What does James Annesley want people thinking about teaching SRE to know?
“It’s not always fun. But it always fills me with joy when I finish.”
James has been teaching SRE in primary schools for over 30 years, since he was at university. It’s something he continued to do as he went into full time work as a Presbyterian minister. There’s certainly other things he could be doing with that time, but he has always made teaching SRE a priority because he knows the value of this opportunity. “This can make a little bit of a difference in someone’s life. It might have made a difference in the teacher’s life. I always come away thinking that it’s been a worthwhile use of my time,” James shares.
James’ memories of his own time at SRE from his childhood are of his father, the town’s Methodist minister, teaching his class. At the time, classes were based on denominations. Now, James teaches two combined groups of year five and six kids, made up of a mix from Protestant churches, Pentecostal churches, some kids from Catholic families and even sometimes kids from a Mormon background. But the major difference is that often James is teaching children where the families aren’t connected to a church or faith community at all.
To help fill in context, James uses maps and pictures to help kids understand the location of these Bible stories in time and place. “I’ll use a map to show them well, here’s Australia, and here’s Jerusalem. Here’s a map of Israel in the time of Jesus, to show where and when the story takes place. If it is relevant we’ll show a picture of the actual place. For example, we’ll show the ruins of the pool of Bethesda.” The kids enjoy the visual nature of the lessons and are engaged, and keen to ask questions and offer their own perspectives.
In preparing to teach the story of the healing at Bethesda this term, James is expecting questions. Having been around for a long time, James knows the community well, which has helped him connect with understanding and sensitivity when different questions arise. “Sometimes kids are asking ‘why does Jesus not heal everyone?’ And it’s from a place of suffering in their own lives or families. A few years ago I taught a kid whose parent had died.” James is similarly aware that for this school community, the topic of miraculous healing is sensitive because one of the teachers lost his wife to cancer a few years ago when she was still quite young.
Being around long term also means James has seen kids he taught when they were in year five and six grow into adults who follow Jesus. At the moment, a number of kids he taught in SRE are a part of his church’s youth group. SRE is a key part of ministry in a small town, where it works in combination with other ministries happening at churches and kids clubs, to continue passing the gospel on from generation to generation.
“It’s always rewarding, I think, when kids see something about the Christian faith that brings them back,” James reflects. “They’re not perhaps not sure what yet. They see something in just the way that Christians behave that reflects Christ, that is compelling in some way to them.”
Participation in SRE at the school James is involved in has held steady for some time, with roughly 80% of kids at the school participating in lessons. James says that having school staff members who are supportive makes a huge impact as well, in terms of the logistics of organising and running the lessons, and behaviour support. But James is always in need of more volunteers to help teach classes.
“Often people say, oh the kids are scary,” James says. “There’s a perception that they can behave badly. But if they have a good teacher managing the classroom, it makes a big difference.” The training available to SRE teachers goes a long way in equipping teachers for every scenario in the classroom.
Over his 30 years of teaching SRE, James has seen how this ministry is often the only place many kids will ever hear about Jesus. He sees it as an important investment in the kingdom because it reaches kids who are generationally detached from church and opportunities to hear the Gospel.
“It’s a link in the chain – you never know when something they learnt at SRE will be in the background in the future, when something happens or they meet a Christian friend.”