See how SRE changed Jenn's life in a way no one could have predicted
When Jenn Phillips was five years old, the path of her life changed in a way no one could have predicted.
Jenn’s parents had no idea that by ticking a box and agreeing for her to attend Anglican Christian Special Religious Education (SRE) classes at Oyster Bay Public School, that their decision would impact Jenn, and their whole family—for eternity.
“The first time I ever had contact with the Bible was in my Kindergarten SRE class,” explains Jenn. “God’s Word just wasn’t opened in our house; it wasn’t on my family’s agenda when I was growing up.”
Jenn became a Christian in her first year of high school after she started attending youth group at Jannali Anglican Church. “One day I said to my youth group leader, ‘I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe he died on the cross to save me from my sins.’ And she said, ‘Well, then, you’re a Christian!’”
Jenn credits her faithful SRE teachers as the reason she became the passionate Bible-believer and teacher she is today.
“I see now how God was working in me through those SRE classes, preparing me to come to faith in high school. I was only able to explain the gospel to my youth leader that day because of the teaching I’d received throughout primary school in SRE lessons.”
But Jenn’s SRE story doesn’t end there. Because SRE also played a surprising role in her Dad’s faith journey.
“After I became a Christian, I started talking to Dad about my faith and discovered that he was actually an active church member at St Luke’s, Clovelly when I was a baby. But when we moved to the Sutherland Shire, he never got around to finding a church to join. One day I got the guts to say to say to him, ‘You say you’re a Christian, so why don’t you go to church?’ A month or so later, he started coming to church with me and my brother, and he’s never left! So, SRE helped bring my dad back into Christian community as well.”
Jenn has such confidence in the value of SRE for young peoples’ spiritual wellbeing that she’s given up a career as an academic, researching and lecturing in English Literature, to devote herself to SRE teacher training, becoming the Anglican Christian high school SRE advisor for the Sydney Diocese.
“I realised no matter how interesting my classes on Hamlet are, they’ll never be anything more than interesting. They might inspire a student to read more Shakespeare or become a teacher themselves. But I know if you open God’s Word then the course of a student’s life can be forever changed – just like it was for me!”
Jenn’s role at Youthworks is to be a resource for Anglican Christian high school SRE teachers and rectors. “If you’re an Anglican teaching high school SRE—even if that’s through a combined arrangement or board—I’m a resource for you.
“If you’re a rector with a high school in your parish and you need help establishing or expanding SRE, I can support you.”
Jenn’s quick to point out that even as an experienced high school English teacher, teaching SRE requires different tools and strategies, and that’s something that’s taken her years to learn.
“I’ve come a long way as an SRE teacher from my very first class when a student told me I was ‘Bor-ing!’—and I was!—to an advisor to other SRE teachers.
“There’s always going to be something in a lesson you look back on and think, ‘Ugh, that didn’t quite land’. But learning to have a mindset of, ‘I’m not there, yet, but I’m a little bit better than I was yesterday’ is what I’m here to encourage in other high school SRE teachers. Because, then, after a term, a year, you can see you’re a different, more confident SRE teacher.”