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# 37th week of our Journey - Fruit of the Spirit Introduction

MATERIALS:
An assortment of fruit and two boxes. Photocopy Nurturing Fruits, Bible Verse Card and Fruit Flash cards, cut them up into 9 fruit and 9 cards, crayons. An old black banana, a fresh banana. Photocopy fruits enough for each child. Photocopy fruits for Bible verse.

AS KIDS ARRIVE PRIOR TO THE LESSON:
Play: ‘Fruit of the Spirit Music Video Theme song.

Get the children to colour the Bible Verse Card and the Nurturing Fruit and the Flash Cards prior to the lesson.

Did you check your Moringa after you pruned out the tip last week? You should see secondary shoots appearing on the main stem below the slanted cut you made last week. When they reach 20cm, cut these back to 10cm.

1. WELCOME GAMES: (10 minutes)
You will need an assortment of fruit and two boxes. Place the fruit in the boxes. Cut a round hole in the side of each box large enough to fit a hand into. Allow volunteers to come forward, call out a fruit name. The contestants reach in and try to be the first to find the fruit by touch and pull it out

2. TEAM GAMES: (10 minutes)
Photocopy fruits. You’ll need enough copies for each child to get a fruit. Tell them not to compare or show anyone else the paper fruit. Sit the children in a circle. Place a chair in the middle of the room. As you call out a fruit “Watermelon”, kids whose fruit you call have to race to get to the chair first. The first one wins, the rest have to sit out. Then call out another fruit “Apple” and play again. In the end you should have 9 children left get each one to write one Fruit of the Spirit on their fruit. Use Fruit Flash Card

Optional: Sing ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ with hand movements

3. ACTIVE PRAISE CHORUS: (10 minutes)
Fruit of the Spirit in my heart
(Sung to the tune Joy, joy, joy)

I’ve got love, joy and peace,
Down in my heart, WHERE?
Down in my heart, WHERE?
Down in my heart,
I’ve got love, joy and peace down in my heart
Down in my heart to stay.

Chorus
I am so happy, so very happy
I’ve got the Fruit of the Spirit in my
H-E-A-R-T
I am so happy, so very happy
I’ve got the Fruit of the Spirit in my heart.

I’ve got patience and kindness,
Down in my heart, WHERE? Down in my heart, WHERE?
Down in my heart,
I’ve got patience and kindness down in my heart.
Down in my heart to stay.
Chorus

I’ve got goodness and faithfulness
Down in my heart, WHERE? Down in my heart, WHERE?
Down in my heart,
I’ve got goodness and faithfulness down in my heart
Down in my heart to stay.
Chorus

I’ve got gentleness and self-control
Down in my heart, WHERE? Down in my heart, WHERE?
Down in my heart,
I’ve got gentleness and self-control
down in my heart -
Chorus

4. INTIMATE WORSHIP: (5 minutes)
Fruit of the Spirit worship (Use lyrics to accompany music video)

Prayer: Thank you that we bring glory to the Father when we produce a lot of fruit This is how we know that we are His disciples. Produce fruit in our lives Lord that we may be good disciples.

5. TEACHING:
a. “Back Track” (5 minutes)
Remember last week we learnt your physical heart determines how and what your body can or cannot do. Likewise with our Spiritual heart. Spiritually we must guard our hearts, mouths, eyes and ears.

Optional: Watch ‘The True Vine’ Teaching Video.

b. Sword Play
Ready…Swords up… Galatians 5: 22 - 23.… CHARGE!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5: 22 – 23)

Photocopy the fruit, cut out and write one word from the Bible verse on each fruit. Place the fruit in a basket for the children. Children will take the fruit out of their baskets and stand in the correct order of the verse. Use the Bible Verse Card as a visual aid.

c. Teach the Lesson (15 minutes)
Optional: Watch The Vine and Branches Teaching Video

A tree is recognized by its fruit. You cannot live life without God and produce good fruit. You cannot be the “good” person that God desires on your own. You need the power of the Holy Spirit to work in you and through you. Only then, will you produce the kind of fruit that we call the Fruit of the Spirit! It is His work in you – nothing that you can do.

