Fruit of the Spirit - peace

Aim

 The purpose of this session is two-fold.

1. the fruit of the Spirit is a natural consequence of the indwelling Spirit
2. the Spirit can give us peace that passes all understanding in any circumstance

This was delivered to Years 3-6 (UK), Elementary School Grades 3-6 (US) in a 90 minute session.  I've used examples from my own Christian journey but please feel free to use your own examples.

Introduction

Whilst children are signing up for their break-time drink choice and registering, have the following playing the background.


Question: Ask the children to list the fruit of the Spirit.
Answer: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control

Question: How do we get the fruit of the Spirit?
Answer: It's a natural consequence of being plugged into the source = Jesus by the Holy Spirit.
It's not by trying harder - that's works not grace - only God can bring about the change in us so that it is natural.

Sample answers and suggested responses: 
"by being more loving"  respond with "yes, but how?"
"by trying hard?"  respond with "you might be able to manage it for a short while but it's not going to last particularly if you're tired or grumpy".
"by asking God" respond with "yes and how does He give it or produce it?"

Direction if kids are struggling:
If in need of direction - ask them "how does a tree grow fruit?"  "what does it need?"  (water, nutrients) "how does it get it?" (via the sap)  "so what do we need and how do we get it?"


Question: Why is it fruit and not fruits?  
Answer: Comes all from the Spirit together - not some separate thing.

Game

A game to demonstrate the fact that the fruit comes from the Spirit is "The Malteser game"  (source:  More dad stuff page 48).

Equipment: Bowl, packet of Maltesers, staws and cups for each player and a die.

Learning lesson/introduction: The word for the Spirit in Hebrew is ruach which can also mean breath.  Well you're going to be using your breath to get the Maltesers into your cup in the same way that the Spirit gets the fruit into your life.

Directions: Fill a bowl with Maltesers and get everyone sitting around it with a straw.  Players take it in turns to roll a die. If they roll a 5 or 6 then they try to get as many Maltesers as they can by sucking through the straw, lifting them out of the bowl into their winning cup before the next person rolls a 5 or 6.

Songs

Fruit of the Spirit
Comment: I like how this song focuses on the Spirit's indwelling.

 
Suggested actions: 
Filled with the Spirit - arms coming down onto head.
To walk in the Spirit -  walking
Be led by the Spirit - one holds arm out, second person pulls them along
Banana - mime peeling one
Apple or pear - mime picking the apple with left hand and pear with right hand
Our hearts bear good fruit - hands on heart
when His Spirit lives there - circular motion over heart
Love, joy, peace, patience - count on fingers of left hand
kindness, goodness, faitfulness, gentleness - count on finger of right hand
and self-control - both hands reach up together

Fruit of the Spirit - B SHOC
Comment: Loved by the boys!

 

Suggested actions:
Chorus - Oh yea we got that - arm coming down in that rap way!
Verse - start low to the ground and then gently move up - repeat 3 times.

Teaching

Question: What is the Hebrew word for peace?
Answer: Shalom

Question: What does that mean?
Answer: Physical, mental, social and spiritual wholeness and well-being.

Well what does that mean?  Well Farmer Fred is going to give us a quick explanation.


Question: What were the 3 kinds of peace Farmer Fred mentioned?
Answer:  peace&quiet, inner peace and outward peace

The most important kind of peace is peace we have with God Rom 5:1. 
When I became a Christian I felt so joyful and full of peace.  And when I've messed up and confess my sins to Him I feel that peace flooding my inner being as I'm made right with Him through Jesus.

But Peace doesn't mean comfort - remember Jesus gave the disciples His peace Jn 14:27 - but all of them except John were put to death (eg Simon, James and Philip were crucified, James executed by sword, Bartholomew was skinned alive by heathen, Thomas has 5 horses pull him apart in India, Matthew was stabbed to death in Persia by a mob, Matthias has his head cut off, John exiled to Patmos, etc).  But peace does mean having that inner calm inside no matter what you're facing - as you know that God is with you.  So we can also have peace in all situations Phil 4:6-7.

For example, one day my wife (Jennie) woke up in excruciating pain and we phoned an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital with me and the kids following afterwards in the car.  When we got there we discovered that our fourth child, Rachel, had grown in Jennie's fallopian tube and had in fact burst it and died.  We were distraught and I phoned up my friend from church and asked for them to pray - and within 20 minutes this peace settled on us - in the midst of this tragedy we had this calmness that we couldn't explain.  That's what I think it means by the peace that passes all understanding - it doesn't make sense that we would have peace in that situation other than the Holy Spirit breaking in.

Activity - peace charades

Students have to act out a situation where there wasn't peace and then peace came.  Either a bible story, a situation from their own life or an imagined scenario.  Acting must be good enough for people to guess without words.  Sweets for the group if another team can guess the situation/story as well as for the team who guesses correctly.

Teaching

The final kind of peace is peace with others.  Did you know (according to the Society of International Law) out of the last 4,000 years there has only been 268 years with no wars.  In that time there has also been 8,000 broken peace treaties.  The world doesn't know much about peace.  Muslims idea of peace is for nations to become muslim and have sharia law.  Buddists idea of peace is to remove all desire from people.  God's idea of peace is forgiveness and love.  Jesus said "Blessed are the peace makers for they will be called sons of God Mt 5:9.  Why?  Becuase they are like their Heavenly Father who has made peace with us through Jesus' sacrifice.

For example, my friend had fallen out big time with her parents and just wanted to run away and never speak to them again.  I had a chance to pray for her and encourage her to apologise for her part and to try to make things right.  And it was a delight that she was able to meet with the mum and reconcile.

Game - thief!

A classic game - where one player is blindfolded and is given a rolled up paper as a sword and has to guard a bowl of treasure which is placed in front of them.  Players have to take it in turns to creep up and steel the treasure out of the bowl.  Since it was about peace - I put in noisy things like cowbells and sleigh bells!

Prayer

Pray for any students who need to experience God's peace in their circumstances.

Final videos

Two quick videos can be used for fun to demonstrate peace:

Connexion youth group - get peace!

Stuntman - death chess with a bear to demonstrate peace and patience: