"Fruit of the Spirit" Youth Group Activity

 

A few weeks ago, I was tasked with leading an evening of youth group on the topic Fruit of the Spirit. We have about 250 teenagers in the group and a normal youth service starts with praise and worship and focuses around someone preaching. Not that I dislike preaching, but I wanted to do something to shake the routine and keep the youth more active. To do that, I created a nine-station rotation with one adult or student leader for each station. Each station focused on one fruit of the Spirit, and I tried to include many different kinds of activities to make little to no repetition. 

Our church theme this year comes from Colossians 2:7, which says “Be rooted and built up in Christ, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” When we are rooted in Christ, it will show in our lives—in the way we, think, speak and act. The fruit of the Spirit is what our lives naturally produce when we are living in Christ. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

My aim was to have each station last about five minutes. In reality we were closer to ten, because it takes time to get a group of teenagers settled and focused on each activity. We had groups of about 30 teenagers, but this would actually work better with smaller groups, or if you have a very small youth group to do all the stations one by one together as a group. Included are the PDFs to the worksheets (A5 size, and I printed double-sided) and a PDF of the whole rotation plan available for download. 

Love

Big Group Discussion

ASK: How has someone ever shown love to you? 

ASK: How have you shown love to someone else? 

Goodness

Individual Writing

Display three posters, each with one verse on them: 

• Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For his mercy endures forever. (1 Chronicles 16:34)
• Everything good comes from God. Every perfect gift is from him. These good gifts come down from the Father who made all the lights in the sky. But God never changes like the shadows from those lights. He is always the same. (James 1:17)
• If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11)

Everyone gets a paper, one side to do during the service and one side to do on their own at a later time: 

DURING SERVICE: 

• List three ways you learn about God’s goodness from these verses.
• List three ways God has been good to ME. 

AT A LATER TIME: 

• How can people see goodness in me? 
• What is one thing I can do this week to show goodness to someone else? 

"Goodness" front

"Goodness" back

Joy

Group Game

Blow up a balloon and write “happiness” on it. Everyone has to hit the balloon so it stays in the air and every time they hit it, that person has to say one thing that makes them happy. 

After playing for a while, take away the “happiness” balloon and get out the “joy” balloon. This balloon is filled with helium and has “joy” written on it. Tell them that every time something makes them happy, it is only temporary–good grades, good food, friends, etc. You go up… but then you come back down again. But the JOY of the Lord is permanent–it stays up forever. No matter what happens, good or bad, you can have the joy of God in your life. 

Self-Control

Preaching

Have the students describe how a water filtration system works (if they know)–stones, sand, etc. that filter out the bad things from the water and allow only the pure, clean water to get through. If they don’t know, either explain it to them or use a different example of a filter. 

Explain that God gave us our own filtration systems in our minds. Not everything that pops into our minds has to come out. Bad thoughts can enter our minds, and that in itself is not a sin. But what are you going to do with it? Are you going to dwell on it and let it come out in some way? Or are you going to filter it out and only let pure words and actions out? That is self-control. 

You can also think of it as a stoplight: 

• Red means STOP before you speak or act. 
• Yellow means THINK about your choices. 
• Green means to DO what pleases God. 

Peace

Group Activity

To prepare, make one poster for each group by using masking tape to spell the word “peace” on it. We also colored ours with highlighter so that when we removed the tape the word would still be visible, but if you have enough time to write a lot for this activity, coloring should not be necessary. 

Using markers, have as many people as possible write things on the poster–including over the tape–that take away their peace. They can write things that are stressful, that make them angry, that make them anxious, etc. Fill up the paper as much as possible so there is little to no white remaining. 

When the poster is filled, remove the tape so the word “peace” is clear between all the words. Tell them: Peace does not mean that nothing bad will happen in your life. But it does mean that you can have the peace of God even in the middle of those things. They do not have to bring you down as long as you are filled with God’s peace. 

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)

Patience

Individual Writing, Group Discussion

Give everyone a paper with these ten things listed: 

• Standing in line
• Waiting for your teacher to grade a project
• A lesson that you are not interested in
• Sitting in traffic
• Waiting for God to answer your prayers
• People around you talking during church
• Someone with a speech impediment who talks slowly
• Waiting for food to be ready when you are hungry
• Finishing high school
• Learning something new

Tell them to write numbers 1-10 next to each line based on how hard it is to be patient in that situation. 1 means it is the hardest and 10 means it is the easiest. Give them some time to fill them in. 

*To save paper, I ended up writing those ten things on a poster and “numbering” them A up to J and giving everyone a small piece of paper to write the letters in order from “hardest to be patient” to “easiest to be patient.” Therefore, I have not linked a worksheet for this one. 

If everyone finishes before time, ask one of the following questions and discuss together: 

• What was number one for most of you (where is it hardest to be patient)? Discuss why, etc.
• When does God need to be patient with YOU? 
• Who in the Bible showed patience? How? 

