Love, Love, Love

Yes, Valentine's Day has passed us yet again, and I meant to post some teaching ideas up before the event, but...anyway, better late than never!

It's always good to reflect on the notions of love with teenagers and get them to consider how love might be viewed differently from different perspectives, such as secular, Christian, Muslim, etc. This is particularly relevant for teenagers as they are going through an important phase in their lives when they try to figure out how relationships work.

The following activity could be done at any time of the year, not just Valentine's Day:

Love and Spiritual Food
This year, I found this rad t-shirt at Kmart:

It appears to be a crossword made up of random words/thoughts/concepts to do with love. I used it as a lesson hook with my pastoral care class, to see who could work out the most number of words.

We went on to brainstorm the Fruits of the Spirit, as found in the Bible (Galatians 5:22-26): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control (whew! Thank God for Sunday School songs that helped with memorisation!).

I then got them to answer 2 questions as a means of self-reflection and to help with caring for others in the class:

1. Which fruit(s) do you think you possess the most of?
2. Which fruit(s) would you like more of?

NB: another additional hook to this activity is to get the kids to name as many songs as they can think of with "love" in the title, and then get them to collate their results and conclude what impressions of love are presented through music (passion, lust, jealousy, etc.).