Encourage your congregation to join in sing and dancing to the hokey cokey. It’s a bit of fun, but also has a serious point… the last verse says “put your whole self in,” which is the point of the reading we are considering today.

Mark 12:28-34 (Message)
We used the Message translation which uses the phrase ‘love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ This is a fantastic way of exploring the idea of loving God with all that we are.

Psalm 100 (used in an interactive form for the call to worship – see powerpoint download).

In the talk, we explore the idea of “veryness,” and how it is the unique essence of who you are. We are asked to love with all of us and we can do this because of God’s passionate “yes” to us – he loves us so much he would rather die than be without us.

Finally, we recognise  that sometimes we let ourselves be held back by fear and we need to trust God that his “perfect love casts out fear” so we can let ourselves give ourselves fully to God.

There is a video referenced in the talk – we didn’t show this in the service, but you might find it interesting to watch as you prepare, so it can be watched here.

A full transcript of the talk is available to download. We are grateful to Rev. Leslie Newton for sharing his notes with us so we can offer this resource.

For the prayer of confession, invite your congregation to call out ways they sin (describe sin as things that come between us and God) and write them on a large whiteboard at the front. We had suggestions such as “greedy, unkind words, not listening and ungratefulness.” Leave a short time of silence, before praying words such as these:

Know that through the infinite love of God,
your sins are forgiven,
the board is wiped clean
and all are made new.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

For this service, our response stations were planned around the four words used by Jesus to describe how we should love God: passion, prayer, intelligence and energy (Message translation).

Prayer – set up a prayer space and invite people to pray for removal of fear and a renewed experience of God’s love.

Passion – provide cut outs of paper hearts and invite people to fill them with what makes you “you.” These can be taken to the foot of the cross as an offering of our whole self.

Intelligence – provide copies of the journal sheet in the downloads section, and invited people to consider the questions and fill them out honestly as they consider how they love God.

Energy – in a tuff tray (or other large container), make mini “volcanos” in a bottle. You will need:

• Small plastic bottles (500ml or similar)
• White vinegar
• Water
• Food colouring
• Washing up liquid
• Bicarbonate of soda (this can be bought in bulk on amazon, ebay and in many eco-shops as it can be used as a cleaning product)
• Funnels
• Spoons

To make the volcanoes:

1. Quarter fill the bottle with water.
2. Fill to the halfway point with vinegar.
3. Add a little food colouring.
4. Add a squirt of washing up liquid and shake the bottle to mix.
5. Add a good amount of bicarbonate of soda and watch the reaction.

A set of visual instructions is available to download to guide participants through the process.