Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness
Kids at home 4th October
The Bible talks about fruit but it’s a different kind of fruit to apples and bananas! It's called the Fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control and the Holy Spirit wants to give each of them to us and grow them in our lives to help us become more like Jesus. When we look at the life of Jesus, we can see that He shows all of these characteristics perfectly!
Today we are going to look at kindness and how kind God is and how we can share that kindness with others!
Let’s start with some worship! Feel free to sing and dance or just watch and listen, Jesus doesn’t mind HOW we worship, he just loves it when we spend time with him and sing his praises!
Fruit of the Spirit – Starskills
Alive – Hillsong Young & Free
This is Amazing Grace – Bethel Kids
Good Good Father – Chapelhill Kids
Story time
The Good Samaritan – Saddleback Kids!
Note to families:
Or Luke 10:25-37 if you prefer to read this to/with your little ones.
Some things to talk to your family about…
- Why do you think the Samaritan helped the man who was hurt?
- Can you think of a time when someone has helped you? Why do you think that they did?
- What do you think kindness is?
- How do you know when someone is being kind?
- Can you think of some ways that you can show kindness to others? How about showing kindness to others who are different from you?
- How is God kind?
- What does God teach us about being kind to everyone?
Some important points to remember…
- The Samaritan man in the story had a big heart and loved someone who he didn’t usually get along very well with and he was different to. He helped the man who was in need and was very kind to him!
- Even though the Samaritan man might not have had a lot of time or money or things, he still showed kindness to the man and shared everything that he had with him!
- Jesus teaches us to love God and our neighbours (that means our friends but also the people that we don’t know very well as well as people that are different from us) with all of our hearts! That means to always show them kindness like the Samaritan man did in the story.
- Kindness is something wonderful that we receive from God, He is so kind to us! He gives us what exactly what we need and He forgives us no matter what we do!
- We can be kind to others because God is so kind to us, He shows us how we can share that kindness with everyone around us! We should be kind to people and love people who are different from us because we are all equal in the eyes of God!
Memory Verse
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you”. Ephesians 4:32
Jesus asks us to be kind and caring to everyone that we meet, especially those that might need our help. He asks us to help everyone, like He always helps us! He tells us to love each other like He loves us, through our words and our actions and by sharing the things that we have with others. God also shows us kindness when He forgives us when we sometimes get things wrong. He asks us to forgive others when they get things wrong too just like He does. Being compassionate means that we care about others and we treat them with kindness, this might look like giving someone a hug, making them a card or saying something kind to help a friend who is feeling sad.
Why don’t we all try a kindness challenge this week? Why don’t you and your family think of some ways that you can show kindness to others this week? There are some ideas listed below but you can make up your own ☺
Kindness challenge!
- Tell someone a joke
- Tell someone something that you love about them
- Give someone a high five
- Share a toy with someone
- Ask someone if they need help with anything (e.g. your parents!)
- Sing a song to someone or with someone
- Let someone else go first (e.g. in a game!)
- Offer to pray for someone
- Give someone a hug!
- Make someone a card
Prayer time
Have a look at the list that you made for your kindness challenge, why don’t you and your family spend some time asking God to bring some specific people to mind that you can show kindness to this week?
Dear God,
Thank you that you teach me how to be kind and caring. Thank you for always showing kindness to me no matter what and for always forgiving me. Please would you bring people to my mind now that might need some kindness this week? Help me to show the kindness and the forgiveness that you show me to others and to look after others like you look after me.
Amen!