REInspired

Helping churches and schools bring RE to life in Reading and beyond

Who we are
REinspired supports local teachers by bringing Christian religious education to life. We work in partnership with local churches and local schools, enabling Christians from different denominations to deliver interactive sessions that fit the RE syllabus. Our collaborative and inclusive way of working enables and empowers every pupil to explore spiritual questions in a creative and dynamic way.

What we do
We have been working for 13 years in East Reading.  The Baptist Union has been a key partner funding REInspired’s growth working with schools and churches.  The figures tell the story of how your support has helped us to grow from our inception:  from 1 school then to 11 schools now; 60 children then to 4,200 children now; 1 session then to 154 sessions now; 1 church then to over 15 churches now; 5-6 volunteers then to 85 volunteers now … this growth is awesome!

REInspired has developed strong partnerships with the local school’s teachers and pupils.  Ministers, vicars, team leaders and volunteers – people from the ‘pews’ - play an important part in delivering and sharing openly what they as Christians believe. What a blessing this is. Pupils are always told at the start of each session that we are not attempting to change their faith but help them explore what Christians believe.  We happily work with teachers to tailor sessions to meet specific learning objectives and develop new sessions to suit their particular needs and context and to ensure the programme of sessions we deliver offers a progressive exploration of the key concepts of Christianity as children move through the school.

Your funding has enabled us to:

• Develop and grow our local provision
• Support other groups nationally who seek to do the same. Mentoring and training new startups.
• Take our model to the annual Children & Family Ministry, Hand In Hand conference, and Christian Resources Exhibition each year to exhibit and demonstrate our work
• Launch expansion into Early Years and Secondary Schools
• A second Year 6 Transition event

We want to say a big thank you to SCBA and the Baptist family for your continued support as we share REInspired’s vision both in Reading and beyond.

A local school’s story
Several years ago one of our schools asked us to write a session on Pilgrimages. At this point the topic was a year 4 enquiry and was for 45 children. A few years on and the year group had grown to 60 children, a couple more years it became 75. Each year we refined and reorganised the session to keep it in line with the school’s needs. 

This year the school has grown to 90 children in every year group.  The topic has now become a year 3 enquiry and moved out of the Christianity module and into the Hindu.  We had a lot to re–imagine. The school were keen to keep our session so we agreed to include it on a ‘compare and contrast’ basis.  In addition, the church we had been using simply wasn’t big enough.

Lower Earley Baptist Church’s new building became available and this has proved to be a God send. We can all fit in and with space to grow! The session is better than ever before with teachers saying; “lovely and meaningful activities” and “children are engaged in difficult thinking of complex concepts” and “Session really helped explore Christian Pilgrimage – the journey, purpose and meaning”.

The session is a carousel of three Pilgrimage sites, each with an explanation, an exploration and a creative opportunity for the children to respond to:

1  Jerusalem/with a focus on saying ‘thank you’ – prayer wall for thoughts and prayers of thanks
2  Lourdes/ with a focus on healing – water prayer lilies containing the children’s prayers or hopes for healing
3  Santiago De Compostella /with a focus on what we need for a journey – identifying physical and spiritual journey through life.

The worksheet doubled as their ‘passport’ and is stamped at each destination as they travel around the church building and the different bases.  It was lovely to see parent helpers of many different faith backgrounds leaning in and responding with some of the activities as well.

From a local church
"REInspired has continued to grow and inspire local Christians to serve their local schools.  This year Lower Earley Baptist Church has had 630 local primary children visit our church to learn about baptism, Christian writers and pilgrimages. Home Mission support has enabled this innovative project to make a real difference. Churches, Schools, Home Mission and REInspired - working together to share with local children what it is that Christians believe. It's truly fantastic. Thank you for your support!”   Minister, Keith Click here for more information on REInspired
 

Click here to read more stories about how the money you give to Home Mission is being used to bring the love of God to communities around the country.