Holidays

Love is More

Purpose

To help married couples realize the value of their spouse and recommit themselves to their relationship.

Scripture

Song of Solomon 7:10-12
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Galatians 5:22, 23
Ephesians 4:32

Preparation

Decorate the tables by using white tablecloths and putting red streamers down the center. For centerpieces alternate red and white candles with red heart-shaped boxes of candy. Prepare a banner to be used behind the head table which reads: Love Is More. Prepare place cards by stapling a nut cup to a paper heart. Write the name of each person on the paper heart.

Skit

(Young engaged couple enters side by side, holding bands.)

WOMAN (to audience): "They" say love makes the world go around. "They" say love is powerful and strong. But, when "they" say love is just passion and emotion… "They" are wrong!

MAN (to audience): God is love. He is strong, kind, just, compassionate, and true, just like the love He offers by His death for you and me. When passion fades, His faithful love will remain.

MAN (to woman): His faithful love binds two hearts, and will bind me to you.

(Engaged couple exit; newly married couple enter, facing each other as though saying vows, holding bands.)

MAN: Love is more than roses and candy kisses.

WOMAN: More than good times, romance, and bliss. Love is forgiving, forgetting, and caring.

MAN: Love is commitment, the good and bad sharing.

WOMAN: Love is the union of two sweethearts.

MAN: The union of emotions, mind, soul, and heart.

WOMAN: Love is not perfect—I'm not it's true!

BOTH: But, Darling, I'll always and forever love you.

NARRATOR: (Read Galatians5:22, 23.)

(Newlyweds exit; middle-aged couple enter holding a basket and a blanket. They spread the blanket on the floor, sit down, took through the basket, laugh, hug, etc. as narrator speaks.)

NARRATOR: Picture a couple sitting close together in a flower filled meadow soft and green. A picnic lunch on a blanket spread completes the typical country scene. But, love is more than romance. It's the meeting of two hearts, in a faithful loving union from which neither shall ever part. It is laughing and loving and hugging, sticking together through good and bad times. It is caring and forgiving, in a trust to last a lifetime.

(Couple pick up blanket and basket as they say the last verse, Then they exit hand in hand.)

MAN: Though the future may hold heartache,

WOMAN: We can trust and pray,

BOTH: We'll meet it, as always,

MAN: As we go along the way.

NARRATOR: (Read Song of Solomon 7:10-12.)

(Elderly couple enter, side by side, looking at audience.)

WOMAN: Once I thought love was romance and moonlight, delightful kisses, arms holding me tight.

MAN: But, through the years I've learned the truth, trading this wisdom for impetuous youth.

WOMAN: For love is all this, yet so much more, It is commitment, faithfulness, and forgiveness galore. It is sitting up all night when your spouse has the flu, without complaint, giving, when there's so much to do.

MAN: It is holding a trembling hand in a hospital bed, Praying and loving together when all has been said. It is holding on together when heartaches come in; it is loving "together" until the very end.

MAN: True love doesn't fade with the passage of time, or the onset of illness, loss of form so fine.

WOMAN: Love is God—timeless and true.

BOTH (looking at each other): I'll thank Him forever, He has given me you!

NARRATOR: What each of us seeks is to love, and to be loved. That "perfect" love is found not (as the romantic novelists would have us believe) in the marital/sexual bonding of man and woman (as wonderful as that may be), but in the "perfect" love of God for me and my response to that love. For the union of man and woman is but an image of the "perfect bond of unity," the ultimate in love. "Perfect love" is the special relationship each of us may have with the God of all the universe; not as an equal but as a worshiper at His feet… and as a beloved friend.

NARRATOR: (Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.)