Golden Rules

3. ALWAYS TRY TO DO YOUR BEST

How to use these suggestions

 These are not ready made assemblies - you will need to do some preparatory work, however I hope these suggestions will give you starting points.
The suggestions fall into three groups.

Comments

There are all sorts of pitfalls around this rule. How do we know what is 'our best ' let alone the 'best' of others? When does realistic effort become a damaging pressure for success at any cost? What do we define as success - 100% achieving level 2, or a child who is well balanced and able to tolerate their limitations? The modern trend to aim for excellence in everything is, by its very nature, a recipe for discontent. Excellence literally means 'going beyond the sky ' - there is no limit in it - whereas for us there are limits, of natural ability time and energy.

Christian belief has always held in tension two important perspectives. On the one hand, we are told to 'press on towards the goal' (Philippians 3:14). We have the high standards of the ethical teaching of the Old Testament and of Christ as our aim. We are encouraged to be all that we can be, because we are made in the image of God who delights in his creation. On the other hand it is a fundamental tenet of Christian faith that we are not perfect, and this side of heaven, cannot be perfect. ('All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' Romans 3: 23) and yet God loves us, just as we are. According to the New Testament we are saved "by grace through faith and not by any effort of our own." (Ephesians 2:8). This insistence on our fallibility is not intended to paint a gloomy picture of human nature. It has its roots in the awareness that the delusion that we could, if we tried hard enough, be perfect puts a millstone around our necks.
We need to be able to deal with failure, because our lives, inevitably, will contain it, however clever and successful we are. In the end we all fail in the most basic human task of staying alive!
In my opinion anyone leading an act of worship which takes this rule as its inspiration needs to be careful. It is easy to give the false impression (which the church has historically called the heresy of Pelagianism !) that we can do anything if we try hard enough.

However, exploring this rule gives a very valuable opportunity to affirm success and effort, as well as helping the children develop skills at dealing with failure and limitation. They can reflect on the ways in which they can know when they are doing their best, and the sense in which their "best" in some situations might be affected by factors other than natural ability and hard work. They might need to take into account things like tiredness and available time. We have a good opportunity to explore ideas of 'good enough' and help the children think about the kind of people they want to be and the kind of lives they want to live. Much of the above is probably educational heresy at the moment and distinctly counter cultural, but as a Christian, reflecting on the light of Scripture, I can come to no other conclusion.

This rule also gives a chance to explore things like loyalty, steadfastness and courage in the face of difficulty. You could look at the themes of encouragement and discouragement, and think of people who encourage, or put us off, our work.

God is...

Christians believe that we are made in the image of God. Therefore our values reflect our ideas of God.They are not arbitrary, nor do they just apply to children. They are an expression of what we believe is at the heart of God. Reflecting on the 'God is...' section of the suggestions from time to time takes us beyond mere " oughtism" and dry morality, and counters the danger that this sort of assembly only touches social and moral dimensions of life and ignores the spiritual.

1. God... always tries to do his best

God is portrayed in the Bible as immensely dedicated to his creation. He doesn't just dream about it. He makes it himself with his own hands. When he has finished he is proud of what he has made. Genesis 1 and 2.
He is thought of as one who "neither slumbers nor sleeps" ( Psalm 121:4) but is constantly watching and protecting.
He devotes care and effort to his people. "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works."Ephesians 2:10
He does not give up on us when we fail but labours to "make all things new." Revelation 21:5
Stories like that of Noah reveal that it hurts him when we make a mess of the world, or get into a mess ourselves, like the Prodigal Son, but that this does not mean that everything is lost.

2. Stories - about success and failure and about steadfastness.

3. Words for reflection

You could,

  • write them on a large sheet of paper
  • unpack their meaning with the children
  • repeat them several times ( make up a tune and sing them) , then invite the children to say the words to themselves in their mind ( St. Benedict called it ruminating -like cows chewing the cud
  • learn them by heart
  • use them as a response during some prayers or reflection
  • draw them, act them ...

You could also

  • Explore the opposite of each rule using stories that illustrate what happens when we are not gentle and kind etc.....
  • Explore the process of keeping a rule. I saw an assembly about taking care of things, in which children who had carefully made a model were asked how it felt when they were making it and how they felt about it now.
  • Explore the reasons why we find it hard to keep rules.
  • Explore what we do when we fail. Saying sorry, being forgiven and making things right again are important skills.

Links to other Golden Rules pages