SRE volunteers often prepare lessons on a weeknight after a full day of work, with limited budget and limited time. The good news is that the best Christian content on the internet is largely free — not free-with-caveats, but genuinely open-access, produced by organisations funded through donations and committed to giving away their best work.
Here is a tested, curated list of the resources worth bookmarking before your next term begins.
BibleProject is a nonprofit organisation that produces animated videos explaining the literary and theological structure of every book of the Bible. Every video is free, beautifully made, and theologically careful. For SRE teachers, the value is immense: a 7-minute animated overview of Ruth, Jonah, or the Gospel of Mark gives you the big picture of a book before you teach individual stories from it.
Particularly useful for SRE: the How to Read the Bible series (19 episodes), which explains narrative, poetry, law, prophecy, and apocalyptic literature with clarity that will improve every lesson you teach. The Biblical Themes series (31 episodes) covers concepts like sacrifice, covenant, the image of God, and the kingdom of heaven — all directly relevant to SRE content across year levels.
Everything on BibleProject is available at bibleproject.com/explore with no login required.
Desiring God is the ministry of John Piper, and it operates on the principle that everything they produce should be freely available to anyone in the world. The result is a library of thousands of articles, sermons, devotionals, and Q&A responses covering virtually every theological and pastoral question an SRE teacher might encounter.
The Ask Pastor John podcast addresses common faith questions in 10–15 minute episodes — exactly the kind of questions secondary SRE students ask. The Look at the Book series features John Piper working through Bible passages in real time, annotating as he reads — excellent for teachers who want to go deeper into a passage before teaching it.
All content is free at desiringgod.org.
Ligonier Ministries was founded by R.C. Sproul to make Reformed theology accessible to everyday Christians. Their website has thousands of free articles, devotionals, and Q&A responses across every area of systematic and biblical theology. The Renewing Your Mind podcast (daily, free on all podcast platforms) works through theological topics with depth and clarity.
For SRE teachers preparing lessons on creation, the character of God, the atonement, or the resurrection, Ligonier's topic-indexed library is an excellent preparation resource. Articles are typically 800–1500 words — readable in 10 minutes and trustworthy in their theology.
The Gospel Coalition (TGC) is the most comprehensive free evangelical resource on the internet. It covers theology, church ministry, culture, parenting, education, and more — all from a Reformed, gospel-centred perspective closely aligned with Sydney Anglican theology. Their articles are written by leading pastors, theologians, and scholars from around the world.
For SRE specifically, TGC's articles on preaching Christ from the Old Testament, engaging doubt, teaching children about faith, and explaining the atonement are outstanding preparation material. The free journal Themelios (available at thegospelcoalition.org/themelios) is peer-reviewed and covers biblical and theological topics at a scholarly level — useful for volunteers who want deeper background on what they're teaching.
Enduring Word by David Guzik provides a free, verse-by-verse commentary on every chapter of the Bible. It is one of the most widely-read modern commentaries in the world, and all of it is free on the website. The commentary is clear, accessible, and pastor-oriented — not academic, but not shallow either.
For SRE lesson preparation, Enduring Word is invaluable: before teaching any passage, reading the relevant commentary takes 5–10 minutes and surfaces background, context, application, and connections to other parts of Scripture that would take hours to find otherwise. Available at enduringword.com with no login required.
