Posted by Shawna Calhoun | October 25, 2025
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” — Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV)
🎉 Welcome to the New Faith Forward Life Blog!
I’m thrilled to welcome you to the new Faith Forward Life Blog Spot—the permanent home for biblical workplace wisdom!
As we prepare for the launch of If Jesus Was a Project Manager next month, I’ve created this dedicated platform to serve you better.
What you’ll find here:
- Weekly in-depth blog articles like this one, exploring how Scripture transforms workplace leadership
- Resources and tools from the “Faith at Work” book series
- A centralized hub where you can easily find content that matters to you
New to Faith Forward Life? I founded this platform to help believers integrate their faith with their professional lives in practical, meaningful ways – from a biblical worldview. Faith Forward Life includes the “Faith at Work” book series and related resources, articles, and posts on LinkedIn, with other social media integrations.
On the Faith Forward Life Blog:
- Weekly blog articles – Published over the weekend, providing in-depth explorations of faith and professional excellence
On LinkedIn, we offer:
- Faith Forward Life Community Group – A page where fellow believers can engage, support, and edify with brothers and sisters in the faith (link provided at the end of this article)
- Daily posts – Short, meaningful insights
- Weekly newsletter – Published on Wednesdays, featuring a summarized version of the weekly blog article with links to the full post on the Faith Forward Life Blog (including historical blogs formerly published on LinkedIn)
The transition: Starting with this post, full weekly blog articles will only be published here on the Faith Forward Life Blog Spot. LinkedIn will continue to feature the weekly newsletter with summaries and links directing you back here for the complete content.
This dedicated space allows you to explore faith-driven leadership without distraction, while staying connected through our LinkedIn community. I’m grateful you’re here for this exciting transition!
Now, let’s dive into today’s topic: kindness as the fifth fruit of the Spirit…
Understanding Biblical Kindness: More Than Politeness
Welcome to week five of our “What Would Jesus Do” series exploring how the fruit of the Spirit transforms project management excellence. We’ve examined love as a project success factor, joy as recognition of God’s work, peace through biblical risk management, and patience (makrothumia) with difficult people. Today we’re exploring kindness—the fifth fruit listed in Galatians 5:22.
The Greek word translated “kindness” in Galatians 5:22 is chrestotes—meaning moral excellence, integrity, and goodness in action. This isn’t superficial niceness or corporate politeness. It’s active goodwill that seeks others’ welfare even at personal cost.
Biblical kindness is:
- Substantive, not superficial – It addresses real needs, not just feelings
- Costly, not convenient – It gives what’s valuable, not just what’s easy
- Truthful, not merely pleasant – It serves people’s ultimate good, not just immediate comfort
- Purposeful, not passive – It actively seeks opportunities to benefit others
This fruit of the Spirit revolutionizes how Christian project managers interact with teams, stakeholders, and even opponents.
The Source: Spirit-Produced Kindness vs. Corporate Niceness
Corporate niceness says:
- “Be polite to maintain professional relationships”
- “Avoid conflict to keep things running smoothly”
- “Be pleasant so people like you”
- “Help others when it’s convenient or benefits you”
Spirit-produced kindness (chrestotes) says:
- “Serve others because you value them as God’s image-bearers”
- “Address problems lovingly because you care about people’s growth”
- “Be genuine even when it’s uncomfortable”
- “Help others even when it costs you something significant”
The difference is profound. Corporate niceness is a strategy for managing relationships. Biblical kindness is fruit that grows from walking in the Spirit—a supernatural overflow of God’s character working through us.
Jesus: The Perfect Model of Chrestotes
Jesus perfectly embodied Spirit-produced kindness throughout His ministry, and His kindness was never merely polite—it was purposeful, truthful, and costly.
Kindness that fed the hungry: When crowds followed Jesus into remote areas, He could have dismissed them to protect His ministry schedule. Instead, He was moved with compassion and fed five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21). His kindness addressed their real need, not just their feelings.
Kindness that spoke hard truth: When the rich young ruler came seeking eternal life, Jesus loved him enough to tell him the truth that would have set him free—even though it made the man walk away sad (Mark 10:17-22). Jesus exposed the young man’s sin, his love of his own wealth (which was higher than his love of God in his heart). Biblical kindness doesn’t withhold truth to maintain comfort.
