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The Brain, the Heart, the Tongue

The Brain

Resources Needed:

  • Powerpoint presentation

We can control what we think but it isn’t always easy and it takes practise.

Part 1: Ask your congregation to practise focussing their mind. Make a brain exercise game for Powerpoint. We used the game where the viewer must say the colour of the word, not the word itself e.g. orange. The answer is purple (not orange).

E.g. Blue – answer is green (not blue)

E.g. Red– answer is yellow (not red)

Use the timed feature on Powerpoint to move the same group of slides with ever increasing speed.

Part 2: Next, ask your congregation to think of one thought pattern that they would like to change and what they would like to replace it with e.g. instead of thinking ‘I am ugly and unloveable’, replace it with ‘I am made in the image of God and He loves me’.

The Heart 

Resources Needed:

  • Cards with different emotions written on them e.g. grumpy, shy, nervous, afraid. Make sure that there are some easy ones for children.
  • Post-it notes (we used heart shaped ones)

Our emotions can change to be more like God wants them to be. It takes self-awareness and prayer.

Part 1: Get the congregation to pair up. Then get them to pick up an emotions card and using only gestures, help their partner to guess the emotion. They should then swap around.

Part 2: Get the pairs to pick up a post-it note and write an emotion that they are feeling which they would like to change through God’s help and prayer. Then they should pray about the emotion with a friend and swap around.

The Tongue

Resources Needed: 

  • Tongue twisters

We can control what we say but it isn’t always easy and it takes practise.

Part 1: Get the congregation to have a go at some tongue twisters. The first person to read them all correctly is the winner. (Reading them slowly is cheating!)

Examples:

  1. Lying lips let slip sly lies. Sly lying lips let sly lies slip.
  2. God grows good grace. Go grow grace God!
  3. One wise word wrecks ones world’s worst words. Two true tongues taste trouble-free fruit trees. Three free tongues’ tips trick true lips to lie.

Part 2: Give time for the group to calm down and then to think about the people they have said hurtful things to. Ask them to think about something encouraging they could say to them in the coming week and when they will do it. You could follow up on this in the following week.