A Morning at St Fergus Primary School

At 10:15 one morning not long ago I was part of the school assembly at St Fergus Primary School. About 110 young boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 12 marched into the gymnasium for a 20-minute assembly. They sat cross-legged on the floor with each class in a line, seven or eight lines deep. Most wore the distinctive uniform of the school: the boys were clad in blue trousers and white shirts and the girls wore dark skirts with white blouses. Both the boys and girls of the Primary 7 students, the oldest at St Fergus Primary School, donned ties. Seven or eight teachers and assistants sat on narrow benches along the walls. 

The assembly that I participated in at St Fergus Primary School was not like the school assembly pictured above. The one pictured above may not have been religious in any way. The primary and secondary schools in Scotland and England are becoming increasingly closed to assemblies with religious themes of any kind. Great Britain, like the rest of Western Europe, has become secularised and closed to anything smacking of organised religion. But the schools here in North East Scotland have generally remained open to assemblies addressing Christian content. Unfortunately, it seems that even here in this area, the doors of the schools are becoming closed shut to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The present Head Teacher and her predecessor are both active in evangelical churches in Peterhead, just down the road from St Fergus. The present Head Teacher has invited me to do four or five school assemblies a year as well as the Christmas Assembly and End of Year Assembly at the Church. I have been asked to do more, but conflicts with other commitments have prevented me from taking up the offers.

The greatest challenge I face in ministry is talking to Primary School students. Well, as I think about it more, perhaps talking to teenagers is just a bit of a greater challenge. I relish speaking to groups of adults at church or other functions, but put me in front of a group of children and teens, I break out in a cold sweat. I am aware that I have a tendency to drift to speaking in a manner that is wordy, cerebral, and abstract. That doesn't go down well at all with young people.  I have been doing assemblies and other activities with the kids for two and a half years. I sense they are fond of me. I certainly am fond of them. I keep being invited back. But still I get stressed as I prepare for an assembly. It has been a growing time for me in which I learn about myself, the children, and God. The assembly went well. I interacted with the students and had their attention. It came to about 12 minutes that I had with them. I ended by praying a blessings over the students and the school staff. It went well.

I could write much more about this aspect of my ministry here in St Fergus, but I have been working on this for nearly two weeks now. I want to keep posting  on a regular basis, and so I am posting this with hope of moving on to more postings.  

Blessings to you and yours,