Kindness that served sacrificially: Jesus washed His disciples’ feet—including Judas’s feet, knowing Judas would betray Him (John 13:1-17). This wasn’t convenient or safe kindness; it was costly service that demonstrated Kingdom values.
Kindness that confronted hypocrisy: Jesus showed kindness to religious leaders by exposing their hypocrisy (Matthew 23). This wasn’t mean-spirited; it was loving truth-telling intended to lead them toward repentance.
Jesus’ kindness was never divorced from truth, never merely sentimental, and never just about making people feel good in the moment. It always served people’s ultimate wellbeing.
The Kindness-Truth Balance: A Biblical Tension
One of the greatest challenges in workplace ministry is balancing kindness with truth. Ephesians 4:15 instructs us to speak “the truth in love”—holding both values in creative tension.
Kindness without truth becomes:
- Enabling harmful behavior rather than addressing it
- Avoiding difficult conversations that would serve people’s growth
- Flattery that protects relationships at the expense of integrity
- Weakness that fails to protect those being harmed
Truth without kindness becomes:
- Harshness that tears down rather than builds up
- Brutality that damages relationships unnecessarily
- Self-righteousness that values being right over serving others
- Legalism that forgets grace
Biblical kindness holds both:
- Speaking truth because you care about people’s ultimate good
- Delivering hard feedback in ways that preserve dignity
- Confronting harmful behavior while maintaining respect
- Protecting the vulnerable even when it’s uncomfortable
This is the kindness Jesus demonstrated—never compromising truth, never delivering it without love.
Practical Application: Three Dimensions of Spirit-Produced Kindness
1. Kindness in Feedback: Building Up While Being Honest
The flesh delivers feedback through:
- Public criticism that humiliates
- Sarcasm that wounds
- Harsh tone that tears down
- Delayed feedback that allows problems to compound
- Vague feedback that doesn’t help people improve
The Spirit produces kindness that delivers feedback through:
- Private conversations that preserve dignity
- Specific examples that help people understand
- Clear expectations that guide improvement
- Timely delivery that prevents problems from growing
- Gracious tone that builds up even while correcting
Real-world example: A team member consistently missed deadlines, impacting the entire project. The flesh wanted to criticize him publicly in the status meeting to “send a message.” The Spirit produced kindness that led to a private conversation where I discovered he was caring for a sick parent and didn’t feel he could ask for help.
Spirit-produced kindness enabled me to:
- Listen to understand his situation without judgment
- Adjust responsibilities temporarily while maintaining accountability
- Connect him with employee assistance resources
- Develop a realistic plan for catching up
- Follow up regularly with supportive check-ins
The result? Not only did his performance improve, but he became one of our most dedicated team members because he experienced kindness that served his real needs.
2. Kindness with Difficult Stakeholders: Serving Those Who Oppose
Last week we explored makrothumia (patience with difficult people). This week we’re seeing how kindness complements that patience by actively seeking to serve even those who oppose us.
From my experience: The stakeholder who publicly challenged my competence (mentioned in last week’s patience post) needed more than just my patient endurance—she needed my active kindness.
Spirit-produced kindness meant:
- Seeking to understand her underlying concerns rather than just defending my position
- Providing extra documentation that addressed her specific questions, even though it required significant additional work
- Including her in key decisions even though it would have been easier to minimize her involvement
- Crediting her insights publicly when she made valuable contributions
- Following up after difficult meetings to ensure she felt heard and valued
This wasn’t strategy—it was fruit of the Spirit producing genuine care for someone who opposed me. Over time, kindness broke through resistance that arguments never could have penetrated.
3. Kindness in Resource Allocation: Generosity vs. Self-Protection
Project managers constantly face decisions about how to allocate limited resources—time, budget, people, and attention. The flesh hoards resources to protect our own projects. The Spirit produces kindness that shares generously.
Example from healthcare IT: During a critical phase of our implementation, another project manager’s team faced an unexpected technical crisis that threatened patient safety. They needed database expertise we had on our team.
The flesh argued:
- “That’s not our problem”
- “We can’t afford to lose resources during our critical phase”
- “They should have planned better”
- “Helping them will hurt our metrics”
The Spirit produced kindness that led to:
- Loaning our best database specialist for three days
- Sharing our lessons learned from similar challenges
- Offering to review their recovery plan
- Following up after the crisis to ensure stability
Did this impact our timeline? Yes—we absorbed three days of delay. But the kindness strengthened relationships across the IT department, established patterns of mutual support, and ultimately returned to us multiplied when we later needed help during our own crisis.
