Audience of One

Year 11->12 Evening

Last week was the annual evening for prospective sixth formers and their parents to talk to subject teachers about their options. This year was slightly different, in that different societies and groups within the sixth form were offered the chance to advertise themselves to the Year Elevens. Surprisingly but encouragingly, the Christian Union was one of the societies asked.

Of course, we’re not just a group of sixth formers and in fact one of the leadership team is a Year Eleven herself. Still, a lot of new students arrive in the sixth form who wouldn’t otherwise hear about it, and there are many current students of younger year groups who don’t go. So I welcomed the opportunity and turned up to make the group known.

In the entire four hours, we had three people come to enquire about the CU. The first two were mother and daughter, about to move to the area and knowing no-one. I told the daughter that the CU would be a perfect place to make friends and get to know people – in fact, I knew of four people, now the best of friends, who met in this way. The other person was the father of a Year Eleven student I knew who didn’t come to the CU. The parents work for an international Christian charity in a kind of missionary or missionary-supporting/training role. I have no idea what the son believes, but his father was keen to have him come along.

I say that we had three people come to enquire about the CU. Perhaps I should add the adverb “seriously” to that statement. There were a couple of guys who would, in between seeing subject teachers, come and ask “amusing” questions.

Lad 1: You say anyone’s welcome to come to Christian Club. What about Hindus?

Me: Well, they’d be welcome to come along, but meetings are primarily aimed at Christians.

Lad 2: Do you like Jews?

Me: Yes. If you think about it, Jesus was a Jew.

Lad 1: Ooh, good answer! Had you there, mate!

Then there were the slightly more serious questions:

Lad 1: Do you believe in hell? Or the devil?

Lad 2: Isn’t a bit arrogant to say non-Christians are going to hell?

It’s quite hard to give a good response to those sort of questions when there’s a group of guys standing just behind the questioners, prodding them, giggling with masculinity (I’m not quite sure how else to describe it) and generally being quite loud and distracting to both you and the people questioning you. Still, I gave it a good shot.

It was amazing to see how glad the sixth form management were to have us there, advertising. Just two years ago we were only allowed to meet because the headteacher had a guilty conscience about “religious” input in assemblies. Now we have posters around the school, advertising in assemblies, a box on the “Lunchtime Activities” list on the South Site and a senior management team who encourage us to get new people along. It’s quite incredible what God’s actually done.

It’s not exactly helping me prepare for opposition in the future though, which I know will come soon enough. Still, it’s not only suffering we can be thankful for.

Matthew @ 13:01, March 2, 2005 to Diary | Comments (0)