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Living a Life of Love: Our Relationships and Our Choices

By Fr Michael and Vickie Anderson

This children’s study unit is designed to be used in conjunction with the teen study unit “What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything!”.

This unit is intended to accomplish the following:

1. To provide participants with a foundation and vocabulary from which they can explore the Church’s teachings on various contemporary moral issues.

2. To give participants an opportunity to discuss and explore their relationships with themselves, God, the Church, their family, their friends, and others.

3. To foster within participants a deep conviction that their relationship with God and His Church is central to every other relationship in their life.

4. To instill within participants the connection between their relationships and their own ethical and moral issues.

5. To help participants recognize that all people are called by God to love Him and each other.

By the end of this unit the student should be able to

  1. share their ideas and feeling about their relationship with God, His Church, themselves, their family, friends, and others.
  2. list descriptions of love found in the Bible.
  3. identify God as the One who loves all people and who teaches us to love Him and each other.
  4. briefly explain how God has made each of us special and loves us no matter how badly we behave.
  5. explain that God gives us our family to teach us how to love.
  6. compare aspects of true and false friendship.
  7. define the biblical word “neighbor” as all the people God created.
  8. discuss how the Church is the “ark of salvation”.
Sessions:
  1. Our God is the loving God
  2. The person that God made me to be
  3. God Gave Me My Family
  4. Being a Real Friend
  5. Loving People that do not Like me
  6. My Church, My Lifeboat

Age and grade level

This unit is designed to be used with children and youth ages 7-12.

Understanding that church school, vacation church schools, and church camps have participants ranging in age from elementary to junior high school, each session contains a number of options from which the teacher can choose to best serve his or her students. These options include objectives as well as ideas for discussion, reflection, and activities. Each session identifies activities for two separate age groups “A” and “B.” All areas labeled A include ideas for use with 7-9 year olds. Ideas labeled B are for use with 10-12 year olds. For ideas on how to discuss these issues with teens review the companion study unit “What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything!”

The teacher should review these options ahead of time and determine which one, or ones, would most benefit his or her students.

Reproducing this unit

This unit is designed to be reproduced locally. Each teacher and staff member should have his or her own copy.

If you do desire to obtain more copies contact the Orthodox Christian Publications Center at P.O. Box 588, Wayne, NJ 07474-0588, 201/694-5782, or fax 201/305-1478.

Basic Materials

Lists of needed materials are provided in each session. The teacher, however, should have a large writing surface (butcher paper or newsprint), construction paper, large markers, tape, post-it notes or index cards, and bibles appropriate to the age of the students.

Leaders’ notes

Your preparedness and your interest in the subject and in the participants are invaluable. If you think what you do together is important, the example will rub off on them. You are a major influence on them, either positive or negative. Remember, your actions and your attitude will teach them more than any activity in this study unit.

Begin and end each session with a prayer [O Heavenly King, It is Truly Meet]. It is important that participants understand that any task, including learning, is always achieved when we continually call on God for strength and guidance. Check with your parish priest about what prayers would be most appropriate.

Please read, pray, and think about each session well before you present it. You may need to gather materials, consult with your priest, or get resources from the parish or public library. Also, throughout the unit there are sections where the leader is instructed “to say” certain things. The leader should be familiar and comfortable enough with the session to be able to say these things in their own words. Reading segments of the session outlines directly from the page will quickly destroy an honest and open discussion.

This unit can be used in church schools, church camps, and vacation church schools. If your program is not long enough to cover all the sessions try to complete at least sessions 1-5 which deal with the core issues of Christ-like love and the Christian life.

Finally, be flexible and creative!

This study unit demands local input, talent, and creativity. Do not be afraid to alter the sessions to fit your own circumstances. The more you can make this material available and appropriate for the children in your group, the more successful we all will be!