We have been having a very interesting time at the Family Care Counselling Service over the past few months. We have been turning ourselves into a limited company though, of course, we remain a Charity.  We have discovered the joys of writing both a ‘Memorandum’ and a set of ‘Articles of Association’.  These two documents enshrine both what we stand for and how we go about our business of delivering the service of Counselling which is at the centre of our activities.  Outwardly, the general public will notice no difference. Becoming a Company simply gives the Trustees a number of safeguards and both the Memorandum and the Articles draw from our already existing Constitution at the heart of which is the reason for our being.

Historically, Family Care began life as an expression of the local church’s response to social needs. Initially it provided a refuge and a home for those rejected by society and then later it provided a home for young single pregnant women who had been rejected by their families and this included being, for a time, an adoption agency. When the Government took over this work through Social Services, Family Care evolved once again. Recognizing  that, in the general stress of life, there was a need for Counsellors, Family Care set out to respond to this need.  A need, as Anne Wright said in her address to the Deanery Synod last year,  'for people with specialized skills and training who can give time to listen to individuals and to enable hurt and damaged people to make sense of their lives and receive the healing which this brings.'

From its outset, Family Care has had strong links with the local Epping Forest Churches and, in part, we celebrate that link through this service tonight. Family Care has been grateful for the spiritual support which is expressed in prayer for its well-being and also the financial support which has been given.  Our new Memorandum continues to enshrine this history and ethos. The Object of our work is there stated:-

Family Care now exists to provide a counselling service with a Christian foundation to clients regardless of their race, creed, colour, gender, sexuality, life-style or ability to pay….

Last week, I had occasion to read through some of the background documents of the last Lambeth Conference in 1998.  One of the main sections for debate by the Bishops of the World-wide Anglican Communion was that of our being called by God to full humanity and the background study said this:

Our concern is about ‘humanity’ within and beyond the Church…our concern has always been both for people as individuals and for the wider societies in which they live.

This seems to me to be a good description of what Family Care is also about:  our concern is for humanity.

As a Christian, I recognise that this concern has a context in the life of Jesus Christ who was perfect God but also perfect human. His humanity was fulfilled humanity and it is this fulfilment we all seek, even if not everyone measures this against the fulfilled humanity of Christ.  In truth, our expressions of humanity are imperfect. None of us is totally fulfilled and few can say that they have reached their full potential in life. Those who can say that have, quite often, accepted a low limitation of what it means to be human.

It may be that such a low expectation is thrust upon us by the circumstances of our lives. For example, people who live in poverty or with other disadvantages  often have low horizons and few expectations. But there is also the downward drag of life which comes through adversity, or through the hurts inflicted on us by others.  Sometimes, of course, it is our own expectations which are thwarted because they have perhaps been the wrong expectations.  I have often met people who have set themselves goals and targets which when they are achieved still leave them dissatisfied.

Danile Berrigan, a Jesuit priest who was famous in the 1960s for his opposition to the Vietnam War, wrote a poem called The Face of Christ in which he said

Nothing, or so little, come of life’s promise.

That may seem a rather depressing thing to say but it expresses a feeling that many have.  Yet, many also live a life of pretence – everything is fine – all is well. When the truth behind that facade belies it.  Our modern society is very good at creating images of success and of fulfilment which when closely examined are seen to be false.  In order to bolster these images, people can ride roughshod over the feelings of others, stamping and treading on them in order to foster the lie.  So victims are created and these victims are not listened to because the cry from their hearts is too painful for us to bear.  'Humankind' says the poet T S Eliot, 'cannot stand much reality'.

Through no fault of their own, people are trampled down, hurt, broken, wounded. A long way, you might say, from a fulfilment of human potential.  And yet, it is when brokenness seeks healing that the potential to become more human is possible.  Because it is not the so-called successful - the ones who find fulfilment in what they are rather than who they are, or those who seek only self-interest, - who are truly human.

If, as I maintain, true humanity is to be found only in Christ, then the secret is to be found in a broken body on a Cross; in a man who in his earthly life was, by many, seen as threat because he challenged values which were a long way from God’s values. God’s values include the absolute certainty that humanity has an intrinsic dignity and infinite worth. Each one of us is loved and cherished totally by God and so acted upon by Grace - which is the outpouring of total love – that we grow into the full potential of life - which is to become Love. We only become love when we know with certainty that we are loved. That certainty comes to us, who accept Christ, through the Cross. Nowhere is love so dramatically shown than that God Himself is prepared to suffer for our freedom to be human.  Nowhere is it so clear that a sign of brokenness and pain and deliberately inflicted hurt can be transformed by love into a sign of new life.  Once that is understood and once that value of love has been accepted, we are all on the road to healing and to that wholeness which blossoms our humanity into its full potential.

For many, however, dealing with the pain, hurt and brokenness of life, needs more than what our inner resources can provide. Very few of us can go through life without the helping hand of others. For some there is a need for Spiritual Direction to help in discovering true values by which to live one’s life and a new vision of what that life can become. For others there is a need for healing which comes through the care of good people who simply show love and are prepared to stand beside us. Others still need to be released from the prison of life’s circumstance which has locked them into a spiral of despair or self-doubt.

In all these situations there is a need for people to be listeners – not just to the words but to the hearts of those who seek to make good. There is a need to give time and space to people in such a way that they realise that they matter and are important.  It is within this realm of listening and caring ministry that I place the work of the Family Care Counselling Service. Those who give of themselves in the work of Counselling stand with others (spiritual guides, empathetic friends and so on) at a very special place.

They may not recognise this themselves but it a place that is dedicated to love and reconciliation. This place is the place of brokenness and healing and, for Christians, it is called The place of the Cross.

Mother Mary Clare, a nun friend of mine, now with God, once said that we are called to stand

'at that point of intersection where the love of God and the tensions and sufferings we inflict on each other meet and are held to the healing power of God.'

That is where Family Care stands and that is where, hopefully, we all stand because it is the place where human potential meets Divine possibility, where God’s concern is always for a humanity made whole.

'Our concern is about humanity' expresses fully God’s dealing with us in Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That is why it must always be our concern too.