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CHALLENGE

YOUR CHURCH SHOULD SUPPORT TEACHERS LIKE MISSIONARIES

Education is in crisis. ANDY HICKFORD calls for the Church to respond before it is too late

Today, schools in this country are the 21st century mission field. The 97% of teenagers in this country who never darken the doors of a church have not rejected Jesus. They simply do not know enough about him to have done that. The only realistic place that our teenagers are ever going to hear about Christianity, is school. In all likelihood, it's the only place they're going to see a Christian role model.

We need to get beyond thinking that Christian teachers only teach RE. That's ridiculous. We need Christian teachers in every curriculum subject, living out the values, modelling what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

We've got to get beyond naive ideas about proselytising people in school and using school as a place to hand out tracts etc. The Church's responsibility is about authenticating the claims of Jesus by the way Christian teachers live and operate, in the staff room, in the classroom and in the corridor.

So, the Church needs to rediscover teachers as missionaries whom the Church must support.
When I was asked to speak at the Association of Christian Teachers Annual General Meeting, I wrote to 30 or so of my friends who are in teaching around the country, in different areas and different schools. I asked them questions about their current experience of teaching.

It was a way of helping me prepare for the conference, and helped me to understand the issues they faced. What came back was a crushing sense of loss of perspective on what they were doing.
Some talked of the sense of isolation. Others of overt hostility in the staff room. They talked of a battle to stay positive. Some, of an emotional rollercoaster, of fulfilment one minute and frustration the next. All of them talked about the pressure to produce the grades at exam time.

And one of my friends confessed to me that he felt bad for putting pressure on pupils to perform, because he himself was under pressure to get the exam results that the senior staff wanted. "No matter how hard I work," wrote another, "it never seems to be hard enough. No matter what the percentage pass rate is, it never seems to be high enough."

That is the experience of teachers in our churches today. So, how can we support teachers as missionaries?

The first thing teachers need is individual encouragement and pastoral care. Think about how we care for our missionaries:

we have them back on furlough
we write to them
we communicate with them
we support them

If we start thinking about teachers in the same kind of way, then it leads to some concrete steps. Teachers are crying out for some perspective. They need encouragement that the Church believes what they are doing in school is important and significant. What does this support look like practically?

Don't ask them to lead the Sunday school or run the youth club. They need a break from work!
Regularly pray in church for local schools and talk about the pressures of teaching. Some of my friends found it immensely helpful when, from the main stage at Spring Harvest a couple of years ago, came the invitation. "We want the teachers, the nurses and the social workers to stand up, because we recognise you to be frontline people under immense pressure."
That's the kind of validation which brings perspective to the crushing pile of books to mark, reports to write, papers to fill in, discipline problems in the classroom, not feeling respected and parents' evening coming up.
We need to make sure that their pastoral network is in place. Teachers need individuals they can turn to and talk to, and who they know will support them in prayer.
Let's not be slow to encourage teachers and express the value and significance we attach to the job they do. It is a difficult, demanding, stressful job to be in. But if we abandon the next generation of this country, then we are really committing a great mistake for the sake of our nation.

Secondly, not only do we need individual encouragement and pastoral care for teachers, but churches need to get practically involved in school. Think again, if people are missionaries, what do churches do? We often send out people to encourage them, to go and have a holiday with them; there's communication between them. We try and find ways of supporting them.

If we think like that about our Christian teachers, then we need to get our church involved with the local school, so that the Christian staff don't feel so isolated and alone.

There are a number of ways we can do this. CARE (and others) have produced some excellent material on governorship. We can encourage members of our churches to be on the governing bodies of schools. My experience is that schools are desperate for quality governors and it's a way of real Christian influence and support.

I have seen one relationship with a school turn completely around, because of the input of a couple of Christian governors into the school's governing body. I have been involved in parent/teacher associations because I wanted to express solidarity with the aims, and the goals of the local school. There is lots of scope for classroom helpers, to help with reading or to help children with learning difficulties. There is a whole range of opportunities, where people from the church can go into schools and get involved.

