Ukelele & Jelly Triage - Highlights from the SRE Conference.

Rev Al James demonstrating the simplicity of the ukelele

13 February 2025

“Anyone can learn to play the ukelele with just a one-finger chord!” Using his own blue ukelele to demonstrate, Youthworks Youth Ministry & High School SRE Advisor Rev Al James made this challenge to the 250 conference participants at St Barnabus’ Broadway at the SRE conference on 4 February 2025. It was part of his workshop on how to help young people memorise Scripture, and why such an activity is important to help them grow in their faith.

Al gave practical, age-appropriate examples of ways to engage young people with memorising Scripture, using simple props and minimal preparation resources.

This was just one of the three helpful workshops offered at the annual conference, which resources and trains SRE teachers across the state. Over 1,300 SRE teachers registered to attend the event across 8 locations over 4 days.

Antoine Lespe has been teaching a year 3/4 SRE class at Woollahra Public School (Sydney) for three years.

“It’s amazing that in NSW we are allowed to go into classrooms, that we can actually read the Bible, pray and answer questions which the kids might have.”

Antoine finds it challenging to answer certain questions from students, so Cam Harte’s training workshop, Answering Tricky Questions in SRE, was particularly helpful. Cam used the ‘jelly’ visual to help SRE teachers develop a strategy to triage the questions that kids love to ask (often at the most inopportune moment of a lesson!)

Nerida Zhao has been teaching primary and high school SRE for over 20 years in Coogee and Randwick (Sydney) This is what motivates her:

“It's a brilliant opportunity to answer questions about who Jesus is and what he's done. For some kids, that's their only chance to hear about Jesus.”

The final workshop on leading prayer in SRE classes was an excellent reminder about how SRE teachers model prayer habits to their students, with the facilitator providing age-appropriate strategies to include prayer during lessons.

Andy Stevenson, Head of Ministry Support at Youthworks, gave an update on SRE and interviewed several SRE teachers whose teaching experience ranges from 1 - 30 years! This was greatly encouraging for participants to hear of others’ motivation and perseverance in this vital ministry to explore the gospel with school students.

Praise God for:

·       The 27 letters of encouragement for SRE teachers that we received. Excerpts from these letters were on display in a presentation shown during the conference break times.

·       The time of encouragement and learning for all SRE teachers as they prepare to start a new school year.

Please pray for:

·       All the children in SRE classes this year, that they would be open to exploring who Jesus is.

·       Good relationships with the schools where SRE is already happening.