Relationship central

UK-based Nicky and Sila Lee are the founders of Relationship Central, a ministry of Alpha International.

Relationship Central is the umbrella for The Marriage Preparation Course, The Marriage Course, The Parenting Children Course, and The Parenting Teenagers Course.

Christina Tyson caught up with the couple when they were in New Zealand last month.

How did you become involved in Alpha?
Alpha started at Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church in London, as a course for new Christians at the church. We led the Alpha Course together for six years, after Nicky was ordained in 1985 and joined the church’s staff.

What is the Alpha approach?
The Alpha Course gives people the opportunity to explore the Christian faith by hearing a talk and then talking about it in small groups. It gives people time to consider the claims of Jesus Christ without pressure.

What is a typical week like back home?
We run The Marriage Course on Monday evenings, The Marriage Preparation Course during the first half of a term and The Parenting Courses on Thursday evenings during the second half of a term. We’re also involved in leadership of Holy Trinity Brompton, where Nicky is Associate Vicar. Part of our working week is taken up with pastoral work for the church, including preaching. The remainder is supporting Relationship Central and developing its resources.

When did you become Christians?
In 1974, while Nicky was a student at Cambridge University and Sila was at art college in London (visiting Cambridge every weekend).

And how long have you been married?
Thirty-six years. Nicky proposed in a letter, seeking to persuade Sila that the fact we were both still students shouldn’t be a barrier to our getting married. (This was before the days of mobile phones or emails!) Sila replied by telegram: ‘I’d love to with all my heart.’

Can you remember your early impressions of married life?
We’d spent many years only seeing each other at weekends, constantly having to adjust to being together and then being apart, so getting married felt like freedom. We suddenly had the ability to plan our future together in a whole new way.

How long before ‘reality’ kicked in?
We’d already faced a number of challenges in our relationship, so we had a realistic view of what marriage involved. Perhaps the biggest learning curve was discovering we needed to talk about our hurts, and then forgive each other. Previously, we had thought our love wouldn’t entail the need to voice forgiveness out loud to each other. So that was a powerful lesson to learn in the early years.

How does your faith affect your marriage?
Discovering that we needed to look to God rather than each other to have our deepest needs met marked a fundamental change in our relationship when we became Christians. That has meant having lower expectations of our marriage—that it is not the ultimate source of unconditional love, significance, security or self-esteem. These things are only found in God. We pray together regularly, inviting God to fill us by his Spirit and use our marriage to encourage others.

How did The Marriage Course start?
In 1985, Holy Trinity Brompton asked us to do marriage preparation for couples in the church. Non-churchgoers started to come along, and that snowballed. We now run The Marriage Preparation Course three times a year to 150 couples a year, half of which don’t attend church. Ten years later, we introduced The Marriage Course, recognising that the rose-tinted spectacles were off by five or 10 years down the track. We were also seeing people whose marriages were in trouble and realised what a difference it could make to reach people earlier.

What are some of the challenges couples face today?
Time pressure: finding time to spend together (particularly for parents), and continuing to prioritise the marriage relationships to stay closely connected. Another challenge is the ‘leaving’ aspect of marriage—putting in appropriate boundaries with parents and wider family to ensure a couple’s first loyalty is to their spouse. And discovering that many of the assumptions taken into marriage from one’s upbringing are not universally shared. These and other topics are covered in The Marriage Preparation Course and The Marriage Course.

What does The Marriage Course involve?
A meal and talk each week for seven weeks. The meal establishes a welcoming, relaxed atmosphere when people may be feeling anxious. Then there is a talk, which can be done live or by playing the DVD. But because it’s on DVD, it’s easy for anyone to use. There are no group discussions. Key elements are the exercises and discussions couples do together in private, which help them apply the teaching from the talks to their relationship. The Marriage Course gives couples the chance to spend seven evenings going out together. It provides practical tools and establishes good habits for couples to continue to invest in their relationship when the course is finished.

Why is a course on marriage so important?
Marriage is critical to the health of every society, and we know children do best when brought up by parents who are in a healthy and stable marriage. In the UK, a child is more likely to have a TV in their bedroom, than a father in their home! The Marriage Course helps people understand what love is: that it’s not just a feeling—it involves sacrifice, and listening and forgiveness are essential to sustain a marriage. These are biblical principles that make relationships work. They’re God’s principles for loving.

Are people reluctant to attend a marriage course?
Historically, there has been a stigma, but we’ve been encouraging a change in culture in the UK and are seeing positive change. We’re not there yet, but keep encouraging a shift in attitude. We’ve seen marriages brought back from the brink of separation through The Marriage Course. People who are getting married want to do some sort of preparation, whether they have a faith or not.

