The Apple Chapel

One of my new responsibilities this year is that I get to help lead a few of our school’s chapel services each month.

Y’all.  Hand me a microphone and I am like THIS IS WHAT I WAS MADE FOR.

🙂

For this month, I wanted to do a chapel using apples since September is such a great time of year to celebrate that!

But, of course, I wanted it to point the kiddos to Jesus too, so in case you are a Sunday School teacher or children’s minister or in charge of your school’s chapels or if you just want something to talk about around the dinner table with your family one night, here is what I did…

I started with a brown bag.  I told the students that I brought my lunch with me and was wondering if it would be okay if I could eat it.

First I had them guess what was in my lunch bag.  There were guesses like sausage, sandwiches, and pizza.

Eventually I pulled out an apple (which, prior to the chapel, I had cut off the top, hollowed out the inside and stuffed with a bunch of gummy worms).  I held the apple up and asked if I could eat it.

I took a huge bite out of the apple but stopped short and cried, “EWWW!”

Slowly I pulled out gummy worms and told the kids how disgusted I was!

After I got done pulling out the worms, I said, “Hey this reminds me of something.  You know this apple looked pretty good on the outside, but on the inside it was filled with icky worms!”

I pointed to myself and gestured to them, “We all look pretty good on the outside but inside we have a problem.  A big problem.”

This is when I asked if anyone knew what our problem was.

The kids shouted, “SIN!”

Then I walked around with a microphone and asked the kids for the definition of sin.

I am not even kidding that one girl said that sin was the bad choices we make and that it breaks our relationship with God.

Praise God that this little girl understood our great problem!  But thank goodness it gets better…

We pulled out our Bibles (hands held out like we are holding a book) and recited Romans 3:23 together.

Then I said, “So we all have this problem of sin which is like having icky worms inside of us!”

Don’t worry, I clarified over and over that we don’t actually have worms inside of us, but that the worms symbolized our icky sin problem.

I talked about how we don’t want to keep living with that ickiness in us!  We need someone to help us get rid of the worms! 🙂

This is the part where all of the kids shout out, “JESUS!”

I pulled out a large picture of Jesus and explained that God sent His perfect Son (who had NO worms at all) to take all of our worms away.

While I was saying this I taped the picture of Jesus to the front of a large basket.

I gathered up all of the gummy worms from my rotten apple and one by one began dropping them into the Jesus box.  With each worm I talked about different sins that kids might struggle with.

One worm was for when we don’t say nice things to our sibling.

One worm was for when we don’t obey our parents.

One worm was for when we have a bad attitude about doing our chores or other responsibilities.

One worm was for when we throw a tantrum, etc.

I put all the worms in the Jesus box and then threw the rotten apple in there too.

Then I told the kids that when Jesus died on the cross, He took all of our sins/worms away and GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?!

This is when I pulled out of the Jesus box a beautiful, brand new apple (which I had hidden in there prior to the chapel).

The students and I marveled at how Jesus took all the icky worms and sin away and made us beautiful new apples.

Then I said, “Let’s check to make sure all the wormy sins are gone.”

So I put the apple on top of a cutting board on the table and began cutting the apple in half horizontally.  As I cut the apple I said that Jesus not only took our sins away, He put something super special in us!

Once the apple was cut I held up the two halves for the kids to see the STAR inside the apple.

I said, “Jesus puts His light in us.”

Then we got out our ‘Bibles’ again and recited Philippians 2:15 which says when we follow Jesus and ask Him to forgive our sins, then He will make us, “Shine like the stars in the sky.”

Next I said how that just makes me so happy I want to thank Him!

So we got out our ‘Bibles’ again and recited 1 Corinthians 15:57 which says, “But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Finally, we all prayed and praised our great God who takes the worms away and makes us beautiful new creations with His shining light!

It was a fun and engaging chapel and the kids enjoyed it!

And for the rest of the week whenever I ran into the kids they would let me know that those worms weren’t real.  They were just gummy worms.

And I always pretended like I didn’t know what they were talking about. 😉

When I teach I spend a lot of time focusing on Jesus being our friend and how wonderful grace is – which is so important.  But our kids also need to hear about our sin and how our sin drives us to Jesus.  Oh, how we NEED Him!  This knowledge then stirs within us a heart of praise and thanksgiving.

Will you ever look at an apple the same again??? 🙂

Grab my script for this lesson by clicking HERE!

(It’s pretty rough, so feel free to improv!!!)

I would love to know if this is helpful to you!

Joyfully,

Julie