HEAD-HEART-HANDS / Capernaum 1: The Greatest Command

A REMINDER ABOUT DISCIPLESHIP and DISCIPLING:

We believe the best discipling flows out of one’s own discipleship. The content below
should be shared with your group as an overflow of your own time with the Lord. Spend
several days working through the passages, questions, and ideas. Then mediate those for
your students,
choosing and adapting the elements that best fit. We recommend this flow:

Opening Question: Help get friends to engage in the topic. Pick one or all the questions
to get warmed up and start thinking about the formation of the lesson.

First Thoughts: There are multiple ways you can engage with First Thoughts based on
how your friends best learn. First Thoughts introduce the group to the theme of the lesson.

Read or Listen to: Read out loud the suggested scripture. You can pick a verse or read all
of the scripture suggested for the lesson. Also consider reading the scripture several times.

Reflect and Respond: Process the scripture by asking one of more of the reflective
questions. Finish each lesson with the Heart, Head, Hands question. Consider teaching
and using motions - touching our hearts, heads, and hands, or the ASL for each word. Here
is a youtube guide to the ASL for these words: Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength ASL

1. THE GREATEST COMMAND

Opening Questions:
• Who is your favorite singer to listen to?
• What does it look like to listen? How do other people know we are really really listening
to them? (consider acting postures to determine if someone is listening or not - fingers
in ears, head on the table, looking away)

First Thoughts:
Here are some ideas on how to introduce the theme:
• Read the below First Thoughts out loud to the group
• Summarize in your own words the major themes from First Thoughts
• Play a game that involves listening. Cup game or Red Light/Green
Light or the “telephone” game. Process the game: whose voice do you
listen for? Why do you need to listen? What happens when you don’t
listen?

© 2022 Young Life Discipleship and Young Life Capernaum

HEAD-HEART-HANDS / Capernaum 1: The Greatest Command
One day an important religious person asked Jesus this question:

“What is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus answered:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Jesus was saying words from the Old Testament (the first part of your Bible). The words
had been written down hundreds of years earlier, and had first been spoken hundreds of
years before that, when God met Moses on the mountain after leading God’s people out of
slavery in Egypt. Do you remember that story? (hint: there is a movie about it called The
Prince of Egypt).

These words were from a longer passage called the shema - an ancient word for
“listen.” In fact, the first words of this Old Testament verse started with: “Listen to me”! God
was trying to get their attention way back then, and he’s trying to get our attention now, too.

“God’s people, listen to mel! The LORD is our God. The LORD is the one and only God.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul. Love him with all of
your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5

The shema was the most important thing to God’s people long ago - and US TOO. It tells
us God’s plan for his people and how he wants us to love him - not with just a little bit of
who we are, or with only half of our hearts, or some of our strength. But with our WHOLE
hearts, our WHOLE soul and ALL of our strength. (In this verse, strength doesn’t mean our
muscles. It means the part of us that makes decisions about to speak and act and treat
others.)

Jesus spoke the same words hundreds of years later, showing us that this command never
changes. God’s people are always supposed to love him with their whole selves.

It was true when Moses first spoke it. It was true when Jesus spoke it. And it is still true
today.

Read or Listen to:

Deuteronomy 6:1-7 and Matthew 22:37-40

Reflect and Respond:

• Will someone retell the scripture they just heard in their own words?
• Jesus tells us to LISTEN! What important message does he want us to hear?
• How do we love God with our WHOLE heart (attitudes and affections)? Our WHOLE
head (mind and thoughts)? Our WHOLE strength (actions)?

© 2022 Young Life Discipleship and Young Life Capernaum