Relationships

Your aim in schools’ ministry may be to build on and develop relationships that already exist, or to develop new relationships. You may have begun a relationship with a school after carrying out your first steps or you may have a relationship that you want to develop further and need some ideas.

This element is about building relationships with your local schools that will last. You already know something about the school through asking questions and getting to know personnel involved. Now you want to build on that by offering to help the schools out in ways that start to develop the relationship between your congregation and the school.

Ideas of what you could do:

• Many children and young people learn about the various churches in R.E. classes in schools. One of the things that you could do is to offer to host a church visit as part of the R.E. curriculum. This would happen during the school day and so many people in your congregation may not be able to help with this due to work commitments, but there may be retired people who could look after these visits. Contact can be made with the school to find out exactly what sort of things the children will be learning so that preparation can be put in place.
• Many schools do not have the facilities they need for some of the annual events that they hold and your church could offer your building to help with that, e.g. annual carol service, prize-giving events, musical concerts, etc.
• You could invite special guests to come and share at your church services occasionally for continuing prayer, e.g. school principals, teachers, governors, etc.
• You could invite members of the local school or Scripture Union group to come and lead a service in your church.
• Individuals can also offer specialist skills to help in school life like gardening, helping with music, drama or sport, listening to children read, helping in the playground or canteen, after-school homework clubs, helping with school trips, getting involved with PTA or Board of Governors. This allows people to serve the school generally but also builds relationships and trust so that opportunities to live out and share faith come more easily and naturally, as well as more upfront opportunities.