Lesley Crawford

Hello! I’m Lesley and I work with SU Scotland in South and East Edinburgh as part of es-team (the Edinburgh schools team) as well as taking the lead with Bible Alive. There are lots of great opportunities in the area and I’m pleased to share about some of those with you here.

Below is a snapshot of what is going on. If you want to get a fuller picture, please register for the es-team termly newsletter, which you can do on this page. As there are so many opportunities in the area, we always need more volunteers, and we'd love to see more people supporting the region financially.

The South and East Edinburgh area, along with all their associated primary schools and six special schools within the area, includes:

Boroughmuir High
Castlebrae Community High
Firrhill High
Forrester High
Gracemount High
Holy Rood High
James Gillespie's High
Liberton High
Portobello High
St Augustine's RC High
St Thomas of Aquins High
Tynecastle High

There are many open doors in schools and it is great to have several SU Groups in the area, giving pupils the chance to explore the Bible, as well as to have opportunities to provide input to the curriculum such as Bible Alive and Christmas and Easter presentations.

Of course this is only possible because of a dedicated team of volunteers. If you would be interested in finding out more about volunteering, please get in touch. 

Local Ministry Hubs

A key way we are looking to expand our ministries is through local ministry hubs around each high school cluster, meeting once or twice a term to pray for each school, and working together to bring meaningful Christian contact to the schools in each cluster and across the region. If you’d like to be involved in a hub, you can register here.

Bible Alive

Bible Alive is a programme designed to give children in P5-P7 an overview of the Bible as part of the RME curriculum using props, costumes, music, drama, video clips and British Sign Language. It is amazing to see the response as pupils discover that the Bible is relevant and exciting, and as they begin to understand how it fits together as one story.

As well as presenting Bible Alive and supporting volunteers within South and East Edinburgh to present the programme, I also have the wider role of organising Bible Alive training courses throughout Scotland and supporting people in delivering the programme throughout Scotland.

Holidays and Weekends

Residentials are a great opportunity to deepen relationships with young people and to provide more time for them to explore the Bible together.  Each February I lead a weekend at Lendrick Muir and each May I lead a weekend at Scoughall, which are both for young people from around Edinburgh. I am often also involved in SU Holidays at Easter and in the summer as well as SU's COmMISSION programme which provides leadership training for senior pupils.  

Churches

SU Scotland aims to support churches as they look to engage with young people in their local communities and I would love to hear from you if there is any way I could assist you in this. For example - training and supporting volunteers to run Christmas and Easter lessons in a local primary school, supporting a holiday club or mission or speaking to your youth group about SU events and training opportunities. Please get in touch if you’d like to talk more about this. 

Local Events

As well as schools work and residentials, there are other SU Scotland events for young people in Edinburgh:
Friday Night Adventure: occasional events for children in P4-P7
Spotlight: monthly group for S1-S2 with games, food, worship and Bible study
Equip: monthly group for S3-S6 looking at some of the big questions the young people, or their friends, may have about God and Christianity
Magnitude Worship Nights: evenings for S1-S6 with worship and Bible teaching

Prayer

One of SU Scotland’s values is dependence on God and so prayer is a key part of what we do. 
If you would like to receive termly news and prayer updates on SU Scotland’s work in Edinburgh, please complete the form on this page,

Thank you for taking the time to read about SU’s work in South and East Edinburgh.  If you’d like to get involved through volunteering, praying, or supporting the work financially, I’d love to hear from you!