Let’s work together to live our lives for God. As we grow in the knowledge of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will produce fruit in our lives. All we have to do is love Him! The Holy Spirit does the rest!

Are you always patient? Are you always gentle and kind? No, there will be times when you fail. We are all a work in progress. When you fail, ask God to forgive you and fill you with his Spirit so that you will produce the kind of fruit that He wants to see in your life.

Object Lessons:
You will need some fruit like bananas that look pretty good on the outside but that may have bad spots on the inside and some that you know is not good. Talk about how you can't always tell a fruit by it's outside. Hold up a very ripe black banana. Explain that you can tell that this banana is bad on the inside. Hold up a yellow banana. It looks good, but it is possible that it isn't all good on the inside. How do we know if a banana is good? First we look at what we can see. Then we open it up and look at the inside. How do we know if a person is a Christian? We look at their lives that we can see, but that doesn't always tell us accurately. As Christians we should not only have good outsides, but we should have good insides. People we are around look at what they can see so we need to be sure we are acting the way Jesus wants us to. God looks at the inside so we need to make sure that we are acting the way Jesus wants us to!

Optional: Sing ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ with hand movements

(See music video and lyrics in Visual Aid Manual)

Fruit of the Spirit:
Love: We are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul and mind. This will enable us to show love by doing things for others and being nice to family, friends and pets. God says to love your enemies. That’s hard to do but God expects that!

Peace is being content with what God has given us. Be happy with what you have.

Longsuffering is patients, not whining or complaining. Remember, patience with your brothers or sisters, no matter how hard that is.

Kindness is giving and helpful. Saying something nice to someone that you see is feeling down?

Goodness means caring and understanding. Do a little something extra to help out at home.

Faithfulness means to be true to God. You all know right from wrong. You all know what God expects. You all know what He says not to do.

Gentleness is being tender and calm. Again, being kind to your family, friends and your pets.

Self-control is managing your wants and emotions. Oh, this is a hard one! Don’t do things that you know you shouldn’t be doing. If you have to hide it or lie about it, don’t do it. Be careful how you act, what you say. Be careful of the friends you pick.

If we connect to Jesus, we will produce beautiful leaves and delicious fruit. But if we are separated from Jesus, our leaves will wither and die and we will never put forth any fruit. Your Moringa tree fruit or pods can be used when young when they are 30 cm long. They are cooked like beans and are very tasty. Wait and see they are like drumsticks! To produce lots of fruit you will need to prune the Moringa again. Cut back to just above an outside branch about two inches above the first prune about a month ago. This will produce more branches making your Moringa very busy thus more leaves and fruit.

Discussion Questions:
1. What kind of fruit does God expect?

Optional: The Fruit in a Nutshell

6. APPLICATION / ENCOUNTERING GOD:

Refer to our Encountering God Handbook for ideas for this important section of the session. Experience the Holy Spirit Learning Centers creating a Spiritual atmosphere.

God has "planted" us on this earth and he expects us to produce good fruit in our life. When He doesn't see these things in our life, He is very disappointed -- but He is willing to give us another chance. Jesus wants to help us to be the kind of fruit-bearing children that God wants us to be. If we will trust in him, read his Word, and pray -- he will help us to produce a lot of good fruit.

CLOSING PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, fill us with your Spirit so that we will show the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Amen.
.
TAKE HOME PAGE:
Give one copy of the ‘Take Home Truth’ to each child at the end of the class.

Optional: ‘Take Home Quiz Books’ are available for the children found in your Visual Aid Manual

NEXT WEEK: We will learn in detail all the ‘Fruit of the Spirit’, we will learn about LOVE this is the first and greatest commandment but to keep it we must first appreciate the immeasurable love God has for us. We will also begin to learn about the ‘Super Fruits’ how nutritional they are and how medicinal. You will learn how to grow them and learn how they will help you grow up big and strong.

Teacher may want to do this series at a later date in which case we will go on next week to learn about the harvest.

CLICK to view Session #38.