Christian Values
Creativity
Each of us is creative but we all have different gifts and abilities. Some of us love to paint, others to cook: some like to make music, others to build.
Community
There are many different kinds of community and most of us are part of several. We may belong to a school, a church, a club or a village or town. Belonging to a community means that we are not just an individual, separate from everyone else, but we are in relationship with others.
Courage
Being courageous can mean different things to different people. For example, one person may think it easy to speak in front of a large audience, whilst another would need to find lots of courage to do this. Everyone faces challenges from time to time, and we have to find courage to overcome them.
Compassion
Compassion is about ‘standing in someone else’s shoes’ when they are having a hard time. In other words, trying to understand how they might be feeling and doing our best to try to help.
Dignity
One dictionary definition of dignity is: ‘being worthy of honour or respect’ The Bible teaches that every human being is made in the image of God, therefore every human being is worthy of dignity and respect. Jesus taught his followers to treat others as they would want to be treated.
Forgiveness
Everyone makes mistakes, it’s part of being human. Sometimes our mistakes hurt others and then we need to say sorry. Sometimes mistakes made by other people hurt us. When this happens we need to be able to forgive. Forgiveness can be difficult and costly but without it a new start is impossible.
Friendship
Learning to be a good friend, someone who can be trusted and is loyal, takes a lifetime.
Generosity
When we think about generosity we usually think about being generous with money or possessions. However, we can also be generous with our time, our gifts and our abilities. Generous people often say that they receive much more than they give. Perhaps this is because when someone is generous to us, it makes us want to be generous in return.
Hope
The value hope is about much more than just wishing as hard as we can that things will be different. It is about believing that the world can be better and being prepared to do something!
Humility
Humility is about trying to think of others before you think about yourself.
Joy
Joy is often understood to be an approach to life. Coming from inside, it is about being at peace in your spirit and thankful for all that is good in the world.
Justice
Justice means more than making things ‘fair’. In order for people to live together well in a just community, it is important to have rules or laws that everybody sticks to.
Perseverance
To keep on trying and never give up.
Respect
It important that we treat others with respect even if we sometimes do not agree with the way they behave or the things they say. We should always treat the things that belong to us and to other people respectfully.
Responsibility
We all have gifts, abilities and talents (the word talent originated from the word used to describe a gift of money in the Bible story opposite). We have a responsibility to use our talents for the good of others not just ourselves.
Service
Service is how you look after and help other living things and people.
Thankfulness
‘Count your blessings’ is an old saying, but it reminds us to be thankful and not take things for granted.
Trust
Trust is a really important value. It must be earned. If we do not trust someone it is very hard to build a good friendship with them.
Truthfulness
To always have the strength to be truthful and honest.
Wisdom
Wisdom is different from just being clever. Often wise people have lots of experience and can give good advice to help us make difficult decisions