I wonder what you would say are the biggest barriers that get in the way of children and young people being able to meaningfully engage with their questions about life and faith?

With the vast majority of children and young people having no regular access to church, the need to give them opportunities where they are at is paramount, i.e. in schools. But yet, what has been found in research studies is that there are huge barriers that hinder fruitful engagement in many schools. For parents who want to support the spiritual life of their own children’s schools, often there is no clear or obvious way to get involved. For Christian teachers, there are rightly legal limits on sharing one’s faith in the classroom, but often it’s not easy stepping into what legal freedoms we do have, assuming that time even allows teachers to get involved with faith activities in school with the ever-increasing workload that teachers are facing. And for churches and Christian organisations who want to be involved in schools work, they are hugely dependent on someone at school who knows their own school’s needs and knows to open the door to them in order to meet these needs. Churches and organisations also need a strong volunteer base to work with them, which cannot be assumed any longer in a post-Covid world.

Whilst the potential barriers are obvious, there is encouragingly also a huge desire to overcome these barriers, and better yet: these barriers are not insurmountable. What if these barriers could be easily overcome by working together? What if Christian teachers, parents, and organisations were able to easily identify and help each other overcome each other’s barriers? Imagine a world where Christian parents knew whom to ask at school so that they could help set up an after-school club for children and young people to explore their own questions about life and faith. Imagine a world where Christian teachers could facilitate Christian parents and organisations coming in to support the spiritual lives of their schools, whether through teaching the Christian elements of the RE curriculum, assemblies and corporate worship, or even set up clubs and CUs that the community are asking for. Imagine a world where Christian parents were aware of which churches and organisations have a desire to support their children’s schools and then were able to offer their time to help solve the volunteer shortage. The only problem that would remain is finding a way for everyone to work together, and connecting Christian parents, teachers, Christian organisations and churches together.

That is why Cross Connecting exists. Cross Connecting is all about connecting all those who want to be involved in some way in supporting school needs, spiritual or otherwise. Whether you want to connect with others linked to your school community, or find community-made resources designed for people in your context, or whether you just want to hear about what others are doing to give you inspiration, our platform has been made with you in mind. Feel free to check out the different pages of our website for the different ways we can support each other!