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Reply to "Different Ways to Teach each Beatitude -by Ann Liechty and Phyllis Wezeman"

The Beatitudes:          link back to summary

 

The Sixth Beatitude:

Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (NKJV)

 

Article eight of eleven part series:

 

by Anna L. Liechty & Phyllis Vos Wezeman

 

Summary:

Twelve methods, with two suggestions for each, offer a variety of useful and practical ideas for exploring and developing activities and for tailoring experiences related to the lesson’s focus.

 

This article continues an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11), including an overview of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), an overview of the eight statements, an in-depth look at each Beatitude, and a concluding summary. Christian Educators, as well as pastors, will find helpful materials for teaching children, youth, and adult classes.

 



Architecture

 

Invite an architect to discuss the planning and design for building a staircase. Relate the idea of building steps to the process of becoming pure in heart. Suggest steps for growth toward purity of heart such as meditation, prayer, action, reflection, and openness.

Research the refining process used to produce metals suitable for construction. If possible visit refineries or other locations where metals are prepared for use in the building trades. Connect the refining and preparation processes with the Christian life that is based on God’s refining process for hearts.


Art


Find different stamps of heart shapes. Use the stamps to decorate stationery and add the words from Matthew 5:8 as the inscription.

Use bars of ivory soap to carve a heart shape and inscribe the words from the sixth Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Point out that Ivory Soap is 99 and 44/100% pure.


Banners/Textiles


Make a heart-shaped “no-sew” fleece pillow as a reminder of the sixth Beatitude. Cut two identical heart shapes from fleece. On one fleece heart, use a ruler and chalk or disappearing ink pen to draw a heart four inches from the edge of the fabric. Measure from the cut edge to the drawing, and draw lines for fringe approximately one inch wide and four inches long. Stack the hearts with the chalk-lined one on top. Cut the fringe through both layers. Begin at the bottom point of the heart and double-knot the top piece of fringe to the one beneath. When four knots remain undone, stuff the heart with fiberfill, then finish the remaining fringes.

Paint the Beatitude’s words on a transparent shower curtain and add heart symbols with fabric paint to remind family members to seek God’s cleansing in order to be “pure in heart.” Discuss the fact that others cannot see our motives, but they can see our deeds and our lives as we act out the purity of our hearts. Explain that, just as we must cleanse our bodies daily, we must daily seek God’s grace to cleanse and purify our hearts.


Creative Writing


Explain the concept of centering prayer and ask the participants to write their own prayer to use as a centering technique. Share that centering prayer is designed to help people let go of the need for words and simply be in God’s presence. Offer a sample prayer like, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Explain that to use the prayer to center the heart, one prays the words as he or she exhales. Then slowly -- as the heart quiets -- the pray-er drops one phrase: first leaving off “a sinner,” then “on me,” then “have mercy,” and the “Lord” until the only prayer word being exhaled is “Jesus.” Done in a meditative state, centering prayer focuses the breathing and the thoughts solely on God. Individuals should create their own phrases and include their favorite phrase for addressing God to begin the prayer and to be their final word for contemplation.

Find or make a personal journal to be used as a place to “cleanse the heart.” Explain that journaling is a way to let out thoughts and worries that can keep our hearts and minds focused on things other than God. Journals should be a private place to discover what we are thinking and feeling and to seek God’s presence and purpose for our lives. Encourage the participants to write in their journals regularly, even daily, and to use words as a way to explore a relationship with God who knows our hearts better than we do ourselves.


Culinary


Create a week of menus designed to be heart-healthy meals for the family. Look through cookbooks and recipe collections to find ideas for making favorite foods in ways that keep hearts healthy and strong.

Discuss the importance of pure drinking water. Investigate purification methods that filter water to take out impurities. Taste the water from the tap and then filter and taste it again. Relate the world’s need for pure drinking water to the Christian’s need for purity of heart made possible by God’s filtering system of forgiveness.


Dance


Choreograph a circle dance in which the participants join hands and face each other. Then change the steps of the dance to direct the movement outward toward an audience. Explain that Christians must draw together for inward cleansing and then take God’s purity of heart to the world. Relate the inner and outer life of the Christian to the choreography of the dance.

Invite a fitness instructor to lead the group in different dance routines designed to create healthy hearts. Connect the importance of increasing our physical heart rates to the importance of exercising our spiritual hearts by doing God’s work in the world.


Drama


Perform a choral reading of passages such as Psalm 23: 3,4; Psalm 51:10; and 1 John 3:1-3. Vary the lines with male and female voices, individual and group reading, and/or with variations in pitch and volume.

Read a simplified version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and reenact the main points of the classic poem. Help the participants connect this allegory of the Christian life to the Beatitude’s promise that the pure in heart will see God.


Games


Cut a large heart out of construction paper and on it write the words of Matthew 5:8. Then create a jigsaw puzzle from the heart shape. Have the participants reconstruct the heart to read the message. Discuss how God helps us to put the pieces back together so that our hearts can be whole and pure.

Involve the participants in creating a “pure hearts” card game. Brainstorm the names of people whose deeds have reflected a “pure heart” approach to living. Create pairs of names such as Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, or use names of people from the players’ own community who exhibit such traits. Play the game like “Go Fish” in an attempt to match pairs. The player with the most “pure hearts” wins.


Music


Ask the participants to bring in, play, or sing their favorite music that quiets their hearts. Perform, record, or simply experience the music together. Invite each person to share why he or she finds this music soothing and how it fits with their desire to be pure in heart.

Find the hymn, “Rejoice Ye Pure in Heart.” Sing the words together. Consider re-writing the hymn in contemporary language.


Photography


Bring in a photographer to demonstrate and discuss the parts of a camera. Emphasize the importance of the lens. Relate the importance of the focus on a photographic subject to the heart focused on God.

Use an instant camera to take pictures of the participants. Once the pictures are dry, shuffle them and turn them face down. Invite group members to select a photograph. If someone accidentally picks his or her own, simply return and re-select. The person pictured, then, becomes the “prayer partner” of the one who did the choosing. He or she should place the photograph where it will be seen regularly. Every time the participants see their prayer partners’ pictures, they should remember to bless the person in the photograph. Remind the group to be “pure in heart” in their desire for God’s presence in one another person’s life.


Puppetry


Find or make a marionette and present a brief play about “who is pulling the strings of your heart?” Challenge the audience to consider if God is controlling their hearts.

Make heart-shaped puppets from paper plates. Invite participants to imagine what their hearts would say if they could talk. Consider writing a puppet script about talking hearts that reveal what each person’s real treasure is. Would our hearts reveal something that would reward or embarrass us?


Storytelling


Reread the story of Moses’ desire to see God in Exodus 33:12-23. Then re-tell the story as an example of what it means to desire to know God more perfectly: we must ask God for what we want; we must be willing to accept the challenge of climbing the mountain toward God; we must want to know God more than we want anything else; and we must wait for God’s timing in order to experience God’s power. Explain that once Moses went back to the camp, he took with him the glory of God so that everyone could see he had been in God’s presence.

Use a railroad crossing sign to tell a story about how to seek God. Explain the message of the sign -- stop, look, and listen -- and discuss why it is important to know when we are in the presence of an on-coming train. Question what kind of sign we need to help us know when we are in God’s presence. Suggest that “stop, look, and listen” is also a good message for Christians who want to turn their hearts toward God. However, while trains can only be found on tracks, God can be found everywhere we remember to take the time to follow the sign’s instructions.

 

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