For families with little ones (preschool age), this could be a 3-5 minute talk! It doesn’t have to be much. For older children, you can opt in for more of these options to extend your study time together. I recommend doing this with (especially little) children over a meal – whichever meal is the least chaotic in your home (for my family right now, that’s lunch), or saving the questions for while you’re on a walk or playing outside together. Have fun!
1. Read the scripture together: Matthew 22:34-40. The important thing is that you’re reading scripture together! If you’re looking for different ways to engage your children while reading, here are some fun ways to read scripture as a family
Every Reader takes a verse
Ask each child to pick two words they don’t understand to talk about after you read it. (For longer scriptures and younger children, you may need to split up the reading in order to do this.)
Draw a picture of what you read
Act it out as a family (And please send documentation of this to children.sjumc@gmail.com because we could all use a laugh right now!)
Sing it!
Use Legos or dolls to tell the story
2. Tell your kids this scripture tells the story of “The Greatest Commandment.” Jesus says that the most important rule is that we love God with all of our heart and our being, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves.
3. Discussion Questions (as always, pick and choose which questions you’d like to discuss!):
Who is our neighbor? Does Jesus mean our next-door neighbor or people in our neighborhood, or maybe something more?
Do our neighbors look like us, speak like us, act like us all the time?
What does it mean to you to love your neighbor like you would love yourself?
If the most important commandment is to Love God and love others, what does that mean?
Does it mean the other rules you have in your family, or school, or you read about in the Bible, aren’t important? (To me it means that every other rule should be thought about in terms of “is this loving God or loving our neighbors”?)
When do you feel loved? When do you feel the strongest love for God?
Are these rules easy or hard to follow? How so?
4. Close in Prayer: God, thank you for making your greatest commandment so clear to us! We love you, and we will try to show EVERYBODY Your Love, even if they’re different than us. Maybe ESPECIALLY when they’re different from us! Help us think about LOVE when thinking about other rules and our choices every day. WE LOVE YOU! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
~ Erynne DeVore, director of Children’s Ministry