18 May 2025

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Bible readings for today

• Acts 11:1-18
• Psalms 148:1-14
• Revelation 21:1-6
• John 13:31-35

Collect

Alleluia, God Eternal; 
love marks your presence. 
Plant in us your love, 
nurture in us your likeness, 
and let us reflect your glory. 
For you are alive and reign with the Father 
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
​one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Love one another (John 13:31-35)

"Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

Pass it onto your neighbour cards

You will need

• Pass it on cards
• Pass it on card instructions
• Pens and crayons etc to decorate

Preparation

• For younger children, you may want to prepare the cards for them and just let them decorate them
• What to doGive each child a set of nine memory cards to decorate, and a piece of coloured card. Glue the sheet to the card. Then decorate the nine cards (see the suggestions below).
• Cut out the individual cards. Let the children keep three each: One for themselves, and two for friends. Get them to give the rest to you, the leader.
• Depending on the structure of your church service, the cards you have collected that the children decorated can be given out to the adult congregation, either in the service, or as they leave the service, or at morning tea.

Quick Questions

• What do you think it means to be ‘given glory’?
• Why should we ‘love each other’? What happens if we don’t?
• Can you think of some examples of how you could ‘love each other’?

Game: Drop the Clanger

A game for younger children
You will need
Something to be the clanger. E.g. a saucepan, a set of keys etc something that makes a noise!

​What to do

• Get the children to sit in a circle. Ask for a volunteer.
• Give the volunteer the ‘clanger’ and get them to walk around the inside of the circle.
• They are to pick someone to join them who then stands up, holds the volunteer’s hand and continue around the circle.
• The new person then chooses someone else who in turn gets up and holds their hand and continues around the circle making a long chain of people.
• Meanwhile, the person holding the clanger is to choose when they want to ‘drop the clanger’. When they do, everyone in the chain is to run and sit back down in the circle. The last to sit down then becomes the person with the clanger for the next round.

Unpacking the story

In today’s story, Jesus was telling the disciples about what was going to happen to him at Easter. It sounded a little confusing didn’t it? (pause for answers) well; I think that it would have been confusing for the disciples too!
But Jesus did tell them something that was really clear: You must love each other, just as I have loved you. Can anyone tell me what they think that means? (Pause) Well, I think what Jesus meant was that we should treat other people how we would like to be treated. That means that if you like people to listen to you when you talk, then you should do the same when people are talking to you.
Can you think of any other times when it would be important to treat others the same as you want to be treated? (Pause) 
Well, today we are going to make some pass it on cards to remind us to treat people how we would like to be treated. We might even make enough to hand out to people in church today!

Visio Lectio

​A beautiful image from the Visio Lectio project, created by the Anglican Diocese of Auckland. © Sarah West. All Rights reserved, shared with permission. ​
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Playdough Prayers

Give the kids two colours of playdough and getting them to think of someone they find difficult to love. One colour is them and one the other person. As they ask God to help them love and accept this person, mix the two colours together, blending them.
​Source: Flame Creative

Gospel Conversations

This week we are given just a handful of verses from John's Gospel to ponder, yet the themes within them of Glory and Love could keep us thinking for the rest of our lives. Chris Holmes, Jenny Dawson and Anne van Gend join Michael Godfrey to get us started.

Other ideas

Spreading hearts prayer
​Fizzing hearts​

Media

Psalm 148

Sons of Korah have a song about Psalm 148, which sets these beautiful words to music. You can use this song for:

• Worship  times
• Prayer reflection (it's quite upbeat!) but this youtube video has some great visuals. Play the song and then encourage the church to think of other things they want to praise God for. 
• Background music to set the scene or introduce today's learning, or using a game such as musical statues
• A song of celebration -- give children streamers, instruments and flags to dance and sing along
• A song for families to play at home during the week to reflect on the Psalm 148