Thirdly, it is about lobby and influence. If we knew, for example, that missionaries in the mission field were coming under persecution, we would write to our MP, and to that country's ambassador. When it comes to supporting Christian staff in schools we need to use our lobbying and influencing powers. We need to do that in relation to individual schools, to the LEA and County Councils, and at government level.

We need to be encouraging Christians in our churches not to vote just for the party who might line our pockets more, but to vote for the party who is going to, in our view, work for the furtherance and the improvement of our nation as a whole.

Education should be part of the Christian's filter process of who we vote for. We should see who we vote for as a discipleship and worship issue, not just voting on the basis of our traditional bias and prejudice.

And finally, we must be prepared to learn from our teachers.

One of the things the Church has been learning recently, is that the lessons missionaries have learnt on the other side of the globe, have incredible significance for our life in 21st century Britain, because here we are in a missionary context. We are taking the Gospel from the culture of the Church, to another culture of postmodern society. The lessons which the missionaries have learnt in cross-cultural communication are the ones which shape our strategies for evangelism in Britain today.

The most important thing we can do, in my view, to support existing teachers in the local school, beyond their individual pastoral care, is to allow them to become prophets to the Church. We have got to allow them to tell us that:

what we do is irrelevant
the way we communicate is not being heard
our structures are past their sell-by date

and allow their experience of daily cross-cultural communication to shape what we say and do.
In the Church, we continue to think that evangelism is an issue of the Gospel's plausibility, while teachers will tell us that it is not about the intellectual plausibility of our claims, but about the credibility of the culture of the Church. We have to allow teachers to become prophets to us, if we are to support them properly.

Our involvement in schools as a church, is a barometer of the level of engagement with our world in general. If we are not meaningfully involved in schools, then we will be missing our culture as a whole.

extracted by permission from Meltdown in Schools – the Church's Response by Andy Hickford. Published by The Stapleford Centre £2.50 ISBN 1-902234-20-0 Tel 0115 939 6270

© Christian Family Network
is run by CPO, supported by
Care for the Family, Marriage Resource, Positive Parenting,
Care, Women Alive, Christian Herald and many others.


