Anglican churches want more help with building stronger families, an Anglicare survey of Sydney parishes has found.
While parishes like St Faith's, Narrabeen and their counselling ministry "The Cottage' (see below) is meeting such a need, most parishes feel incapable of dealing effectively with social problems.
Since August last year, Wendy Morris, Anglicare's Parish Partnership Coordinator, has been travelling across the diocese visiting parishes to uncover ways Anglicare can assist churches to connect with their local community.
She found an overwhelming demand from Anglican congregations for more resources to run family programs.
Almost all those surveyed requested counsellors, and around 90 per cent of rectors believe that marriage and family relationships are less stable these days.
"That's not to say that all marriages are falling apart, but it's always helpful to find ways to keep marriages and family relationships healthy," says Wendy Morris.
With an estimated one in three Australian marriages destined to end up in the divorce courts, the consequences of broken family relationships can be far-reaching.
A model parish
One parish that has had the resources to do effective community counselling is St Faith's, Narrabeen.
The Cottage Counselling Centre was established in 1996 as an outreach ministry of St Faith's after three congregation members who were also counsellors saw a need for such a centre in the community.
There are now 10 counsellors working part-time across four church locations in the northern region.
The Cottage now provides over 3500 hours of counselling each year by a group of 10 Christian counsellors including a relationship counsellor employed by Anglicare.
Centre director and St Stephen's, Belrose member Nicky Lock (pictured) says the pressures on relationships in society are highlighted even in the media as a recent men’s magazine has been running a competition to “win a divorce”.
"Many of those assisted each year are couples struggling under the pressures of everyday life - financial stresses, dealing with in-laws, coping with difficult teenagers, painful conflict, the impact of depression on family life and sadly sometimes, extra-marital affairs," Ms Lock says.
"Couples are helped to find their way through these difficulties; to improve communication, to learn how to trust again and to rebuild meaningful relationships."
Ms Lock says this is not an easy work.
"It takes commitment, time, patience and being able to face what each has contributed to the problems and to seek forgiveness," she says.
"However the potential rewards are great when a relationship can be "put back on track' and children are spared from becoming part of another divorce statistic."
Another ministry being used by The Cottage is "The Bridge': a Christian 12-step meeting for people in the community dealing with addiction that seeks to invite them into a church or home group.
The monthly group is run by an assistant minister and ministry trainee from St Faith's.
"For members of the Christian community they appreciate counselling with a Christian focus and the way counselling and ministry is integrated. And even non-Christians in the community say they appreciate the values we display in our counselling," Ms Lock says.
"For the church it has also been a good outreach as it shows that Christians want to assist members of the community where they really need help and support."
Stopping sad stories
Across the harbour and many postcodes away from his North Shore roots, David Cole, rector at Rosemeadow Anglican Church, says there is a desperate need for more relational and counselling support in his area.
Only one of two churches in an area with a population of 45,000, the parish of Rosemeadow is located bang in the middle of two suburbs full of public housing and first home buyers feeling the pinch of interest rate hikes.
"The public housing areas have every social problem you can possibly think of and possibly some more you didn't think of," says Mr Cole.
"There are very few community services in the local area and those that are closest are located just far enough away to be difficult to get to. We do what we can to provide food parcels, prayer support and a listening ear, but it's quite superficial given the scale of the problems."
For Mr Cole, the need to build stronger, healthier families resilient to external pressures is not just a middle-class concern.
"Dean Shillingsworth, the boy found floating in a suitcase, lived within our parish boundary. But there are a lot more kids who are dying and suffering abuse under similar circumstances that mostly go unnoticed by the media," he says.
In response to problems of this nature Anglicare wants to resource parishes to provide community seminars on the issues of parenting skills, surviving the teenage years and communication skills for couples.
The seminars are one-off packages that run for two to three hours. Attendees who wish to explore these issues at a deeper level can then be invited to attend longer courses like Anglicare's Marriage Enrichment and Family Wellness courses.
For more information contact Wendy Morris, Anglicare's Parish Partnerships Coordinator on (02) 9895 8070.
