In the past week I have enjoyed sharing and praying with a group of SRE teachers, teaching my year 3 to 6 SRE class, and watching an SRE teacher teach her students about Jesus healing the blind man. The children sat with rapt attention as she engaged them with a story and challenged them with questions to help them think about who Jesus is. Outside, I could hear some children laughing and playing. But inside, the children were enjoying the loving welcome of the SRE teacher as she impressed God’s commandments and love on them. 

I love SRE. I love that children can explore God’s word in a welcoming and caring environment. I love it that there are parents who want their children to come to SRE and learn about Christianity even if they don’t go to church. Deuteronomy 6:1-9 is a passage that reminds us to impress God’s commandments on our children and our children’s children. It is a passage that is often used to remind parents of their important role in bring up their children to know Jesus. But many of the children we teach in SRE have parents who are not actively impressing God’s commandments on them. They have passed this task onto SRE teachers.

Often SRE is the only time in a busy week that children get to hear the good news of Jesus’ love for them. Theirs is a small voice in a noisy week, but it is a wonderful voice for the children to hear. It is the voice that reminds them of the commands, decrees and laws of the Lord our God (Dt 6:1-4). It is the voice that tells them of God’s love for them.

Deuteronomy 6:7 reminds SRE teachers to impress God’s commandments on the children they teach. Although SRE teachers are not with their students when they go to bed and when they get up, they do get to share their lives with the children they teach. They have an opportunity to talk about how God’s word impacts them when they sit at home, walk along the road, lie down and get up. And they don’t just impress God’s love on the children they teach with their words, they also do it with the way they treat their children as they teach. Sometimes SRE teachers even get to meet the children they teach as they walk along the road, and in supermarkets, and playgrounds and waiting at bus stops; and once again their children get to see a bit more of what it means to trust in God’s commandments and love.

SRE teachers are a wonderful group of people who willingly give up their time for the children they teach. They may be the only voice reminding children in a noisy world about Gods’ love. As a church we can encourage our SRE teachers by asking them how their classes are going, praying for them in church, and providing ongoing support and training for them.