National Parenting Initiative: Jane Auld’s news and prayer letter January 2021

Lockdowns and Tier restrictions have impacted the National Parenting Initiative as they have all our churches, ministries, businesses and basically life! With a very few exceptions, face to face parenting courses have ceased to be run since March so we have transformed the NPI website, www.thenpi.org.uk to make it a useful resource for parents and those helping them by adding a whole lot more material.


Online Courses

For example, Parenting for Faith, Fegans, Connected Lives and Care for the Family have produced or adapted courses to be run online. I know of many courses being run via Zoom!


We have also added a Blog and a Resources page in which we say:


“At the NPI we have a passion and vision to see the local church across the UK support and empower families. If you are a church leader, keen to find out how to help strengthen families in your community, please get in touch with us, as we would love to speak to you!”




“Below are some of the organisations we think do a brilliant job of partnering with churches to meet the needs of families in communities across the nation. If you want to read more on how churches can support families, please visit our blog for church leaders.” Then you will see nine organisations listed.


Kayte, whose role has evolved into communications and engagement as well as administration, has been responsible for all these wonderful new additions to the website.


In May we appointed a social media coordinator who took on responsibility for our Facebook page Facebook and started us on Instagram and Twitter and in July launched a National Parenting Initiative YouTube channel with a series called ‘Families: A Toolkit for Church Leaders’.










They are short, 5 minute, interviews with people involved with helping supporting parents and families, well worth watching It is invidious to choose a favourite as they are all so good, suffice it to say that the one by Ian Soars, CEO of Fegans, on 'How can the church best aid teenagers struggling with their mental health?' has had the most views, closely followed by 'How can I parent well as a church leader?' From Rachel Turner of Parenting for Faith. The interview with Michaela Hyde from the Marriage Foundation 'How can I equip parents in my congregation to talk with their teenagers about sex?' is a ‘must watch’! Then the 4 relationships habits, whether parent and child, husband and wife, work colleague, friend set out by Jon and
Andrea Taylor-Cummings of Soulmates Academy are pure gold. They are:

 

1. Be curious not critical

2. Be careful not crushing

3. Ask don’t assume

4. Connect before you correct

We have now finished that series with an interview with Mark Chester of Who Let the Dads Out? on 'Why, specifically, should churches find ways to support dads?'


We are launching a new series today, January 7^th, which we are calling ‘Empowering Parents’ with interviews done mostly by Kayte with one or two by me. It starts with an interview of Ian Soars where he speaks of ‘Front Foot Parenting’ a topic which we think many will find really helpful in the current climate of yet another lock down. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h4WKlvrgz8

We took the opportunity last year, as the Vision Event in Greater Manchester in March had to be cancelled and there was no question of being able to run any others, to review the NPI and to consider its next chapter. A report written by an outsider helped us see what we are not as well as what we are! That we offer one distinctive role with three functions in Christian family discipleship at a national level.


That our role is to connect Christian family discipleship ministries with the local church to further its mission. We say ‘Christian’ because that is what the ministries are, but much of the material they produce is accessible by all parents/families of any faith or none. The three functions are:

    1) Introducing local churches to a range of Christian family discipleship ministries and their content.

    2) Highlighting the work of a range Christian family discipleship ministries in one place.

    3) Facilitating conversations between those Christian family discipleship ministries.




To do this we will:
 

1. Host regional Vision events on Zoom.

2. Promote Christian family discipleship ministries using digital media

3. Promote Conversations between our partners.

I plan to retire in February 2022, so I have one full year left, 2021, in which we plan to run Regional Vision events across the country. Initially these will be annual for the regions and monthly for the NPI.

There is much to pray for and I particularly covet prayer for a smooth transition for when I go. We now have a small team, Kayte and Megan, who is currently on maternity leave and returns on the 7th February 2021, both of whom are mothers and part-time and we look to engage a dedicated administrator. As well as being Co-ordinator of the NPI I am also a trustee and the plan is to replace me with 4 trustees to undertake the leadership role that I currently do. So please pray for 2 new trustees with the passion for parenting and family life and the time to give to this task. If you know of any who would like to do this please let me know. We really need them as soon as possible. Then please pray for 2 more next year. Pray, too, for funding for our small team, wisdom to us for who to approach and inspiration as to how to make our case compelling! I am enormously challenged by living in the midst of George Muller land, close to the 5 orphanages he caused to be built in the 1800s without asking anyone for any money - just the Lord! He was also the major funder to Hudson Taylor, China Inland Mission!


As we know family life in the UK has been enormously under attack for several decades now, but I know it is on God’s heart to ‘turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers’ (the verse from Malachi 4 that the Lord reminded me of when I became NPI Co-ordinator in October 2012) and I am so encouraged by all the new and amazing ministries the Lord has been bubbling up in this area over the last few years. It has also been fantastic to spend time with our partner organisations over the past year (mostly over Zoom!) and I am energized to see what collaboration will yield in those relationships and, as we plan to continue to grow the charity’s presence through regional online Vision Events, I am excited by the possibility of reaching more church leaders and families this way. Transformation of family life in our nation is, I believe, achievable through Christians and the Churches for it is we, who have ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory’ and it is He, who is the one who transforms.