Welcome to
CROSSROADS

CROSSROADS – a GPS for life, is a Christian values-based resource that is part of the Make Jesus Real (MJR) series created for Australian schools.

Bring Christian values to life for your students by igniting conversations that allow them to think deeply about what they believe and the values that they consider important. Give them all the tools they need to examine their core values and how they can apply these to their day to day life.

This unique Christian values resource is ideal for junior secondary level and includes a student journal plus an online teacher guide with downloadable PDF lesson plans.

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Start your students’ journey of Christian values and self-discovery now with CROSSROADS.
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CROSSROADS

A GPS for Life

Welcome to CROSSROADS – a unique pastoral care resource for junior secondary students that complements your existing Religious Instruction curriculum, pastoral care, or wellness program.

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So what is CROSSROADS?

CROSSROADS is an invaluable guide to help young people journey through their challenging adolescent years and into adulthood.

The resource helps to provide a common language around values and how they can apply them to their day to day life.

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Created with a view to helping students establish their Christian identity, CROSSROADS not only provides meaningful, relevant and challenging topics to students with a strong faith-filled connection to Jesus, but also supports those with little understanding of Jesus and his message.

CROSSROADS has been tailored to engage students to think deeply, reflect, and develop a relationship with themselves, their peers, teachers, parents and their world, through relevant issues discussed in the text.

Additionally, CROSSROADS encourages students to examine their values and turn to the Gospel for guidance and aim to be the best they can be. It has been successfully trialled across Australia with positive feedback from both teachers and students.

CROSSROADS is truly a GPS for life.

Lesson Topics

Meet the Authors!

Christina Douglas

Christina Douglas is an Australian teacher, who has been teaching RE and creating Christian Religious Education curriculum for over two decades. She currently teaches students at Kilvington Grammar School in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where she has enjoyed working for the past 19 years.

Christina has taught Christian Education to students in schools from Prep-Year 12 and worked with the non-profit organisation, Scripture Union Victoria, to provide resources for use in schools around Victoria. She lives in Melbourne and is married to Anthony, and together they have three sons. As a family, they attend their local church, where Christina is actively involved with the teenage youth group and other community events.

Paul Joy

During my life-journey I have discovered the value of noticing scenery changes, keeping an eye on the map and celebrating who is sharing the adventure with me. I’ve also come to recognise that I need help to remember the lessons learned along the way. For me, that help has come in the form of my journal.

As a husband, father, teacher, artist and school chaplain with over 20 years of experience working in primary and secondary schools, I acknowledge how the learning journey is enhanced by reflecting regularly along the way. So whether you’ve been keeping a journal for years or this is a new idea for you, I’m confident that you’ll benefit from exploring the questions and prompts in CROSSROADS. I encourage you to engage with the ideas and information presented and to participate in the discussion in order to grapple with, clarify and refine your own understanding and conclusions.

Marty Ogle

Marty Ogle, the creator of MJR 24/ 7 series, developed this secondary level values-based resource from the Make Jesus Real program originally created by Peter Mitchell for primary schools. Marty is the MJR co-ordinator of Tasmania and continues to spread the Gospel values of MJR everywhere he teaches. CROSSROADS was inspired by Marty’s MJR/24 text, aimed at junior secondary level with topics that are current and relevant to young people today.

Marty felt that teachers and students in secondary schools would greatly benefit from a resource that recognised teenage issues and looked at these from a perspective of pastoral care and faith-filled philosophies.

In a nutshell, the purpose of writing and developing this resource was to give the teachers and students the opportunity to talk and then to reflect – even if opinions differed. After consultation with students, Marty discovered that they wanted an opportunity to express their thoughts, feelings and reactions to the unit content by writing a journal. This is, according to Marty, an important aspect of the book that will be the most valuable for students when they look back on their journey and see how far they have come.

Gemma Thomson

My first encounter with Make Jesus Real (MJR) gave me an insight into how to reinvigorate and re-energise Religious Education for secondary students. I contacted Marty Ogle and soon we collaborated on a secondary text, MJR 24/7.

From this project a new version was birthed – CROSSROADS – authored by Christina Douglas and Paul Joy.

As Head of Religious Education and Leader of Liturgies, I witness daily in my role as a leader and classroom teacher, the recognised need for adolescents to have the opportunity to grapple with pastoral care issues that are relevant to their lives through using faith-filled approaches.

My role as a Religious Education specialist, along with a strong passion for pastoral care, ensures that I lead by example in MJR 24/7. I focus on making Jesus real and relevant for the students, for which the MJR 24/7 resource is perfect as a supplementary resource to our RE curriculum and pastoral care offerings.

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Testimonials

For more testimonials on CROSSROADS, click on the arrows.

CROSSROADS is an engaging and dynamic resource that would add greatly to a Middle School curriculum. It is a thoughtful text with many activities that will challenge students to think profoundly about their life journey.

Andrew Lawrence
Deputy Head of Middle School
Yarra Valley Grammar

There is a very real need for young Australians to think about the values they hold and how they impact not only their own lives, but the society in which they live. This is a book that every teenager would benefit from reading and applying, and the accompanying teachers notes and recommended activities make it an easy resource for Christian educators to use with the young people that they teach.

Rev Janet Costello
Chaplain
 Kilvington Grammar School

This book makes important connections between the values and choices that teenagers make which will inevitably impact their future. The reflection and journaling process helps students get to the core of how they make these decisions. The accompanying Teachers’ notes and life application activities make this a valuable resource with a wellbeing focus for Teachers of Christian Education.

Kathleen Vergers
Chaplain and Religious Education Teacher
Strathcona Girls Grammar School

Where Did CROSSROADS Come From?

CROSSROADS was inspired by the creators of the MJR series, Marty Ogle and Gemma Thomson, to create a unique Christian values-based resource for secondary students.

The authors of CROSSROADS, Christina Douglas and Paul Joy, have adapted the original materials and produced a pastoral care resource that reflects the conversations that are going on across the country. There are thought-provoking issues that help students to explore, discuss and examine what they believe in and the values that they think are important.

The resource covers the Gospel values of courage, tolerance, resilience, gratitude, generosity, respect and integrity – all relevant and real topics that engage young people and ignite dialogue.