Sunday 20th September 2020 - Celebrating The Well Sheffield!

The Church - Celebrating The Well Sheffield!

Video

Worship:

Each day let’s remember to put our ‘God Suit On’!! (Cheeky Panda’s). Surely you can do the moves better than The Well staff team can!!!!

Word:

If you had a choice which fruit would you eat?  The nice, fresh, crisp piece of fruit?  Or the rotting, brown, over-ripe piece of fruit?  The Bible talks about the kind of fruit we should be producing as followers of Christ.  When we choose to follow Jesus, and ask Him into our lives, then Holy Spirit comes into our lives and helps us.  As we grow in Him, we are like a tree that keeps growing and producing fruit.  (You might want to hold up your arms as if they are branches and look at them, imagine having fruit growing off them.)  All the parts of a tree are really important, from the roots to the bark to the leaves, but I think you’ll agree that the tastiest bit that you’d want to eat is the fruit!  The fruit we are going to think about today is a different kind of fruit - it’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  It’s not fruit that you hold or eat, but like a tasty apple or juicy grapes, the fruit of the Spirit is refreshing and good for you.  Everything about it is good.

Read Galatians chapter 5 verses 22-23.  The Bible says that when we are rooted in God’s love, when we pray and read our Bibles and trust the Lord, our lives will have good things come out of them.  That is why we spent the summer learning all about the Holy Habits - how to become more like Jesus!  So this list found in Galatians tells us some of the fruit our lives should grow as we become more like Jesus.  We are never going to be perfect, we’ll never get everything right, but surely we want to try to be more like that nice, fresh, crisp piece of fruit we pictured before?  We don’t want to be like bad, rotting, brown fruit do we?  The Bible says that bad fruit looks like these things:  paying great attention to other things, not God (that’s idolatry), hating people, not getting along, being dishonest, wanting what others have (jealousy), being angry, being selfish (only thinking of yourself), fighting, complaining, arguing, and using your tongue for evil (being unkind with words).  Why don’t you take each fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5: 22-23 and see if you can explain what it means and how to grow in this gift (how you should aim to respond and behave; what you should try not to do)?  Read Matthew 12 verse 33 - which kind of tree do you want to be?  How can you help each other as a family with this? 

As we celebrate the Well Sheffield’s 5th birthday today, let’s remember the joy of being part of the church family and the joy of helping one another to grow more like Jesus so that our lives might produce good fruit with the help of Holy Spirit!

Activity Suggestions:

1) Ribbon Streamer. Make a ribbon streamer to dance and celebrate with.  Make a circle shape using wire or a chenille stick or adapt an old bracelet of curtain ring.  Then tie onto the hoop as many different coloured ribbons as you can find to make a bright and colourful ribbon streamer to dance and praise God with!

2) Fruit creation. Make a fruit salad or a tasty smoothie together and continue to chat about the fruits of the spirit and how to help one another as a family to grow in them.  Perhaps you could match different fruits you like to eat to the different gifts to help you remember to aim to grow in them!

Reflection:

Choose your favourite fruit to eat.  As you eat it, talk to God about how you are feeling.  Ask Holy Spirit to help you to grow in the fruit of the Spirit.  Ask Holy Spirit how you can help others to also grow in the fruit of the Spirit and how to respond when people react/behave like a withered tree/bad fruit. 

Pray for The Well Sheffield as we celebrate our 5th Birthday.  Give thanks for all that God has done and will do in the future.