Good Morning Brown Clee!

Today I want us to start thinking about our Christian value for this half term – which is FRIENDSHIP.  On Monday we learnt about the importance of trust – trusting in God and also trusting in our friends through the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the Fiery Furnace.

Today I have got a quiz for you – your teacher is going to read out the questions one at a time. Each question has two possible answers and I want you to vote for the answer that you prefer by putting up their hand.  Here we go….

1. What would you rather do at playtime: play football or sit on a bench and chat to your friends?
2. What do you prefer to do with your friends: play on a games console or go swimming?
3. If your best friend was away, would you sit on your own for a day or go and sit by somebody else?
4. If there was a new child in your class, would you ignore them or go and play with them?
5. If someone was being mean to you in the playground, would you hit them or go and tell a teacher?
6. If you had fallen out with your friend, would you go and tell everyone else how horrible your friend is or try to make up?

You all had choices to make in the quiz, all of them to do with friends. In the first three questions, the choices that you made were up to you – your answers depended on your personal likes and dislikes. However, in the last three questions, you could have made a good choice or a bad one with your answer. The choices that you made could either help you to get on with your friends or cause you to fall out.

I now want you to watch this story of Mary and Martha from the New Testament Book of Luke in the Bible….as you watch, have a think about what we can learn from the story…

What did you learn – did the story help you think about somethings that you could do better – some better choices that we could all make?  Here are some questions to help you think…..

• Why did Martha feel so cross with Mary in the story?
• In the story, Jesus told Martha that it was sometimes good simply to sit and listen. Why is it important to listen to our friends?
• How can listening to our friends help us not to fall out?

Let’s have a quiet moment to reflect – think about the importance of listening to friends – ask yourself whether you notice your friends enough?  Do you pay them attention when they are with you?

Prayer of the Day

Dear Lord,
Thank you for today’s story about listening.
Please help us to make time to listen to others.
Please help us never to be too busy to notice those around us.
Amen.