Kindness

Discussions in Pairs

Give two people one paper with two scenarios on it. Let them take time to read the scenario and discuss their answer with one another. Encourage them to use all the time and come up with more answers if they can.

*These examples are what I used here in Uganda. Some parts may apply where you are, and others probably do not. You can use these as examples to come up with your own applicable scenarios: 

• There is a new student in your class. He came from another school and does not know anyone at New Horizon, or know anything about the school and organization. How can you show kindness to him? 
• Your neighbor is a jjajja (grandmother) who lives alone. About once a week her daughter visits to do some chores and bring some food, but for the rest she receives no visitors and has no help. She can still walk and do some things, but you can see that she is often in pain. How can you show kindness to her? 
• You are walking down the road in the village and see a young child sitting in the soil. He has soiled himself and is crying, and no one seems to be around to care for him. How can you show kindness to him? 
• A girl in your class does not like you, but you don’t know why. When the teacher is not around, she says mean things to you and talks badly about you to others. Most of the things she says are not true. How can you show kindness to her? 
• During a lesson, your classmates are not listening to or respecting the teacher. The teacher is trying his best to get everyone’s attention, to maintain discipline and to make the lesson interesting, but he has lost control of the class. How can you show kindness to him? 
• One evening as you are doing homework, your auntie comes home from work. It looks as if she has been crying, and you can see she is not fine. How can you show kindness to her? 

Faithfulness

Group Brainstorm

SAY: Faithfulness means both being faithful to God and being faithful to other people. We are not faithful to other people only if they are faithful to us; we are faithful because of who WE are, not because of who they are or what they do. 

One one paper, write “Synonyms” and on the other write “Antonyms”. (Synonyms means words that have the same, or similar, meaning. Antonyms means words that have the opposite meaning.) Have the group think of words that relate to faithfulness (such as commitment, promise, loyalty, etc.) to write on “synonyms” and words that are the opposite of faithfulness (such as adultery, disloyal, cheating, abandon, etc.) to write on “antonyms”. The idea is to give people a better idea of what faithfulness is. Censor the words they give–if it does not fit or is not appropriate, you do not have to use it. 

Gentleness

Individual Writing

Everyone gets a paper and they can spend the five minutes filling it in. If they do not finish they can finish it in their own time outside of the service. The paper will define gentleness as “the quality of being kind, tender, and not having extreme emotions”. On one side, they must first write about someone they know who is gentle and what shows that that person is gentle. Then they write about someone they know who is NOT gentle and what shows that they are not gentle. On the other side, they must answer if they believe Jesus was gentle or not and give evidence to support their answer. 

"Gentleness" front

"Gentleness" back

To print the whole session with notes: "Fruit of the Spirit" Youth Group Activities

Please if you try this, or any of the activities, leave a comment and let me know how it went with your group! 

Learning to Teach

 

What does a school do when it finds itself two weeks into the school year with seven classes and only six teachers? That is how our school year began here at New Horizon Primary School, and it took a team to navigate the best possible solution as we waited for a new teacher to be hired. Long story short (though it becomes longer again because that is what this post is about), I became a first grade teacher for six weeks. We had a sudden shortage of teaching staff at the primary school, so some volunteers, aunties, nursery school teachers and I had a patchwork-program trying to make sure the class was covered both in terms of supervision and academics. 

This group of 28 six-year-olds were coming from nursery school fresh into their new primary classroom. They needed to learn how primary school works (not as much playing time, lots more writing, how to care for library books, and much more). They needed to figure out their different roles in their new class, since for the last three years they had been divided into two classes. They were also coming out of a two-month vacation and needed to be reminded of what they had learned the year before and how to sit on a chair when all four legs are on the ground. I believe those things can be a challenge even when a class has the best teacher. 

So we did our best. And I believe, much of the time, the children did too. In those six weeks we established a daily routine (it was at least two weeks before I remembered they were supposed to brush their teeth after lunch). We taped colorful name tags to their tables, and then un-taped them and changed them around when we realized which children talk to each other too much. We learned their names and gave lots of hugs. We looked for children in the forest when they didn't reappear for afternoon lessons. We disciplined and rewarded and tried, when there was time, to fit in all the lessons they needed. 

It was more draining than I could have imagined. I have worked at the school for the past eleven years. I have known two thirds of the class their whole lives and taught them in Sunday school the last three years. I quickly bonded with the ones I hadn't known yet and loved seeing them come to school each morning. I would have expected I was more prepared for such a role. I was wrong. 

Teaching first grade brought me to my knees (and often to tears) in more fervent prayer than I have done in a long time. I needed it. They needed it. While it surprised me how unprepared I was to step in as a teacher, in a way (and more in retrospect) it was refreshing to do something which was so outside my normal routine. I remember in my first year or two in the library, I prayed before every class and remedial lesson. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I turned to God every chance I got. As I have become more comfortable and confident in my different roles, I know I don’t need God any less, but in practice I often act like it. When I know exactly what my plan is with a class, I forget that I should pray. I forget that God has a plan for them too. 

