Nurturing and growing Anglican Identity in our schools is something that chaplains are often asked to lead. In this blog post I will share some of the ways that I’ve used The Five Marks of Mission to strengthen and support Anglican Identity in my context.
The Five Marks of Mission are a synthesis of the global Anglican communion’s mission as followers of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve God and the world. The Five Marks of Mission are:
Tell: To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God as we witness to Christ’s saving, forgiving and reconciling love for all people.
Teach: Nurture the faith of new believers and build welcoming, transforming, communities of faith.
Tend: To respond to human need with loving service and stand in solidarity with the marginalised.
Transform: Challenge violence, injustice and oppression, and work for peace and reconciliation.
Treasure: Protect, care for and renew life on our planet.
I like sharing The Five Marks of Mission with staff, parents and students because they demonstrate that we are part of a global community, they show the breadth of what Anglicans care about while also providing a clear focus.
As Anglican schools we can expect to see these marks lived out in our contexts. An interesting provocation for members of the school community in terms of how Anglican Identity is expressed and embedded in your school can be found in the questions: I wonder where you can see the Five Marks lived out? I wonder where the challenge lies to deepen our commitment in one or more of these areas?
In new staff induction sessions on what it means to be an Anglican school I explain The Five Marks of Mission and then share some of the ways that we live them out. This structure helps staff to see that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and that this “something bigger” is reflected in the life of our school.
Our Year 7 students complete a unit in Religious and Values Education on What is Means to be an Anglican School. I show them a few examples of graphic organisers online that visually depict The Marks of Mission. I make sure that these are quite different to each other. For example, some emphasise the marks: Tell, Transform, Tend, Teach and Treasure, some offer more detail and some cleverly use handprints to both capture the number five and the sense that these actions we take will make a positive difference or “leave a mark” on the world around us.
As a class discuss what each mark means and where we see the mark lived out in our school community. We have a vote on which graphic organiser the students think is the most effective and why. Students search online and collate their own collection of Marks of Mission visual organisers, sharing along the way what makes them effective and analysing the decisions that the designers have made.
Students then create their own graphic organiser of the Marks of Mission. I’m always impressed by the creativity and understanding that is displayed.
Another interactive way of engaging is to make five signs with one mark written on each sign (Tell, Transform, Tend, Teach and Treasure). Stick these up around the room. Ask one student to stand at the front and turn their back to the class. Give this student a piece of paper with the five marks listed on it. Ask the rest of the class to move around the room and stop at a mark (you can count to five while they move). Each student chooses a mark and stays there. Without looking the student at the front calls out a mark. Those standing at the mark are out and sit down (you can have a few practice goes first before people start getting out!). Eventually you will have a winner. You can fit in a few rounds at the end of a lesson.
Extension activities could include researching the background of The Five Marks of Mission and seeing how they are lived out by Anglican organisations such as Anglican Board of Mission (ABM) and Anglicans in Development (AID). Students in older graders could dig more deeply into the difference between ‘Tend’ and ‘Transform’. A deep dive into the connection between “loving God and loving neighbour” (Mark 12: 30-31) and how this teaching of Jesus relates to the Five Marks of Mission could also be a fruitful line of inquiry.
The Five Marks of Mission give us permission to be confident in our proclamation of the Good News, to build community and show how the work that our schools do in the areas of justice and coming alongside others are an expression of Anglican Identity.
I wonder how you might engage with The Five Marks of Mission in your ministry in Anglican schools?
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