The Greatest Commandment 

Old** Art Workshop

 **Re: "Old"

Our church has done this lesson set twice in the past ten years. This "woven heart" art project was replaced by the "Mezzuzah" art project also posted here in this topic.

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Create a woven heart.

Workshop Objectives:

• Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments into two, which emphasize love: Love God with all you’ve got (your heart, soul, strength and mind) and Love your neighbor as yourself.
• The main reason to love God is that God loved us first.
  
  

For scripture and background - see above.

Leader Preparation:

• Read the scripture for this lesson.
• Read and reflect on the overview material provided for this lesson.
• Make a sample woven heart.

• Gather the materials.

Supplies List:

• Hearts cut from white foamie sheets (one per student), punch an equal number of holes around the edges (so holes are paired). For younger kids, use ribbon to pre-string the “warp” through these holes.
• Ribbon for weaving, Glue sticks,and scissors.
• Paper to write key verse on (so fits inside woven heart) – note: preprinted copies available for younger kids.
• Bibles (older kids)
• Materials for extra activities (see end of lesson).

Note: You can see a larger copy of the photo at the right by scrolling to the bottom of this lesson and clicking on the attached picture. 

Presentation 

Opening-Welcome and Lesson Introduction:
Greet your students warmly, introducing yourself and any other adults. Pass around a basket to collect any offering. Remind everyone what the M&M project is for the month. (Collecting money for Heifer International – an organization working to end world hunger by giving cows, goats and other food and income-producing livestock to poor families around the world.) Remind kids that they can vote on what animal we buy with our donations.

[Note: The Shepherd will be quietly taking care of attendance, etc. while you are starting your lesson.]

Say: Let’s begin with prayer.

Ask for any prayer requests. Ask if anyone would like to lead the group in prayer. Be prepared to say a prayer yourself, working in prayer requests. A suggestion: “Lord, Thank you for bringing us all here today. Help us to learn about your love for us and how we can best love you back. Amen.

Dig- Main Content and Reflection:
Say: For our art project today we are going to make a decorative woven heart. (Show sample).

• Ask: What is a heart shape, a symbol of? (love)
• Have you ever received a letter in the mail that was signed “Love” and then the name of the person it was from (like “love, Grandma")?

Hold up a Bible.
Say: The Bible is like a letter God has sent to us. At the end it doesn’t say, “Love God” but the whole Bible is like a love letter from God. That’s because the Bible tells us stories of how much God loves us, and how God wants us to love. OurBible story today is about love. Let’s read what it says.

For 1st and 2nd graders:

Hold open a Bible.
Say: This story is from the New Testament of the Bible. It is from the book of Matthew.
“Jesus was teaching the people. There were certain Jewish religious leaders called Pharisees, who were more concerned with their own laws than God’s laws. The Pharisees wanted to trick Jesus so they asked him what they thought would be a hard question. One of them asked: What is the most important law? Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Paraphrased from Matthew 22:34-40)
Close the Bible.

or 3rd - 6th graders:

Have kids find Matthew, chapter 22, verse 34 in their Bibles. (Praise kids for bringing their own Bibles.) Have kids take turns reading verses 34-40.
[After the second week of the month, have everyone find the verse, then ask kids to tell you the story. Read verses only if needed to fill in details.]

For all students:
Say: So Jesus was being questioned as to what the most important commandment was. Remember how last month you learned about the Ten Commandments? Do you think it would be hard to decide which was the most important of those ten?
Jesus was simplifying those laws. He summed them all up into two commandments.

• Ask: What were those two commandments?

Say: (Raise one index finger) the first one was: Love God with all you’ve got— your heart, and your soul, and your mind. The second commandment was: (raise other index finger) love your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus said that these two commandments were intertwined, (link two index fingers) woven together. These two commandments, which are both about love, we call the Greatest Commandment: Love God and love your neighbor.

Say: Let’s make a woven heart to remind us about weaving together God’s love for us, our love for God and our love for our neighbors.

Start the art project:

Younger kids:

Say: I have heart shapes that we can weave with ribbon. You can decide if you want to weave the part that goes back and forth or if you want to take one of the hearts that is already partly woven and weave ribbon in and out.

Let kids choose their project and ribbon.
If using pre-strung heart: show them how to take lengths of ribbon and weave it in and out. Allow extra ribbon to hang down.

For kids starting with the “blank” heart: show them how to weave ribbon across heart.

Add a ribbon loop at the top to hang up the heart. Hand out the pre-printed key verse. Have them slip this paper into the pocket created by the weaving.

 Older kids:

Pass out heart shapes and ribbon supplies. Show them how to weave ribbon back and forth. Kids can decide if they want the heart to be “pretty” from both sides or only from one side (their decision determines how the heart is strung).

When heart is strung, show them how to weave ribbon in and out.
Have kids write the key verse on the slips of paper. Have them slip this paper into the pocket created by the weaving.

Discussion: (while the kids are working)

• Ask: In our Bible story, what did Jesus mean by love your neighbor?

Say: Jesus didn’t just mean “neighbor” as the person who lives in the house or apartment next to yours. A neighbor can be anyone who needs our help.

• Ask: Is it sometimes hard to love God or to love our neighbor? (yes)

Say: If we are feeling like it’s hard to love God or it’s hard to love other people one thing that can help is to remember that God loved us first. God always loves us. Because God loved us first, we want to love God back.

Say: This weaving we are doing reminds me that all of us are woven together by our common faith in God. Loving our neighbors connects us all together. The ribbon can be thought of as God’s love and as our love for God. As we weave ribbon in and out it’s like weaving love for other people around the love God has for all of us.

Extra activity if finish early:

Older kids:

Ten Commandments Concentration game (because the previous rotation had been on the Ten Commandments and the kids enjoyed this game), or New Testament Word Search.

Younger kids:

coloring pages of animals for Heifer Project (clip art of different animals that Heifer buys for families).

Closing: 

Say: God loves you! Learning Bible stories helps us to see God’s love for all of us. Because God loved us first, we want to love God back. Show your family the woven heart you made. Show them the verse inside. Talk to your family about how our love for God and for other people is woven together because God loved us first.

References:

• Includes material written & shared at rotation.org by Desoto Presbyterian Church, Dallas, TX

A Lesson Set written by Carol Hulbert from: First United Methodist Church
Ann Arbor, MI 

Copyright 2003 First United Methodist Church, Ann Arbor, MI.
Permission to copy materials granted for non-commercial use provided credit is given and all cited references remain with this materialIf you use this material, even in a modified form, please include the following reference:


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