BY ROSLYN DEAL
In NSW schools, parents are choosing for their children to learn about their faith at school.
It is so encouraging to hear students who are enthusiastic to answer questions and ask even more about Jesus. Helping students question, explore and discover faith for themselves brings us joy.
From local churches, enthusiastic SRE teachers are trained, authorised and welcomed into classrooms across the State. However, we don’t have enough SRE teachers to replace those who have had to retire due to ill health.
In an SRE lesson there can be singing, dancing, quizzes, games, a bible story, memory verses, activity books, and video clips. The COVID restrictions that stopped singing showed SRE teachers just how much students enjoyed singing songs about Jesus.
SRE teachers are normal people: old and young, mums and dads, singles and married, vibrant and quiet types who volunteer to teach SRE. I’ve heard from a former university student who is missing her class now that she works fulltime, an 80 year old who says teaching SRE is the highlight of his week, and a CEO who has taken time off for the past 20 years to teach SRE. Can you fit teaching SRE into your schedule?
You might like to help as a backup SRE teacher for when someone is sick and cannot teach.
If teaching a class on your own seems too scary, think about joining up with a friend to teach together. We are prayerful that COVID restrictions will be eased so that two teachers will be allowed to teach together in a class from Term 2 onwards.
If you are not able to teach, why not offer to babysit, pray, give money or find some other way you can support this wonderful ministry of your local church.
To find out how you can be authorised to teach SRE go to Special Religious Education (SRE) – Presbyterian Youth NSW (pynsw.org.au) or email sre@pynsw.org.au
