRANSITION:

We are learning all about the amazing body God gave us. So far, we learned about our hands (wiggle your fingers), our eyes (place hands in front of eyes like binoculars), our ears (cup hands behind ears), and our mouths (place hands in front of mouth as if shouting). Well today we’re going to learn about our heart (shape hands like heart in front of chest).

ATTENTION GRABBER:

Let’s play “Pin the Heart on the Child of God”. See if you can pin this heart on the child’s chest after spinning around 3 times!

INTRO: How is the heart different from our hands, eyes, ears, and mouth? We can’t see it! Our heart is inside our bodies and we can feel it beating if we put our hands on our chest.

ACTIVITY: choose 1 or more: 

TEACH the Lesson (Explain/Explore)

*TEACHING POINT 1: How much does God love me?

INTERACTIVE LESSON: LESSON POWER POINT HERE

When you hear the word “love”, what do you think about? (Write “love” in a circle on your whiteboard and as the children share, write their ideas on the board around “love”). 

Use this video as a teacher’s reference for the following section:

Do you think we can measure God’s love? Let’s see. Here’s a measuring cup, which is used to measure flour or oil when you’re baking cookies. If we were to measure God’s love, do you think it would fit in this measuring cup? (No!)

Hmm… ok, well I have a tape measure. This is used to measure how long something is. What do you think? Can we measure how high God’s love is with this tape measure? (No!) The bible says God’s love is higher than the Heavens. I don’t think this tape measure is going to reach that high.

The last thing I have is a watch. What does a watch measure? (Time.) Do you think we can measure how long God will love us with a watch? (No!) God will love us forever and ever, so I think this watch is going to run out of batteries before that comes.

God loves us no matter what. God is love. He can’t help but love you because that’s just what He is. And He wants us to be like Him.

*TEACHING POINT 2: God wants us to share his love with others!

INTERACTIVE LESSON:

How can you tell someone loves you? (kisses, hugs, sharing, listening, laughing, helping, being nice) How does it make you feel? If everyone in the world loved each other, this world would be a beautiful and happy place. That is the world God wants for all of us!

There are 2 very important relationships we need to work on in our lives: our relationship with God and our relationship with others. When we learn to love God and love others, we become the reflection of God in this world.

“Love one another” sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It might be easy to love someone you see everyday, like your parents, or someone who is similar to you, like your best friend. But it takes a lot of effort and practice to love others. 

God made so many different types of people in the world. Because we’re so different, sometimes we are unsure how to treat them. They may speak a different language, have a disability, or be different from us in some other way. But God loves everyone, and He wants us to love everyone, also. 

We can only give love when our hearts are full of God’s love. The love we share with others comes from our hearts, which are connected to God.

Discussion:

  • Do you sometimes feel God’s love? How? Or how can we look for God’s love?

  • How can you tell someone loves you?

  • How do you feel when people show you love?

  • How do you think others feel when you show them love?

  • How can we use our heart to love others?

APPLY the Lesson Evaluate

GROUP ACTIVITIES: Choose 1 or 2:

SNACK IDEA:

  • Watermelon shaped like hearts

  • Yogurt and strawberries

  • Red velvet cookies

CONCLUDE the Lesson 

CONCLUSION:

God gave us a heart so we can love others. It might take some time and practice, but when we can love others like God our Heavenly Parent loves us, the world will become a better place.

PRAYER:

Dear Heavenly Parent, you have given us so much to be grateful for. You have blessed us with wonderful families, a great church community, and amazing friends. There are so many people we already love in our lives, but we pray that we can open our hearts and share love with many more people in this world. When we love, we become like You. Aju. Amen.

               

Leena Vincenz-Gavin