hello! thought for the week...life to the full hello! here’s our thought for the week; students...
TRANSCRIPT
Life to the Full
Hello!
Here’s our Thought for the Week; students normally con-sider and discuss this in their tutor groups. We’ve also got our next edition of ‘Chaplains’ Cor-ner’ on the next page. We trust that this will be a helpful chance to pause and reflect, and that it might point to hope.
We want everyone within the St Luke’s community to experience life to the full, in terms of aca-demic achievement, character growth and also spiritual devel-opment. By spiritual develop-ment we don’t just mean some-thing for ’religious’ people, but for all of us to grow in aware-ness of the aspects of life that are beyond physical things, and consider some of the big ques-tions that we ask as human be-ings.
Our chaplains are also available to offer support for students, parents and staff, even just as someone to talk to. You can email them directly at
Thought for the Week Giving hope
‘May your choices reflect your hope not your fears.’
Nelson Mandela
Have a watch of this video, put together by teachers and students across the UK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEARdmElI7M&feature=youtu.be At St Luke’s ’giving hope’ is one of our 5 values. We think it is so important for us to have hope and also to give hope to other people. As shown in the video, before he was President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, due to racist and corrupt governments. 27 years! When he was released he could have taken revenge on those peo-ple who mistreated him. He could have given up hope of South Africa ever being a happy place to live again and moved away to another country. But instead he stayed and worked determinedly to bring people back together and make South Africa a better place to live. He did that because his choices were driven by his hopes, not his fears. He had a positive vision for the fu-ture and worked under pressure with patience to try and make that vision happen. There are always going to be things that we are afraid of in life, for some of us especially at the moment. Nelson Mandela showed the difference that having a hope can make to how we feel and how we live our lives. Where might we find that hope? There are many different places. Jesus promised that true hope could be found in God; that he is someone who is strong and reliable, to hope and trust in, even in the most difficult of times. Having that kind of hope can lead us to make choices out of hope, not fear, which help ourselves and others.
Questions to reflect on or discuss:
1. What are you hoping for now and in the future?
2. What difference do you think it could make to someone’s life if they put their hope in some-thing or someone that was trustworthy and reliable?
3. The message of the Christian faith is that God is someone who we can put our hope and trust in. What do you think about that? You might want to think about what or who you put your hope in.
This week’s assembly from the chaplains can
be found here:
https://stlukescofe.school/online
-assemblies/
Chaplains’ Corner We’re lucky to have 5 fantastic chaplains at St Luke’s. This week, Hannah Harris
shares some thoughts about the importance of friendship:
I wonder who you've managed to keep in touch with during these strange
and socially distant times - I've heard some people say that lockdown has re-
ally helped them discover who their true friends are. I wonder what you think
makes a good friend. Is it someone who replies quickly to messages? Some-
one who is popular and fun to be with? Or is it about something else?
Even the most loyal of friends don't get it right all the time, people let us
down and don't make the effort that we would like them to. We can all be
selfish at times or hurt others, but, I believe the things that lie at the core of a
healthy friendship are respect and trust. It's important to feel respected by
our friends and vice versa and we want to know we can trust each other.
Jesus showed incredible respect for other people, he treated people with dig-
nity when they were shamed by the people around them. If we want to look
to someone who modelled perfect friendship, I would go straight to the ac-
counts of Jesus' interactions with others in the Bible. Not only was he a friend
to strangers then, but he offers that same friendship to us, today. It sounds a
bit strange to think of having a friendship with Jesus, but it's actually some-
thing at the heart of the Christian faith. What does it mean to you, to hear
that you're loved, respected and cared for by Jesus?
If you would like to question or talk more about anything the chaplains have written you
can email: [email protected].
If you have any questions that you would like the chaplains to address and give their
thoughts on, perhaps around faith or some of life’s big issues, email your question(s) to
Life to the Full