Is The Marriage Course open to people who are not married?
Yes. We welcome cohabitating couples not because we condone this, but because we want to give people the chance to understand more about marriage. The course can also help people work through some of their fears of commitment.

How did The Parenting Courses start?
They evolved in the 1990s after we’d started running parenting evenings at church, and because people told us they were tearing their hair out with the challenges of parenting. We recognised the importance of reaching out to one of the greatest needs in our society: to restore family life to the heart of our society. The aim is to help parents build a strong relationship with their children, recognising that making changes—even small ones—can really benefit that relationship. No family is perfect, but the family is still the best training ground to see what relationships are about.

Who are The Parenting Courses for?
All parents, including those parenting on their own or step parenting, and others caring for children and teenagers (foster parents, grandparents and those who work with children). The Parenting Children Course is for people caring for nought to 10 year olds. The Parenting Teenagers Course is for those with 11 to 18 year olds. Material includes input from parents, children, psychologists, counsellors and teachers.

Why do we need these types of courses, when our parents and grandparents didn’t?
One reason is that parents are less confident today. There’s also a fear of authority that leads parents to be less confident on setting boundaries for their children. More parents are isolated and without wider family support. More are working, which means people aren’t meeting so often with others who are parenting. And the pace of life today keeps parents and children apart, which can lead to superficial relationships.

The Parenting Courses provide opportunities to pause and think about where we’re putting our time and energy. The family provides a moral compass for children. It’s where they learn right from wrong, to be kind and responsible. We’re never going to get everything right, but we do need to decide what we’re going to pass on to our children, because we are their main influence.

How do The Parenting Courses differ from The Marriage Course?
They’re run over either five or 10 sessions, instead of seven. Unlike The Marriage Course, there is group discussion, because that’s what parents want—they want to know that they’re not alone. But like The Marriage Course, atmosphere is crucial. People sit around a coffee table, eating and chatting; they’re not in rows, like a lecture. That way they feel safe and able to open up. The Parenting Courses don’t have to be run only in homes or church buildings. In the UK, a course that started with 12 people in a home is now being held in a local school.

Relationship Central courses focus on upskilling and supporting people. Is this sidelining the evangelistic edge of Alpha?
Our vision is to see local churches supporting couples and parents in practical ways so we can turn the tide on marriage and family breakdown. For people that are not immediately interested in exploring Christianity, the courses can act as a bridge into the church. Many people who do these courses subsequently do Alpha and come to faith. People start to realise that the church has a lot of useful stuff to say!

How do you promote the courses?
We put a lot of energy into cross-promoting our courses. To couples on The Marriage Preparation Course or The Marriage Course, we talk about the importance of shared beliefs and values, and recommend the Alpha Course for that purpose. We also say how helpful our Christian faith is to us, and recommend the Alpha Course that way, too.

On The Parenting Courses, we say, ‘If you are parenting as a couple, the single most important thing you can do for your children is to invest in your relationship.’ So we recommend The Marriage Course. And we say, ‘It is important to think about our values and beliefs, because our children look at us as they develop their own values. We offer the Alpha Course to help with that.’ We feature regular testimonies from people who’ve gone through the Alpha Course in our church services to promote that course and remind people to invite their friends.

How can churches start offering The Parenting Courses for the first time?
We suggest running the courses first for parents in their church to develop a team of small group hosts, before opening it to non-church friends and the community. One thing we do ask is that when you’re running these courses at your church, please register them on the Relationship Central website (www.relationshipcentral.org.nz). This helps people in your area connect to a course and a local church. The most important thing when starting a course is to pray, pray and pray! This is a work of the Spirit of God. From the changes we see happening in people’s lives, we know God is at work.

What’s the wider impact of all of these courses?
The strategy of the church in the past has been about reaching out to people in times of crisis, fighting fires. But we’ve come to realise that prevention is better than cure. One person who had done a parenting course, simply said, ‘I feel like I’m a good parent.’ That’s great to hear! There are thousands and thousands of couples and families out there, and with a little bit of help and support, the ripples from their lives will go out to wider families and communities. The local church has an opportunity—couple by couple, family by family—to offer that. We may feel very inadequate, but the courage and compassion of God can flow through us!

For more information, and to order resources or register a course at your church, go to www.relationshipcentral.org.nz

To find out more about the Alpha Course and for small group and church resources to grow strong Christians, go to www.alpha.org.nz