Love Your Enemies

Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:43-48

Teaching Videos

Teaching Ideas

Idea 1

Have a contest of who can pick up the most cinnamon hearts using chop sticks

  • Put out a few bowls of cinnamon hearts and give each of the kids a pair of chop sticks.

  • Let everyone prepare by giving them a lesson on how to use chop sticks and let them practice trying to pick up the cinnamon hearts while using them.

  • Then let the kids know that you are going to have a contest of who can pick up the most cinnamon hearts in 3 minutes by only using the chop sticks.

  • When the time is up, announce the winner, and let everyone know they did a good job for trying because that was a really hard challenge.

  • Explain that today’s lesson is also about a really hard challenge that God has given us - it is to Love Our Enemies.

Idea 2

Give each of the kids a foam heart.

  • On one side of their hearts ask them to write the names or draw a picture of people they love.

  • Once they are finished ask the kids if it will be easy to love the people who they wrote down, would it be easy to pray for them?

  • Ask them to flip their hearts over and tell them, that this side might be a bit harder. Ask them to think of someone is hard for them to love, maybe it is someone who has hurt them, or someone who is just difficult to be around. Ask them to consider drawing a picture or writing their name on the other side.

  • Encourage the kids to pray for the people on both sides of their hearts.

Idea 3

Tell the kids a story from your own life.

  • Think of an appropriate story from your own life of when someone was mean to you.

  • How did you respond to them?

  • How did you want to respond to them?

  • Let the kids tell their own stories, but make sure the person they are talking about isn’t in the group.

Idea 4

Read Otter B Kind to the younger kids.

  • This story is for younger kids and there isn’t an enemy in the story.

  • It talks about being kind in a way that is tangible way.