Within Bray Park and the surrounding suburbs, there are at least two state high schools and six state primary schools, including Pine Rivers Special School. All up, that’s over 5,000 students and approximately 2,500 families, plus hundreds of staff and their families. Perhaps you might even know families or individuals in those school communities.
Can you imagine the spiritual and emotional needs within these communities?
Scripture Union Australia (SUA) trains and sends out chaplains to be able to help provide the support that students, teachers, and families need. However, most schools only have one chaplain who is often not even there full-time.
Bray Park State High School, one of the largest state schools in the area, has over 1,500 students and over 200 staff, and yet the sole chaplain there, our very own Hannah Grace Bongers, is not yet full-time. Many chaplains juggle multiple schools, doing 2 to 3 days at each.
Last week, I attended a Brisbane North Pastors Forum put on by Scripture Union Australia. I had the opportunity to sit at a table with the chaplains in our local area, plus representatives from several other local churches, to hear about what is happening in each of their schools and how we, as churches, might be able to support them.
The need is great! Not only are they in need of financial support/fundraising, but they are also in need of connections with local churches. They need prayer support. They need volunteers to actively sit on their Local Chaplaincy Committees, supporting them by helping them to plan and implement various strategies and programs. They need volunteers to be involved in programs in the school. They need volunteer mentors for kids.
Are you free during school hours? Are you free before or after school hours? Do you have a couple of hours a week, a fortnight, a month, or a term that you could use to volunteer to help these chappies with the critical work they do in providing spiritual and emotional support to those in our communities?
What an incredible opportunity to engage deeply on mission within our local communities!
Would you join me, firstly, in asking for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field? And then would you join me in actively participating in this work in our communities?
