Perhaps to be able to explain suffering is the clearest indication of never having suffered. Sin, suffering, and sanctification are not problems of the mind, but facts of life-mysteries that awaken all other mysteries until the heart rests in God.
-Oswald Chambers
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"The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small."
- Dr. Suess
"Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts."
- Lenora Mattingly Weber
"It is not even the beginning of Christmas unless it is Christmas in the heart."
- Richard Roberts
"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree."
- Charlotte Carpenter
"It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air."
- W. T. Ellis
"Mankind is a great, an immense family. This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas."
- Pope John XXIII
"The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has no Christmas in his heart."
- Helen Keller
"Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart...filled it, too, with melody that would last forever."
- Bess Streeter Aldrich
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
- Charles Dickens, Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol
"They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart."
- Mrs. Paul M. Ell
"Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display-so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn't the holly, it isn't the snow. It isn't the tree not the firelight's glow. It's the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again."
-- Anonymous
"Christmas is not in tinsel and lights and outward show. The secret lies in an inner glow. It's lighting a fire inside the heart. Good will and joy a vital part. It's higher thought and a greater plan. It's glorious dream in the soul of man."
- Wilfred A. Peterson (The Art of Living)
"This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ."
-- Frank McKibben
"Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart..."
- Freya Stark
"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
- Calvin Coolidge
"There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions."
- Bill McKibben
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Only the person who never gives up in life, who persists with his wish to find and fulfill the promise of himself, makes this truly self-liberating discovery: those places that he once mistook as being impassible barriers to his happiness
become as bridges to the same, but only if he learns to welcome them as part of his journey.
Guy Finley
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Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride.
With it, the knowledge of God creates despair.
The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.
-Blaise Pascal
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Introduction
Next time you have a lesson on a difficult theological concept, distribute a list of words for which kids are unlikely to know the exact definitions:
Examples
atheism, atonement, beatitude, covenant, eschatology, Eucharist, predestination, gnosticism, grace, justification, meek, propitiation, repentance, sanctification, supplication, transfiguration, etc.
Activity
You can also allow the students to discuss the various definitions and which one is the closes to the true definition and why. Its a great activity to promote discussion.
NOTE
If your group is so large that it is hard to keep track of definitions, create smaller groups.
Variation
Instead of using a definition of a word, do the same thing with Bible teachings. Just ask students to write: "What the Bible teaches about: " Use any Biblical concept. Play it the same way.
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Materials
* Tennis ball (small ball)
* newsprint and a marker.
* A Bible.
Activity
1. Form kids into circles of 10-20 people.
2. Ask each group to sit in a circle.
3. Explain that you're going to toss the ball to someone across the circle.
4. The receiver is to pick out another person across the circle that has not received the ball yet and toss the ball to him or her.
5. Continue tossing until everyone in the circle has had a chance to catch and toss the ball.
6. Repeat the pattern, catching and tossing to the same people as before. But this time, ask kids to each say one thing they really "love" (basketball, skateboarding, trench fries, movies, and so on) before they toss the ball to someone else.
7. On the third round, repeat the catch-and-toss pattern, this time asking kids to each say one thing they really love about the person they're tossing the ball to (this will probably be much harder than the previous round).
Debrief
* How did you feel when someone told you something he or she loved about you?
* Why is it easier to talk about things we love than about what we love in others?
* What's one thing we can do in our group to show we love each other?
* Write the answers to the last question on newsprint. Then vote on the best idea and do it at each class.
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Materials
String and a piece of candy for each two persons. (Polo mints with the hole in the center works well.)
Activity
Have two contestants face each other. Have a long piece of string with a candy of some sort tied to the exact middle. Put each end in a contestants mouth. Say go and the contestants will pull the string into their mouth and move their way toward the center of the string to get the candy. The person who gets the candy in their mouth the first is the winner.
Application
Paul wanted the Philippians to know that being first, or getting possessions and things, was no longer important to him. Winning was also not important. He was willing to lose everything if he could have Jesus. His only concern was Jesus. In the game, the candy was in the center of the string. But it wasn't titles or accomplishments that Paul focused on for the center of his life. He wanted Jesus to became the center of his life. (Philippians 3:4-9)
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