Today is Education Sunday. It’s a Sunday that marks a day of thanksgiving and prayer for those involved in education, whether staff or pupils. Did you know that there are 23,000 Schools, 8 million Pupils, and 500,000 Teachers! We need to say a big thank you to those who work in schools,
 

“The workers, parents, thinkers, politicians, entrepreneurs, artists and criminals of the next generation are being educated right now... What goes on during those hours will have a major impact on the kind of adults they become.... But be sure of one thing: after 15,000 hours of school those people will not be the same as they were before”
Emlyn Williams, the Schools Work Handbook, SU 1996

John’s disciples called Jesus, Rabbi meaning teacher. As Christians we learn from Jesus: he is our teacher and I’m sure that as we go through this life, we find him teaching us lessons, whether it is trust, patience, love or some other attribute. I wonder what you think sometimes when you don’t learn that lesson: when you’ve been impatient again with your wife or husband, or been caught speeding again. I wonder, do you raise your eyes to heaven and as you say sorry, imagine God as a teacher looking at you with that smile of “Now have you learnt your lesson?”

Teachers teach so many lessons to our children and young people. How many times do we hear celebrities or sports stars say thanks to “Mr Johnson” who encouraged them in PE or English without whom they wouldn’t be where they are today.

So if you work in Education, thank you. We pray that God will bless you and keep you for the hard work.

RE is a subject by law that has to be taught! And Christianity should be taught more than any other religion, despite what the newspapers say! Yet it is a subject although required to be taught is often at the bottom of the pile when it comes to resources. For example a number of years ago, CTEER gave £50 to each of the primary schools, just as a gift to go and buy some bibles or some RE text books. One RE coordinator turned round and said, ‘Thank you; you have just doubled my budget for the year!’

The organisation I work for, REInspired, exists to support the teachers and enhance RE in the primary & secondary schools in Earley & East Reading.

When John’s disciples asked Jesus where he was staying, he said, come & see. At REinspired, we offer the staff and pupils the opportunity to “come & see”:

• to come and see our buildings
• to come and see what we believe
• to come and see our special things

We don’t try and change the beliefs of the children and staff, but we help them to learn about us and offer them the opportunity to come & see what Christianity can teach them.

Across the 20 churches from lots of different denominations that support the project, we have 78 volunteers, who have helped us last year deliver 78 primary lessons; it looks like that this year we will be delivering over 100 lessons to primary and secondary schools, I would like to offer you the chance to come & see part of one of our sessions:

<Pete then showed a PowerPoint presentation, one that REInspired show at the beginning of session about the Creation Story. The children are asked to enjoy the images and remember what their favourite image is and why. Pete’s favourite showed a diverse range of helpers from Baptist, charismatic evangelical, Anglican, Methodist & catholic backgrounds>

We can say to the schools come and see our unity and diversity.

Here are some images from a session and some of the responses we get:

Image 1 (We introduce the Christmas story through a timeline)

“Is this our Christmas party Mrs Major?”
“No, that’s this afternoon”
“But this is the best party I’ve ever been to!”
From Yr1 Child at St Peter’s

Image2 (Craft work)

‘It’s good, it’s not like school’
Yr3 Child

Image 3: (Captivated)

“I could have stayed there all night”
Yr 5 Alfred Sutton Pupil

Image 4: (Time for reflection)

“I would give Jesus my Power Rangers Speedboat”
A reception’s child’s answer to “I wonder what special present you would bring to the baby Jesus?”

Thank you. St Nicolas is one of our most generous churches, both financially, materially and volunteers wise, without you the project would not be able to continue.

One of my favourite quotes is this:

“Well, these people are telling us about Christianity and as they are Christians they obviously know more about it than the teachers”
Yr 6 Alfred Sutton Pupil

Are you inspired? Then Come & See