Paul, John, George and Ringo summed it up best when they said, “All you need is love, love is all you need.” Although that classic Beatles song is now 51 years old the message still holds true today. In a world rife with so much trouble and violence it does us all a world of good to remember the words of that jaunty tune.

“Love is all you need” is also a good way to encompass RE over this semester. Last term we explored stories from the Gospels of Jesus’ life and ministry and this term we’re looking at stories from the Old Testament. If I were to summarise all these stories and all these teaching into one word it’d be love. This has been this constant theme throughout the all the stories that the boys have looked at in RE – the love of Jesus through his teaching, the love of God to all people and the love that we’re called to show to one another.

See when we come down to the basic fundamentals of Christianity we see love at the centre of it all. The stories of the Old Testament show us God’s promise to always love and be with people and the life and ministry of Jesus show us a love that accepts all people. And the call of Christians is to follow the teachings of Jesus and show this same love to those around us.

As we’ve weaved through the stories of the Bible over the year so far in RE this is the core that I’ve tried to bring out to the boys. Love may seem like a strange or difficult topic for some young boys to think about. They might try to avoid it because they think of a sappy kind of movie love. But love underpins all that we do and when you think of what this idea of love looks like it’s not so hard to wrap our heads around.

When we treat others with care and respect, we’re showing love.

When we accept people that might seem different instead of excluding them, we’re showing love.

When we care for the earth and look after the natural environment, we’re showing love.

When we help those that are struggling or need additional support, we’re showing love.

When we look after our family and friends in our daily lives, we’re showing love.

See that’s a kind of love that every boy can understand and that’s the kind of love that we see in the Bible.

My Thursdays at Lindfield continue to be one of the highlights of my week and I’m enjoying becoming more a part of the Lindfield and Newington community. I look forward to meeting more people in our community as the weeks and months progress.

Pastor Richard La’Brooy