Welcome back to the Ark, I hope you all had a great summer holiday.

Over the coming months there will be two Ark sessions, one like this where you do it in your own time, and one on Zoom.

This session is just a framework – please add, remove what you like.

PEACE

We are going to carry on where we left off and continue with our series looking at The Fruits of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23 says:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.

Last term we explored what the ‘spirit’ was – we learned that it was God’s ‘helper’, we then explored love and joy – and today we’re going to look at fruit number three – Peace.

WORSHIP

Let’s start by worshiping God and by singing a song of encouragement over our family – get your instruments out and join in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6v-UIvMXgUOr sing your own worship song on the theme of peace.

DISCUSSION

Begin by discussing what the word ‘Peace’ means – and how you can feel it, display it and seek it.

Then watch this video – https://youtu.be/ZwPbDRwNy8Q

Let’s now look at an example in the bible:

Read the story The Very Scary Storm beginning on page 330 of The Lion First Bible. This is the story of Jesus stilling the storm from Mark 4:35-41, so feel free to use another version if you don’t have the Lion book.

Ask your children how they feel when they are asleep or sleepy. Is it possible to go to sleep if you are frightened or scared? It certainly makes it very difficult! Ask them why they think Jesus fell asleep in the boat. Bring out the point that he felt peaceful enough to do it – he felt safe. What happened when he had fallen asleep? What did the disciples do when the storm started?

Bring out the point that the disciples felt scared. Show how different that was from how Jesus was feeling – peaceful and safe. Was Jesus frightened too when he woke up? Not a bit! What did he do? He told the wind and the waves to calm down – he told them to be as peaceful as he had just been when he was asleep. And what happened?

Say that we can all get worried or frightened about lots of things. Sometimes it feels like a big storm is going on inside of us. Do the children think that Jesus could make an imaginary storm inside of us peaceful like he did in this story? He absolutely can – all we need to do is ask.

In the story, Jesus told his friends that they didn’t need to be scared because they should have known that God was looking after them – and they should have trusted him. We know that God is looking after us too so we can trust him when we feel the storm inside of us.

Say that today’s session is all about peace – peace means knowing that God is with you and will look after you – even when everything seems a bit scary.

The Point: To see the peace in this story.

PRAY

re-read Philippians 4:6-7

Invite your children to each say something to God that they are grateful for and for something that they need peace about, is it school, siblings, parents etc…

SHARE

 Film a short video summarising what you’d covered and share it with the Ark Zoom WhatsApp group – if you are not on it, I can add you – text me on 07717 174740

James Greig