		CHALLENGE YOUR CHURCH SHOULD SUPPORT TEACHERS LIKE MISSIONARIES Education is in crisis. ANDY HICKFORD calls for the Church to respond before it is too late Today, schools in this country are the 21st century mission field. The 97% of teenagers in this country who never darken the doors of a church have not rejected Jesus. They simply do not know enough about him to have done that. The only realistic place that our teenagers are ever going to hear about Christianity, is school. In all likelihood, it's the only place they're going to see a Christian role model. We need to get beyond thinking that Christian teachers only teach RE. That's ridiculous. We need Christian teachers in every curriculum subject, living out the values, modelling what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We've got to get beyond naive ideas about proselytising people in school and using school as a place to hand out tracts etc. The Church's responsibility is about authenticating the claims of Jesus by the way Christian teachers live and operate, in the staff room, in the classroom and in the corridor. So, the Church needs to rediscover teachers as missionaries whom the Church must support. When I was asked to speak at the Association of Christian Teachers Annual General Meeting, I wrote to 30 or so of my friends who are in teaching around the country, in different areas and different schools. I asked them questions about their current experience of teaching. It was a way of helping me prepare for the conference, and helped me to understand the issues they faced. What came back was a crushing sense of loss of perspective on what they were doing. Some talked of the sense of isolation. Others of overt hostility in the staff room. They talked of a battle to stay positive. Some, of an emotional rollercoaster, of fulfilment one minute and frustration the next. All of them talked about the pressure to produce the grades at exam time. And one of my friends confessed to me that he felt bad for putting pressure on pupils to perform, because he himself was under pressure to get the exam results that the senior staff wanted. "No matter how hard I work," wrote another, "it never seems to be hard enough. No matter what the percentage pass rate is, it never seems to be high enough." That is the experience of teachers in our churches today. So, how can we support teachers as missionaries? The first thing teachers need is individual encouragement and pastoral care. Think about how we care for our missionaries: we have them back on furlough we write to them we communicate with them we support them If we start thinking about teachers in the same kind of way, then it leads to some concrete steps. Teachers are crying out for some perspective. They need encouragement that the Church believes what they are doing in school is important and significant. What does this support look like practically? Don't ask them to lead the Sunday school or run the youth club. They need a break from work! Regularly pray in church for local schools and talk about the pressures of teaching. Some of my friends found it immensely helpful when, from the main stage at Spring Harvest a couple of years ago, came the invitation. "We want the teachers, the nurses and the social workers to stand up, because we recognise you to be frontline people under immense pressure." That's the kind of validation which brings perspective to the crushing pile of books to mark, reports to write, papers to fill in, discipline problems in the classroom, not feeling respected and parents' evening coming up. We need to make sure that their pastoral network is in place. Teachers need individuals they can turn to and talk to, and who they know will support them in prayer. Let's not be slow to encourage teachers and express the value and significance we attach to the job they do. It is a difficult, demanding, stressful job to be in. But if we abandon the next generation of this country, then we are really committing a great mistake for the sake of our nation. Secondly, not only do we need individual encouragement and pastoral care for teachers, but churches need to get practically involved in school. Think again, if people are missionaries, what do churches do? We often send out people to encourage them, to go and have a holiday with them; there's communication between them. We try and find ways of supporting them. If we think like that about our Christian teachers, then we need to get our church involved with the local school, so that the Christian staff don't feel so isolated and alone. There are a number of ways we can do this. CARE (and others) have produced some excellent material on governorship. We can encourage members of our churches to be on the governing bodies of schools. My experience is that schools are desperate for quality governors and it's a way of real Christian influence and support. I have seen one relationship with a school turn completely around, because of the input of a couple of Christian governors into the school's governing body. I have been involved in parent/teacher associations because I wanted to express solidarity with the aims, and the goals of the local school. There is lots of scope for classroom helpers, to help with reading or to help children with learning difficulties. There is a whole range of opportunities, where people from the church can go into schools and get involved. Thirdly, it is about lobby and influence. If we knew, for example, that missionaries in the mission field were coming under persecution, we would write to our MP, and to that country's ambassador. When it comes to supporting Christian staff in schools we need to use our lobbying and influencing powers. We need to do that in relation to individual schools, to the LEA and County Councils, and at government level. We need to be encouraging Christians in our churches not to vote just for the party who might line our pockets more, but to vote for the party who is going to, in our view, work for the furtherance and the improvement of our nation as a whole. Education should be part of the Christian's filter process of who we vote for. We should see who we vote for as a discipleship and worship issue, not just voting on the basis of our traditional bias and prejudice. And finally, we must be prepared to learn from our teachers. One of the things the Church has been learning recently, is that the lessons missionaries have learnt on the other side of the globe, have incredible significance for our life in 21st century Britain, because here we are in a missionary context. We are taking the Gospel from the culture of the Church, to another culture of postmodern society. The lessons which the missionaries have learnt in cross-cultural communication are the ones which shape our strategies for evangelism in Britain today. The most important thing we can do, in my view, to support existing teachers in the local school, beyond their individual pastoral care, is to allow them to become prophets to the Church. We have got to allow them to tell us that: what we do is irrelevant the way we communicate is not being heard our structures are past their sell-by date and allow their experience of daily cross-cultural communication to shape what we say and do. In the Church, we continue to think that evangelism is an issue of the Gospel's plausibility, while teachers will tell us that it is not about the intellectual plausibility of our claims, but about the credibility of the culture of the Church. We have to allow teachers to become prophets to us, if we are to support them properly. Our involvement in schools as a church, is a barometer of the level of engagement with our world in general. If we are not meaningfully involved in schools, then we will be missing our culture as a whole. extracted by permission from Meltdown in Schools – the Church's Response by Andy Hickford. Published by The Stapleford Centre £2.50 ISBN 1-902234-20-0 Tel 0115 939 6270 © Christian Family Network is run by CPO, supported by Care for the Family, Marriage Resource, Positive Parenting, Care, Women Alive, Christian Herald and many others.