I am the Preschool Director at a small Christian school and I love to teach at our weekly Chapel services. I am passionate about taking truths from the Bible and helping young learners engage in a school wide lesson through fun and laughter!

Our school celebrates a different Fruit of the Spirit each month in our Chapel services. During the month of February we talked about the Fruit of the Spirit of Kindness. Today I am going to share with you the Chapel service I led teaching PK2-5th graders about Kindness.

This Chapel is called The Beautiful Bananas Chapel.

I started the Chapel by reminding students about a simple definition for Kindness. We said that KINDNESS IS LOVE IN ACTION. I had a few hand motions for each word.

Kindness (hands up and out)

is LOVE (make a heart with your fingers)

in ACTION (take a step forward and point your right hand out and up)

An easy Bible verse that helps us know what loving actions to do for others is Luke 6:31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

After that I shared an illustration about how much I love PlayaBowls. Especially The 8th Avenue Bowl that is topped with beautifully sliced bananas. (Note – you can use banana split ice cream sundae for this illustration too!) I described everything about the delicious acai bowl. Then I proposed something. What if the next time I went to PlayaBowls to get my 8th Avenue Bowl and the person behind the counter begins to make it, adding the acai, then the granola, but when they add the banana, they use a ROTTEN BANANA. I got really descriptive about how brown and mushy the banana would be.

I asked the kids how did they think that would make me feel when the employee handed me a PlayaBowl full of rotten banana? (Their response – bad, sad, icky, upset…)

Then I talked about how important it is that they bring me a PlayaBowl with Beautiful Bananas on top. How would that make me feel? (Their response – great, happy, excited…)

In the same way, when we are kind to people, it is like we are bringing them Beautiful Bananas. But if we are unkind to people, it is like we are bringing them rotten bananas. If we are “doing to others as we would have them do to us” then we wouldn’t want rotten bananas, we would want beautiful bananas.

Next I invited some volunteers up. I gave one volunteer a rotten banana to hold and another volunteer a beautiful banana. They stood at the front of the stage. The other volunteers stood back with me and took turns choosing various written cards that had kind/unkind scenarios on them. They would pick a card and read the scenario out loud. As a group we would decide if the scenario was kind (beautiful bananas) or unkind (rotten bananas). The whole time I would coach with the question “Would you want someone to do that to you?”

If it was a beautiful bananas scenario, the volunteer with the beautiful banana would hold it up. If it was a rotten bananas scenario, the volunteer with the rotten banana would hold it up.

I used the FREE Printable Kindness vs. Trash scenarios from COFFEE AND CARPOOL.

After the game I had everyone sit down.

Then I shared the story from the Bible about a woman who everyone thought had rotten bananas because she had lived a very sinful life. But when this women heard about Jesus, she brought him her best, most beautiful bananas – a jar of precious, expensive perfume and her heart of worship. She poured the perfume on Jesus’ feet and washed them with her tears and dried the Lord’s feet with her hair.

Jesus said about this woman, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” (Mark 14:6)

GOSPEL TRUTH >> We are all like this woman, full of rotten bananas, but when we come to the Lord with a heart that wants to worship and honor Jesus, BY HIS KINDNESS, He makes them beautiful bananas.

And now we get to share those beautiful bananas with everyone we meet.

That’s it! I have to tell you, this is by far one of my most “sticky” Chapels. The kids REALLY got this illustration. Ever since this Chapel, kids have been approaching me and saying things like, “I gave a beautiful banana to my friend when I held the door for her,” and, “I gave a beautiful banana to my teacher when I obeyed her.”

It has been super helpful too as a quick reminder if I see a student wanting to give someone a rotten banana. This illustration has really helped our students get back on track!