Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness
Kids at home 25th 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 gentleness and how God is gentle with us and teaches us to be gentle 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!
You are Good – Bethel Kids
Alive – Hillsong Young & Free
This is Amazing Grace – Bethel Kids
Deep Cries Out – Bethel Kids
Story time
The Good Shepherd – Jesus Storybook Bible
Note to families:
Psalm 23 or Page 130 if you have the Jesus Storybook Bible at home and prefer to read this to your little ones!
Some things to talk to your family about…
- How do you think Shepherds take care of their sheep?
- How do you think God takes care of us?
- What do you think being gentle means?
- How is God gentle with us?
- What can we learn from God about showing gentleness to others?
- How can we be gentle with our family and friends? How can we show gentleness at school?
Some important points to remember…
- The Psalm that we read in the story today tells us that God takes care of us. He looks after us and gives us everything that we need. God is our loving Shepherd and he leads us gently just like a shepherd does with a little lamb, taking them to soft green grass in a meadow where there is a little stream. Just like sheep can trust their shepherds, we can completely trust God!
- God is our good and gentle Shepherd who leads us with love and care.
- Describing God as gentle does not mean that He is not powerful though. David faced a lot of dangers in his life, but God was always there caring, protecting, and guiding him. We must not mistake gentleness for weakness!
- Gentleness is being loving, caring and calm in the things that we say and do instead of being unkind or mean. It’s a bit like kindness, it means being considerate to others and treating them with respect.
- When we feel angry or upset, we can ask God to help us to respond with gentleness in our words and actions.
- Gentleness also means sharing the truth in a loving and kind way. We can share the good news of Jesus in a gentle and loving way with the people that we meet!
Memory Verse
Let everyone know how gentle you are. Philippians 4:5
God loves you so much! God is always right beside you and will always take care of you, just like a shepherd gently takes care of his sheep! God always responds to us with love and gentleness, and He can help us to respond to others with gentleness too! This week, why don’t you ask God to help you show gentleness wherever you go and with whoever you meet? Ask God to bless you with gentleness and ‘let everyone know how gentle you are’.
Why don’t you think of some ways to show gentleness this week? You could talk to your family about it now and decide some ways together? You could even write them down and tick them off as you go!
Prayer time
Let’s ask God together to grow the fruit of gentleness in our hearts this week!
Dear God,
Thank you for loving us and for always being gentle with us, thank you for teaching us to be gentle like you. Please help us to be loving and gentle in everything that we do and say this week. Please send your Holy Spirit to help us become more gentle and to show us new ways of being gentle.
Amen