SACRED SPACES TRAINING: 1

At Church House, next to Leicester Cathedral this morning, for the first of two "Sacred Spaces" training sessions. This has been organised by Leicester SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) and by Leicester Diocese, to help improve the quality of school visits to local places of worship, community centres or any other venues in the city considered to be "Sacred Spaces".

The session is led by Jill Carr (RE Adviser to Leicester City Council and Secretary of SACRE) and Janet Ingram (Religious Education Officer, Leicester Diocese). Before the session proper gets underway, Jill asks me to introduce myself, the Council of Faiths and our relevant services. Ajay Aggarwal (our Co-ordinator) is also here today, as is Smita Shah, President of Jain Samaj Europe (and our Treasurer). I'm always glad when members of the Council of Faiths (especially officers or directors) are able to join in an activity like this.

All eight religions on Leicester Council of Faiths are represented here today. Leicester Secular Society is also represented. Secular Hall (the first - and oldest continuously used - such meeting place in the world) should be more frequently visited by school parties. There are two dozen people attending (not including Jill and Janet) in a fairly small room together. Some are experienced hosts for visitors to their communities' sacred spaces; others are newcomers to this sort of thing. Some feel comfortable with this sort of work, others feel daunted by the idea of addressing groups of children. The session focuses on practical matters, emphasising good two-way communication: Janet talks about effective planning and organisation for schools visiting sacred spaces; Jill speaks on what the hosts at sacred spaces need to know from visiting schools before they come.

After an hour, we take a short step to the Cathedral. The photo above shows Janet speaking to the group before we enter the Cathedral, the one below when everyone is gathered in one of the chapels. In the Cathedral, Janet presents a couple of activities of the kind that would be done with children visiting in a school party. One of these activities is "Godly Play", telling the story of the Israelites' captivity in Egypt and their escape from bondage. This is played out on the floor before the font, using a blanket full of sand, wooden figures and two blue cloths to represent the sea. Although I found much of this captivating (as I tried to imagine how my eight-year old daughter would take to it) there were points which troubled some of the attendees: the appropriateness for young children of recounting the slaying of the firstborn in each Egyptian household by the Angel of Death; likewise, the smearing of blood on the doorposts by the Israelite families; the use of the phrase, "People of God"; and the celebration of the "People of God" after they had crossed the Red Sea (Jews don't follow this historical example in full as they don't wish to glory in the death of anyone, which is how that can come across). For some not born and brought up in the Abrahamic tradition, it may be hard to understand why, in a Christian setting, they're being told a story about Jews; and this may be even more confusing for children.

Two unexpected thing happen to me while we're in the Cathedral. I've written about these in a separate blog entry as they're out of keeping with what's being described here.

As we walk back to Church House, I enjoy a chat with David Hurwich from the Leicester Orthodox Jewish Congregation, who has some Scots family history. And for those who haven't seen it before, we pass by the recently opened Nagarjuna Makpada Buddhist Centre (the next day, I'm told that a load of the people from our training session went over there for lunch!)

This is a very useful session: fairly low-key, positive, non-stressful. As it ends, Ajay and I hand out our set of introductory leaflets to those who don't already have a copy. We get to keep our "generic" banner up in the reception area of Church House till I come back to help out at the second session tomorrow.