Primary One did not let me forget. Most days, my plan involved some written work, some fun activity, some quiet Bible time, and some get-the-energy-out PE time. The children’s plan, however, looked more like this: some standing on the tables time, some walking out of the classroom for no reason whatsoever time, some written work time, and some crying during PE because so-and-so hit them or stole their ball or they have the wrong color jumprope time. 

It was challenging, but there were so many highlights. I made playdough for the kids, and the first time we used it and I saw all the children sitting at their desks diligently making aliens and underwear (we had just read Aliens Love Underpants) I whispered to the volunteer with me, “It’s working!” 

I bought enough jumpropes for the whole class and in the mornings the the early birds skipped up and down the basketball court and showed off how well they could skip backwards. (They were impressed when I brought out some of my Jumprope for Heart skills.)

Sometimes I dragged out sacks of big tin cans just to see what they would do with them. Oh, the creativity! As they were building a pyramid I saw better teamwork than they ever displayed in the classroom. 

We quickly discovered that this class likes to learn and do work; they just weren’t all very good at focusing on it yet. We worked a lot on handwriting—I taught them how to form some letters and they told me when I did it wrong, because apparently in Uganda we write some letters differently than in an American kindergarten class. They thoroughly enjoyed reminding me every single morning to put “th” after the number for the date. I think the first time I remembered to do it myself was our last day of lessons. See, I can learn too! 

At our primary school, the children eat lunch in their classrooms. Since the lunch every day involves bean sauce, that meant a lot of beans and sauce ended up on the tables and floor after the meal. Two different children each day were responsible for cleaning the tables. They were excited to do it… sometimes so excited that they went overboard and cleaned the walls and windows as well. And themselves. 

It was first grade, so we dealt with a lot of first grade problems: children who didn't make it to the bathroom in time, children who spilled their lunch on their uniform, children who lost their shoes, and children who lost their teeth. Literally. One afternoon I enlisted the help of a group of secondary students to search outside for a missing tooth. They put in a good effort, but to no avail. 

There wasn’t a lot of time for one-on-one interactions, but I did my best to get to know the children as well as I could, especially the ones who do not live at Noah’s Ark and who were new to me. One morning as I was reading the story of Noah’s Ark during devotions, I asked the children if they knew what a flood was. One hand flew into the air. “Yes, I know!” the boy said excitedly. "That is when a lot of water comes where it is not supposed to be. Like last time when it rained too much and the water came through the roof and the walls and entered our house and we didn’t have anywhere dry to be.” I blinked back tears before continuing the story. Sadly, I knew what he described was not a one-time event that they could fix and put behind them… this was what happened every time it rained hard. It is definitely easier to tolerate a child’s stubborn behavior in class when you imagine them huddled with their family in a dry corner of their house at night. What a powerful reminder to make school the best possible experience for them. 

I quickly discovered that I was happy doing one of two things: either teaching the whole class and leading an activity for children who listened, or finding, talking to and disciplining the children who did not. I did not enjoy—and did not seem to be capable of—doing both at the same time. In the afternoons, a teacher from the nursery school led the class. That meant that most afternoons I could focus on discipline. Sometimes that meant looking in the forest for a child who did not return to class after lunch. Sometimes that meant sitting with a child outside and talking about what they had done in class and what they needed to do differently. Sometimes that meant sitting in class with a child who had refused to do her work earlier while the rest of the class went outside for PE. It amazed me how differently a child could behave on their own than in the midst of 27 peers. 

Our last day of school in that term was the best. To be honest, I can’t remember much about what we actually did that day, but I remember coming home that afternoon and telling Christian that we ended on a good day, and that helped put all the rest in perspective. 

One of the highlights of teaching Primary One was meeting the pupils and their parents on the last day of the term. It was so fun to talk to mothers and aunties and tell them how great their kids are, even if for one mother I had to blunder through “Your child is a good student” in Luganda, while the six-year-old explained to her everything else about school. 

After the parents had looked at the children’s work and the children were released for holidays, I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the classroom. I had heard they hired a new teacher who would be taking over next term, and I didn’t want her to inherit the years worth of old papers and dried markers I had found. Late that night, after several trips to the garbage, organizing the desk drawers and straightening the posters on the walls, I locked the classroom door. My time as their class teacher was over. 

That was six months ago. Since then, Primary One has had three different teachers. I know that sounds crazy, but what amazes me is that the children are enthusiastic about every new teacher who comes, and these three have all been so good for the class. They might be in for a big surprise when they have one teacher for the whole year in Primary Two! 

Now when I pass by the classroom, I see 28 children sitting quietly at their desks copying work from the chalkboard or sitting in a circle making crafts on a mat. They have caught up on the curriculum, they are becoming good readers, and they don’t escape from class like they used to. (It makes me wonder what we did so wrong…) They might not be “my” class anymore, but I am thankful for all God taught me in my time as their teacher. 

And I am thankful they have a real teacher now.