May
16
Written by:
Pete
16/05/2011 08:06
This is a post from Matt Ingle, who is finishing his second year BA Theology. It is an excerpt from a recent essay looking at whether schools work can fit into a church's evangelism strategy.
The church is no longer at the centre of community life, as it once was. Lee Jackson thinks that schools are now more the centres of the community. This presents local churches and Christian organisations with opportunities to reach their community by getting involved in schools. The localchurchlocalschool.org.uk website lists 10 ways in which churches can do this. They are as school governors, parents’ and other support groups, chaplaincy and pastoral support, volunteer help in school, contributing to lessons, contributing to collective worship or religious observance, extracurricular activities and 'out-of-hours' provision, mentoring, supporting excluded pupils and offering encouragement.
Not all of these match the evangelistic mission of the local church. Some of them use resources and time with little, or no, gospel work. In my experience as a youth and children’s worker, there are more beneficial ways to use resources.
There is also a clash between evangelism and education. The freedom to tell the gospel in schools is limited nowadays, since it is seen as indoctrination. In our post-modern world of human rights, where you can’t put your view over in case you offend someone, we’re not as free to talk about the truth of Christ and the Bible. Does that mean that schools work no longer has a place in the church’s evangelism?
My answer to this question is a resounding ‘no!’ There are about 3.8 million young people in secondary schools and only about 150,000 have regular contact with a church or youth group. These figures are startling, but even more so when we think that the level of ‘gospel knowledge’ in our society is also in decline. This is where the benefit of schools work comes in. Whilst it is difficult to spread the gospel in schools because they see it as indoctrination, schools are interested in spirituality. The Schools Curriculum Assessment Authority’s (SCAA) wrote a paper on spirituality in schools. It says, “Spiritual development is an important element of a child's education and fundamental to other areas of learning.” Chris Curtis goes to expand on this, “Spirituality in this context is broadly defined to include a person’s inner life through which they “acquire insights into their personal existence which are of enduring worth”.” Thanks to the education reform act 1988 it is important to have spiritual input in schools. This presents opportunities for Christians to take lessons and assemblies about the Christian faith. It also opens the door to lunchtime clubs, where the gospel can be more openly taught.
The danger is that Christians can be dragged into “spirituality“ and a very post-modern mindset of “what is true for you isn’t true for me.”
I think there are three areas in school life that the Christian can be involved in, in evangelistic ways. Firstly, lessons. There is wide scope for Christians to be involved in lessons. Subjects like RE and PSHE are key areas where a Christian view can be put across, and the national curriculum even looks for it, as do OFSTED. For example, whilst on placement I was able to teach lessons on ‘did Jesus really exist’, ‘the Bible’, ‘What it means to be a Christian’ and ‘Christian worship’. All of these lessons had strong biblical input, and had the gospel in them in some way. The danger with lessons is that you can also be asked in to do topics such as Euthanasia, Genetic engineering and capital punishment. Such topics are difficult, as they have no directly gospel focus, and Christians hold such a wide variety of views on them anyway. The benefit of taking such lessons is that a relationship is built up with a school, especially if you help them out in an emergency. For example, one of the RE teachers at a School had gone off sick and asked the organisation if they could come in and do a series of lessons on Euthanasia.
Secondly, Lunch clubs and Christian Unions. Christian Unions are a great opportunity to be involved with schools, because it is a way that we can support the Christian pupils, encouraging them as they try to live out 1 Peter 2:12 in a challenging situation. A lunch club is similar to a Christian Union, but they tend to have more non-Christians attending. In them it is possible to be more open in the gospel message as the young people are choosing themselves to come to the club. The danger with them is that in an effort to make Christianity seem fun the emphasis is on games, social times and relationships that time for teaching the gospel is cut short. The benefit of a lunch club is that it is a great way to build up the required relationships for the pupils to trust the worker, and they can also be a bridge to a church youth group. Partnering with church based youthworkers is a great way for schoolswork organisations to introduce the young people to a church context.
The third opportunity open to churches is the extended school program. Chris Curtis says that they are great opportunities for churches to engage and connect to the young people in schools in different ways, but the church needs to be ready to take the challenge. The extended schools program is where the schools provide care out of normal school hours for the children of parents who work. The schools will seek to use resources from other places, such as churches. This gives churches an unrivalled opportunity to get into the school and run after school clubs with a Christian theme. They could be similar to a kids club, telling Bible stories in a fun and relevant way. The danger is that this could just become an activity, where the worker ends up simply entertaining the children after school, or even getting involved in other school activities to build relationships and ‘help out’. When this happens then, as Chris Curtis comments, again we miss something important. We should make the most of opportunities to spread the gospel and make them our priority and grab them with both hands.
However, he also comments that, “proclamational evangelism doesn’t have a place in schools work.” I don’t agree. The Bible clearly says that people believe by hearing. Our lives should reflect God’s love and saving grace but the New Testament always links this to the proclamation of the gospel. Certainly schools work can show pupils that Christians are normal people, and we should live out the gospel, but it needs to be allied with speaking the gospel. As Paul says in Romans, “faith comes by hearing.”
Why is it important for Christians to be in schools? Because that’s where non-Christians are. Should schools work be part of a church’s evangelism strategy? The answer is definitely yes. There are many non-Christians in a school and it is a great-untapped mission field. It is also a difficult place for Christians to be, so it is valuable that we support and encourage the testimony of Christian pupils and teachers. If we fail to engage in schools and just stay in our church buildings then we are missing out on a God given opportunity, and we’re not doing what God calls us to do.