“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38, NKJV).
Kindness and the PMBOK Framework: Professional Excellence Through Grace
The Project Management Body of Knowledge emphasizes team development, stakeholder engagement, and quality management. When we apply biblical kindness to these areas, we discover that Spirit-produced fruit enhances professional outcomes.
Team Development: Kindness in Coaching
Traditional approach: Focus on performance metrics, address deficiencies, manage to objectives
Kindness-enhanced approach:
- Invest in people’s growth beyond immediate project needs
- Recognize individual strengths and create opportunities to use them
- Provide development opportunities that serve long-term career goals
- Celebrate progress not just final outcomes
- Buffer teams from unnecessary organizational politics
Spirit-produced kindness doesn’t lower performance expectations—it raises them by creating environments where people flourish.
Stakeholder Management: Kindness in Service
Traditional approach: Manage expectations, minimize complaints, maintain relationships
Kindness-enhanced approach:
- Anticipate needs before stakeholders have to ask
- Over-communicate to reduce anxiety and build trust
- Go beyond contractual obligations when it serves their success
- Advocate for stakeholders’ interests even when it costs us something
- Follow up after project completion to ensure lasting value
This isn’t customer service—it’s ministry. We serve stakeholders as if serving Christ Himself.
Quality Management: Kindness in Standards
Traditional approach: Meet requirements, pass inspections, satisfy acceptance criteria
Kindness-enhanced approach:
- Exceed standards when users will benefit significantly
- Consider long-term maintainability not just initial delivery
- Document thoroughly to help future teams
- Design for accessibility even when not required
- Build in margin that protects users from our mistakes
Spirit-produced kindness produces quality that serves people, not just metrics.
When Kindness Requires Difficult Action
Here’s where biblical kindness diverges most dramatically from corporate niceness: sometimes the kindest thing we can do is take difficult action that others perceive as harsh.
Removing toxic team members who are damaging team morale and project success is an act of kindness to the rest of the team, even though it feels hard.
Pushing back on scope creep that would lead to burnout is kindness to your team, even when stakeholders are disappointed.
Delivering hard feedback about performance issues is kindness that serves people’s growth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Escalating ethical concerns is kindness that protects the organization and stakeholders, even when it damages relationships.
Saying “no” to unrealistic timelines is kindness that prevents setting people up for failure, even when leadership pressures you to commit.
The question isn’t “What will make people happy right now?” The question is “What truly serves their ultimate good?”
Jesus modeled this constantly—cleansing the temple, confronting hypocrisy, and speaking difficult truths were all acts of kindness that served people’s eternal welfare.
The Fruit vs. The Flesh: Corporate Niceness vs. Biblical Kindness
Galatians 5:19-21 lists works of the flesh, then contrasts them with fruit of the Spirit. When it comes to interpersonal relationships:
The flesh produces:
- Self-serving “kindness” that builds reputation or seeks reciprocity
- Flattery that manipulates rather than serves
- People-pleasing that avoids necessary conflict
- Selective kindness based on who can help us
- Surface-level pleasantness that never goes deep
The Spirit produces kindness (chrestotes) that:
- Serves without calculating return on investment
- Speaks truth that helps even when it’s uncomfortable
- Addresses conflict for others’ good
- Shows kindness even to enemies and opponents
- Goes deep in caring for people’s real needs
The test of whether kindness flows from the Spirit or the flesh is simple: Does it cost me something, and does it serve their ultimate good?
Cultivating Kindness: Abiding in the Kind One
John 15:4-5 remains our model: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
We cannot manufacture kindness through:
- Corporate training on interpersonal skills
- Following rules about professional behavior
- Imitating kind people we admire
- Trying harder to be nice
The Spirit produces kindness through:
- Experiencing God’s kindness toward us (Romans 2:4 – God’s kindness leads us to repentance)
- Daily surrender to the Spirit’s control
- Abiding in Christ through prayer and Scripture
- Asking God to produce His fruit in specific situations
- Stepping out in faith to show kindness when the flesh resists
The more we experience and meditate on God’s incredible kindness toward us—undeserved, costly, purposeful, truthful—the more naturally His kindness flows through us to others.
