Churches Together for Families has a long history. It originated from The Family Life Education Ecumenical Project, set up in 1980 to 'promote the creation of Family Life Education initiatives within the UK'. In 1991, FLEEP drew together the national 'family life' officers of member churches of Churches Together in England, together with representatives of Christian family life agencies, to prepare for the UN Year of the Family in 1994. For the Year of the Family the group produced a leaflet to help local churches, provided information and resources to local churches and arranged a national service to mark the start of the Year.
Since then, the group has continued to meet regularly to exchange information about members' work. In 1995, the group was formally recognised as a co-ordinating group of Churches Together in England and changed its name to Churches Together for Families. CTF uses as its logo the symbol that was introduced in the UN year of the Family. It represents a shelter and a heart, and symbolises the family at the heart of society.
The word 'Family' is difficult to define and so, instead of agreeing a definition, CTF worked on a statement which we feels encompasses the essentials of what family life is about -
'Family Relationships are the God-given context, in which human beings are born, nurtured and continue to grow throughout their lives. The forms they take are rich in their diversity. We affirm the central value of all loving relationships as a reflection of the love of God for creation. Because of our human limitations they reflect our weaknesses as well as our strengths. In our various ways we all seek to uphold families and enable them to fulfil their potential'.
Besides exchanging ideas and supporting the work of members of the group, CTF has tried to encourage ways for churches to work together and in corporation with voluntary and statutory bodies to support families throughout the life cycle. There are two recent pieces of work that members of CTF have undertaken on behalf of the group. The first is a professionally produced leaflet encouraging churches to offer good marriage preparation and to think about doing it ecumenically. The leaflet 'Why do Marriage Preparation?' is available from Sue Burridge, Secretary to CTF, c/o BSR, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3NZ. The leaflet cross-refers to the website www.marriage-preparation.co.uk and provides a wide range of resources and ideas. After long discussion, development and identifying of good practice in churches of various denominations and sizes, a leaflet is to be produced on Family-friendly churches, which will also refer the reader on to web based material. This material offers ideas and material for embracing the broader family experience at many life-points and should be a good resource for churches to work together to support families.
The group has attempted to dialogue with a variety of secular organisations working in family support. The Chief Executive of the newly created National Family and Parenting Institute, Mary Macleod, joined CTF for its residential conference on 'The 2020 family and the work of the NFPI'. One of its initiatives has been to launch a National Parents' Week. Parents' Week 2001 runs from Monday 22 October to Sunday 28 October. This year's theme is Listening to Parents and the Institute will be targeting professionals, policy makers and the public with the views of parents.
Perhaps churches can make this their focus during the week of half term. You can find out further information from www.nfpi.org. CTF hope to launch their family friendly Churches pack that week and some members of CTF will be doing special events then.
New resources have been added to the site for the 10th anniversary of the International year of the family. These include:
We hope that you find these new resources helplful in your churches.
80 people drawn from very different church communities and family projects came together for a weekend to explore how churches can work with families and all their diversity - see report.
Duncan Dormor gave a helpful lecture on cohabitation.
Delegates spent much of the weekend considering case studies and devising strategies for a range of challenging situations, including families suffering domestic violence, step families and prisoners' families. The results of their work can be downloaded from here
Some of the groups are continuing to meet and we will add any material that they produce.
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