Thoughts on Schools Work

I think a lot, about things that need thought and about things that don't even need a moment, yet sometimes consume me.

I have been thinking a lot about church, family, kingdom and school. About how I am in a hugely privileged to have a good job, that I am passionate about, and a bunch of people around me who seem to be on the same page as me for the most part!

As a team we have been talking about Schools Work - about passing the baton and encouraging the transition time to be a really positive one for a lot of our year six children and also about how we can reach secondary school pupils. We run a lunch time group for anyone to come along to, and recently thoughts have turned to how we can encourage the Christians at school and how we can model kingdom living to those who don't know Christ (and subsequently, life focuses on other things).

As with a few work things recently, Youth Work Magazine and Youth Work The Summit have provided articles and ideas to encourage me, though that the same time have I have asked the question 'how on earth do they know what is going on in my head?'. It seems I am not alone in my thoughts that the church needs to work on it's inter-generational relationships (that is one for another time) and also on the Christian Unions that seem to be happening around the country.

The article about Christian Unions (they haven't updated the website, so I can't link to it) was very positive - linking to things I already know about - alpha, prayer spaces in school and the project that the writer works with, The Pais Project. It is an interesting take on how to encourage the Christians in our local schools - but actually, if we live in a post-Christian society (well done for catching on to this), Christians are few and far between. So gathering them together in a school context is brilliant and they can help change their school, through prayer, projects of their own and in other ways that are suggested by the writer. But in a Post-Christian Society our relationships are often with non-Christians who don't understand the faith that we cling to dearly, they can't see the difference between those who have a faith (whatever religion) and those who don't, and often don't look beyond what is directly in front of them - which is often the phone or tablet in their hand (sometimes it is a book!).

This is where my thoughts become questions, some of which have been answered by some insightful people, others have to be discussions that we have started with the team that I work with.

How do we reach the students that are disaffected? Those who don't want to be in education any more.
How do we encourage those that are right on the cusp of making a decision?
How do we get young people to interact with adults, after they've put their phone away?
How do we work within a context of ignorance and hostility? Often a place where spiritually dark questions are asked.
How do we address relationships that are unhealthy without being judgemental?
How do you reach those that were previously interested and you have not seen for a while?
How do you reach new students effectively? This final one stems from the feeling that year group assemblies are no longer as effective at spreading the message about youth groups, lunchtime clubs and the Gospel as they used to be.

So as you can see, in my essay-ness, that I have a lot of questions about what we are doing at the moment, all of it is being discussed and put into action where appropriate. I do have a problem with the way education is working at the moment though. So many of the year nine students I have seen are already doing work towards their G.C.S.E. exams. My heart screams 'Give them a break!', and that's before they have even started. What has happened to letting our children be children?

I am praying that their will be answers soon, that the September onslaught will not come too quickly, but will come in order that we can get things rolling in schools across Billericay. Most of all though, I want the young people who are in our town to have a chance to get to know Jesus and if they already do, to give them deeper roots, so that when they do step out in faith they don't fall over or get blown away by life!