Benefits of Teaching SRE

20/05/24

As people who value ministry to children and young people, we don’t need convincing of the importance of SRE teaching. Yet despite this, we’re often finding ourselves having to make the call-out for more SRE teachers in our local primary and high schools.

I wonder if you’ve ever thought of flipping the script. Instead of hoping to convict members of our churches of the value of SRE for the children in our local schools, have you ever thought of how valuable the experience of teaching SRE is for the teachers and helpers themselves?

In this article, I want to share some ideas of how different groups of people in our churches might be able to look at SRE in a new and different way.

Children’s and Youth Ministers

Have you ever considered how the 30 minutes you spend teaching your classes each week impacts your ministry practice? Having jumped back and forth between SRE teaching and children’s ministry for the last 10 years, there are some key benefits I’ve noticed from being in the SRE classroom.

1. Connection with the local community

SRE is one of the few bible-teaching opportunities that children’s and youth ministers can have outside of a church context. There is a different posture that we hold when we step into a school as a guest compared to when we are running activities on our ‘home turf’. Not only do I feel like a guest in the education space, but I consider myself as an ambassador for Christ Jesus. It is highly likely that I may be the only Christian that the office ladies, the supervising teacher, and even some of the students may ever meet.

Working in parish ministry, sometimes our worlds can become ‘christianised’ – that is, with all the pressures on our time and energies, we might not prioritise spending time with those who aren’t part of our church community. In SRE, I am regularly reminded of the people outside of my church who haven’t yet had the chance to learn about Jesus.

2. Group management skills

I remember inviting an older member of our congregation to come and ‘sit in’ on kids’ church one week. At the end of what I thought was a relatively calm week for our group, she came up and shared how shocked she was at the children’s behaviour. You see, she came from a different time – a ‘kids are to be seen and not heard’ generation.

For me, I was used to our kids and honestly, compared to the classroom management skills I’ve needed in SRE, this group was relatively easy! But I wonder if that’s the point – that because of how many years I’ve spent in SRE, I’ve had lots of practice filling up my ‘invisible backpack’ with techniques to use in any teaching context.

3. Sharper answers to tricky questions

Not only has SRE helped me fill my ‘invisible backpack’ with group management skills, it has also helped me hone some answers to tricky questions (see this article). While it’s true that kids in our programs often have tricky questions of their own, I often find that more questions come from the engaged SRE student who is learning about the story of the Bible for the first time.

While these are three benefits of SRE for those who almost always have SRE as part of their duties, there are other benefits that you might want to share when recruiting other SRE teachers from the following groups:

Other Ministry Staff

Have you ever heard of the idea of the ‘elevator pitch’? When I was writing my PhD in English Literatures, we were encouraged to create a 30 second to 1 minute summary of our thesis (get it - long enough for a ride in an elevator?). The reasoning was, we know our content well if we can explain it simply.

I think the same is true for those who teach God’s word to adults. If you can explain the concept to children, you truly understand it.

For those of us who teach the Bible regularly, I would challenge everyone to commit to one SRE class a week. Being able to stand in front of children and explain God’s word will almost certainly help you stand in front of adults and do the same.

Uni Students

I remember how hard it was for me to commit to SRE when I was at uni (and I was at uni for 11 years straight at one point – although the last few years were as a lecturer!).

Eventually, the local SRE Coordinator was happy  to have me teach whenever I could. If it meant that I had to leave a class half way through the year because my timetable changed, they worked with it (it shows how much they really needed the teacher!).

Teaching or helping SRE as a uni student is helpful no matter what you’re studying (though it is especially helpful for those uni students in our churches who are studying teaching!). Every uni discipline requires some level of public speaking. Getting the opportunity to speak in front of primary school students is much less intimidating than peers and other adults (and no grades rest on it!).

If uni students are youth group or kids church leaders, they are only getting the opportunity to give the talk once a term – but SRE is every week – that’s so much more practice in teaching God’s word!

Retirees

For those who are fully or semi-retired, the barrier to teaching SRE might be similar to the barriers faced by uni students: they might not be available every week. They might have grandchildren to look after, or holidays planned. There are a few options for this: either they could be a classroom helper or they could team-teach with another teacher.

I think another barrier for older members of our congregations to start new ministries is the fear that they’re not needed. Nothing could be further from the truth! Some of the greatest blessings of my time as an SRE coordinator and children’s minister was working alongside women who are my mum’s age (or older!).

It’s my prayer that, under God, I’ll still be able, willing, and keen to teach God’s word to children and young people for as long as I’m able to walk into a classroom! Are there some older members of your churches you could encourage to do the same?

Mums

I love teaching SRE at my son’s school. It’s a wonderful chance I have to give back to the school community, and to spend time in the classroom in a way I wouldn’t have any other time.

My friend, who has also regularly taught at her children’s school, has shared about how many conversations she’s been able to have with fellow mums about ‘God-stuff’ because she was the SRE teacher for their grade.

A barrier to mums teaching might be the need for supervision for their younger child. I was blessed to have nearby parents and in-laws who took my sons for me so I could teach SRE lessons when they were younger. But perhaps pairing up some babysitting with a prospective SRE teacher might be an option?

…and Dads

Are there any men in your churches who work flexible hours (like shift-work) or work from home? How many of them have considered becoming SRE teachers? Other men have told me about ‘community service leave’ where some companies offer paid time each week for their workers to give back to their local communities.

In my experience, there are very few men teaching in primary schools generally. In fact, both of my sons have only had a male teacher once each. This aligns with statistics which say that men make up 18% of the teachers in NSW primary schools.

So if dads (and men more generally) take up the opportunities to teach SRE, they are making a positive impact on multiple levels.

Also, it gives them a chance to be present in their children’s school, which is a rare thing for many kids to experience from their dads.

These are just some alternative ways to reach out to encourage different groups in our churches to become SRE teachers. Can you think of any others?