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Marrying Church & Community - A Success Story

By Chris Grimshaw.

Are we the salt and light that Christ calls us to be in our society? Are we having the influence in our society that was seen with the early Church? As they responded to the gospel, people's core values were radically altered, leading to a change of life style. Seeing that Christians loved one another in practice, attracted people to the early church. There was a unity and common purpose and mutual support of each other which contrasted so much with the usual values of the day. To be a Christian in those days involved real risk, yet nevertheless, over the course of a few decades, the influence of Christianity had spread throughout the Roman empire.

Where is the church today? Yes, there are many individual churches alive and active, but where is the influence of the church on the whole nation?

In a penetrating article in the Sunday Times on 13 February 2000, Charles Murry spelled out clearly that as a society we are in deep trouble. Many leaders either choose to ignore this or peddle short term solutions which never touch the root causes. We are living in a society where violent crime is higher than in the USA, the rate of childbirth outside marriage is at 40% and climbing and young male (between 18-24 years) unemployment is around 30%. Over the past two decades, larger and larger numbers of British children have not been socialised in the norms of self control, consideration for others and the concept that actions have consequences. Any primary school Head Teacher will affirm that a growing number of 5 year olds enter school handicapped by behavioural problems.

We are sitting on a time bomb. Recently an educational psychologist friend told me that she was given 35 files of 15 years olds who had all required special help when they entered primary school, but had received none through lack of funding. These little children had not had the parenting they needed and deserved in their pre-school years. Judges confirm that in order to reduce the violent crime rate in this country down to the level of the USA, we would have the raise the prison population from 60,000 to 550,000 - and that would only be a short term solution.

I am sure we could all produce a similar list of depressing data. The question is: where is the influence of the church? Surely the 10% of the population who go to church should be in a position to change our society? Meanwhile, 90% of the population see the church as irrelevant even though most of them have a belief in the existence of God! It would appear that the church is not scratching where people are itching.

The apostle Paul, in Romans 12.15, encourages us to "rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn". If we are going to start scratching where our neighbours are itching, we need to start to experience such verses in practice in the life of our churches. Then we might become much more relevant to the ordinary person in the street. Most of us experience real hurt in many of our relationships which needs comfort and healing. So often, because such comfort and healing is not received, we become increasingly selfish, self sufficient or self condemning and thus more and more isolated. One of the results can be seen in the soaring divorce rates, and even higher level of breakdown of co-habiting relationships, with disastrous results for the children, which in turn leads to further breakdown in the next generation. The cost to our society in social, health, education and financial resources, let alone the misery and unhappiness and sense of insecurity in many people's lives, is huge.

What are we doing about it as Christians? Where is the salt and the light we talk so much about but fail to be? How can the church help rebuild our communities?

A possible way forward

In Totnes, in South Devon, a project has been running for about one year which may offer one way of responding to the challenge. A small group of Christians had a real concern for what was happening in our families as a result of marriage break down. Four years ago, three Christian couples went, with great trepidation, to a 'Marriage Enrichment' weekend run by Marriage Review and came back realising that our marriages could be much better.

We decided that this was something worth developing ourselves, so over the last four winters our little group has welcomed over 350 couples through a farm/holiday complex in groups of 8 couples at a time for marriage enrichment sessions. These couples have come from far and wide, and mainly through word of mouth. There have also been a number of sessions run specifically for Church leaders and their spouses. An interesting feature of all these couples, who had reasonably normal marriages, was that there was a real lack of knowledge about the skills required to make a relationship work. How do you communicate effectively? How do you handle conflict positively? What are your emotional needs, and how do you meet them for your partner? How do you say sorry and heal hurts?

A couple of years ago, information from America showed that in some 100 towns surveyed, divorce rates could drop by as much as 25% after 4 or 5 years when church leaders and other civic leaders worked together and applied a common marriage preparation and support policy. If the divorce rate in any community came down by 25% there would be a huge benefit. We were instantly attracted to this idea and gathered all the leadership of the town together for discussions. After six months, we came up with a very simple aim: to teach relationship skills to all children and adults in the community in order to empower them to make better relationship decisions. A Trust was set up in early 1999, called 'The Totnes Community Family Trust', owned by the leadership of the town involving education, health, church as well as civic authorities. The object is to ensure that at key stages in their lives, people receive relationship skill training.

A long-term vision

There has to be a marked change in culture attitude for this to voluntarily happen, so this is a long term project that may take 5-10 years. However there are already structures in place within which relationship skills can be taught routinely. Health visitors and midwives are just completing training so that from April 2000 every parent involved in pre- and post-natal sessions will receive relationship teaching aimed at strengthening the relationship between Mum and Dad. Parents and children at play school stage are receiving help in relationships. Children in the primary schools are taught how to make friends and keep friends as well as parents given further parenting skills. In the secondary school, pupils are being taught life skills routinely at various stages. Couples getting married in any of the churches in the Totnes area are now expected to go on a proper marriage preparation course to learn relationship skills run by a lay group and then go back to the vicars for spiritual teaching on marriage. Work is also being done with individual students, with counsellors in health clinics teaching relationship skills rather than just counselling.

This project is only one year old, but already more and more local people are talking about it and benefiting from it. Each week, the local newspaper carries an article on relationships, thus raising the awareness in the community about the issue. A local supermarket management team is now receiving very similar training as given to couples. We want to see everyone in our area be more able to communicate effectively, handle conflict, meet each other's emotional needs and know how to handle hurts and forgive each other. We want our children leaving school as relationally literate as they are computer literate.

We have been surprised at the interest this project has attracted. We have run the project on virtually no funds, but used the existing resources that exist in every community. We are trying to get people to all pull in the same direction. There is much to do, but the seeds are sown. It grew out of the commitment a few Christians had to marriage and is now inclusive and owned by the community. This type of project can be done in any community and indeed is now being seriously considered in Torrington, Taunton, Bridgwater, York and Chelmsford. The reduction of divorce rate need not be the only criterion. It could be reduction in domestic violence, juvenile crime, absenteeism from schools - all reflect relationship breakdown.

The church has a huge contribution to make to establish such a project in any town. If, and it is a big if, the local church leaders can agree that marriage preparation and subsequent support should be expected for any couple getting married in the local churches, that factor alone would make a big impact. However there are Christian teachers, doctors, health visitors, local authority workers in any community and they all know the crisis, and they all have the resources to help implement a preventative program such as the Totnes project. To do this there must be unified action with strong leadership and undergirded by prayer. Then, as Christians, we will begin to be the salt and light of our communities. We will begin to have a real impact and see our communities change for the better and relationships restored.

For further information, contact Chris Grimshaw by E-mail at chris.grimshaw@dial.pipex.com. A professionally made 20-minute video of the Totnes project is available, price £15.

Chris Grimshaw is a retired veterinary surgeon and is Chair of Christians Together in Totnes. With his wife, Claire, he runs Marriage Enrichment Weekends at their farm. They also offer midweek breaks for clergy.

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You are reading Marrying Church and Community - A Success Story by Chris Grimshaw, part of Issue 20 of Ministry Today, published in October 2000.

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