Love
We invite you to explore a variety of resources. We have categorized them by activity, and they represent a variety of approaches to living a Christian life. This menu is not designed as a “to-do” list, but rather as an offering for individuals to sample and find the activities that bring them closer to God in this particular practice.
Love is at the heart of all we do as disciples of Christ. God’s love for us is never-ending, and we are asked to show that love to others. The two greatest commandments are “love God,” and ”love our neighbors as ourselves.” It is through love that we bring about the reconciliation of the world to the kingdom of God.
“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breath! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”
Read
Read Romans 8:35-39. Try reading the scripture passage from a few different Bible translations or ask different family members to read it aloud to hear God’s Word in different ways today.
Becoming Love by Jonathan Bailey (Renovaré) / article
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis / book
Love is the Way by the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop / book
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Listen: Jesus Loves Me
Learn
Way of Love Bible Study / Faith @ Home-Forma
This 8-week study introduces the concept of the Way of Love through a Rule of Life. The Way of Love focuses on seven actions: Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, and Bless. Each session contains prompts to Read, Reflect, and Respond, designed for all ages from young children to adults. Each session takes no more than 30 minutes!
Bible Study: Love / BibleProject
In this week’s Bible Study, we are looking at the Hebrew word for “love” in the Old Testament, ahavah. What we learn from the story of the Bible is that Yahweh not only feels love for all the world, he also acts from love. We are told that when Yahweh rescued the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, it was because he loved them. He felt love, and he showed his love by rescuing them from oppression. After Israel was restored, they were called to show that same kind of active love to those who were socially disadvantaged in their midst. God’s love is a gift to share. (free, 30-45 minutes)
Where Your Heart Is: An Illustrated Devotional / Illustrated Ministry
This unique intergenerational resource is a hybrid devotional/coloring book. Where Your Heart Is: An Illustrated Devotional includes seven weekly devotions for all ages, as well as illustrations that are meant to be colored in and many opportunities to doodle and engage with the content in fun and creative ways. ($9.99 for personal download)
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him...Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”
Listen
Join Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church as he guides us through the practices of the Way of Love: turn, learn, pray, worship, bless, go, and rest. In season 2 of this podcast, Bishop Curry talks with our hosts, Sandy Milien and Kyle Oliver, and others about following the Way of Love - beyond the church walls. (14 minutes)
An extraordinary conversation with the late congressman John Lewis, taped in Montgomery, Alabama, during a pilgrimage 50 years after the March on Washington. It offers a special look inside his wisdom, the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation within themselves, and the intricate art of nonviolence as “love in action.” (51 minutes)
Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, preaches about the gospel’s power that frees us from a world of fear and ushers us into a world of love. (72 minutes)
Do
Color a picture to give to someone you love, or send to someone in need.
Take a Prayer Walk around your neighborhood. Bring some sidewalk chalk to write “#LoveOneAnother” around your community.
Try a Valen-Kinds activity, connecting Bible verses about sharing God’s love through acts of kindness.
Reflect
“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Why is love “the greatest of these”?
Wonder what it would be like if everything we did started with love.
You are loved by God. How is that evident in how you live your life?
Pray
Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to your never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that you are doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Prayer for those we Love, Book of Common Prayer, p. 831
Praying in Color using this heart calendar template is a simple, daily, and playful but serious practice for prayer. Each day, choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. Write the word or name in the allotted space with a pen and draw or doodle around it. Add color with colored pencils or markers, or use plain pencil or pen. Let the word or name speak to you. If words come to you as you draw, pray them. If not, just continue to draw, stay quiet, and let the word or name burrow into your mind and heart. Returning to the calendar each day establishes a special time to be present to God and to listen. (Note: this template is labelled ‘Lent,’ but can be used anytime!)