The Multiplication Effect: How Kindness Transforms Culture
Here’s what’s remarkable about Spirit-produced kindness: it’s contagious in ways that corporate niceness never is.
When team members experience genuine, costly, truthful kindness:
- They extend kindness to others on the team
- They give grace when mistakes happen
- They go the extra mile for stakeholders
- They speak well of the organization
- They stay loyal during difficult seasons
Real testimony: After the healthcare IT project where we loaned our database specialist to help another team in crisis, something shifted in our IT department culture. Teams began spontaneously helping each other, sharing resources without being asked, and celebrating each other’s wins.
One act of kindness created a ripple effect that transformed relationships across multiple projects. That’s the power of Spirit-produced fruit—it multiplies.
When Kindness Meets Justice: The Prophetic Balance
One final crucial principle: Biblical kindness never contradicts biblical justice. We serve a God who is both kind and just, and His fruit produces both qualities in us.
Kindness without justice becomes:
- Enabling abuse by protecting perpetrators
- Tolerating injustice to maintain peace
- Serving oppressors at the expense of the oppressed
- Confusing mercy with permissiveness
Justice without kindness becomes:
- Harsh legalism without grace
- Punitive correction without restoration
- Exposing wrongdoing without offering redemption
- Protecting systems at the expense of people
Biblical kindness includes justice:
- Protecting the vulnerable even when it’s costly
- Addressing harmful behavior for everyone’s good
- Creating systems that treat all people with dignity
- Speaking up when others are being harmed
When project team members are being bullied, marginalized, or treated unjustly, the kindest response isn’t silence—it’s courageous advocacy that protects them.
Conclusion: Kindness as Ministry
Galatians 5:22 lists kindness as fruit of the Spirit—not a skill we develop but fruit God produces as we walk in Him.
The question isn’t: “How can I be kinder?”
The question is: “Am I walking in the Spirit so His kindness can flow through me?”
When we abide in Christ and experience His abundant kindness toward us—kindness that spoke truth, served sacrificially, and ultimately went to the cross for our good—that same kindness flows naturally through us to others.
The kindness displayed in your project leadership isn’t ultimately your achievement—it’s evidence that the Spirit is actively working in your professional life, producing fruit that glorifies God and serves others in Jesus’ name.
As we’ve seen throughout this series, the fruit of the Spirit transforms project management from mere professional competence into kingdom ministry. Love makes projects succeed relationally. Joy recognizes God’s work. Peace guards through trials. Patience endures difficult people. And kindness serves others’ ultimate good, even at personal cost.
Looking Ahead: Goodness as Moral Excellence
Next week, we’ll explore goodness—the sixth fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22. We’ll examine how Spirit-produced goodness differs from mere moralism and creates integrity that withstands both pressure and temptation.
Reflection Questions
As you consider your current projects:
- Is my professional “kindness” merely corporate niceness, or is it Spirit-produced fruit that serves people’s ultimate good?
- When was the last time I showed kindness that cost me something significant?
- Where am I being “nice” by avoiding difficult conversations that would actually serve people better?
- How might abiding more deeply in Christ—and experiencing His kindness toward me—change how I show kindness to others?
- What difficult action might kindness actually require in my current situation?
Remember: kindness isn’t manufactured through effort—it’s fruit the Spirit produces when we remain connected to Christ and experience His incredible kindness toward us.
When we walk in the Spirit, He produces kindness that serves others’ ultimate good, speaks truth in love, and demonstrates God’s character through our professional relationships.
How has the Spirit produced kindness in you through workplace challenges? Share your stories in the comments—I’d love to hear how walking in the Spirit has transformed your professional relationships through biblical kindness.
📬 Subscribe to Faith Forward Life Weekly Newsletter
Want these insights delivered directly to your LinkedIn inbox every Wednesday? Subscribe to Faith Forward Life Weekly for summarized versions of blog posts, key takeaways, and links back to full articles here on the blog, plus exclusive updates on the upcoming book launch!
Subscribe on LinkedIn: Faith Forward Life Weekly Newsletter
Join the Faith Forward Life Community on LinkedIn: Connect with fellow believers who are integrating faith with professional excellence at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13355152/