Ideas for Mothers’ Union
• Arrange to meet with local clergy in person, perhaps inviting them for a meal, in order to share fellowship together and have time to really talk.
• Share with the clergy details of what you are already doing, so that they know about the support you can offer the local church and wider community.
• Make sure that they are aware of the great, family focussed resources available from Mothers’ Union, that they could share with their congregations (eg Hand in Hand). Ideally, offer them complementary copies!
• Ask the clergy what needs there are in the parish that Mothers’ Union could help with, given a realistic assessment of local members’ capacity.
• Share with them some examples of Inspired ideas, illustrations of ways that members from other parishes and dioceses are reaching out to families. Consider together whether any of these initiatives might help offer support to people in the local parish.
• Organise an Inspired event, (with special food, as we all appreciate that!), and introduce them to Inspired.
• If there are (not yet!) many members of Mothers’ Union in your parish, share some Inspired Ideas about how groups of people could come together to support families, and then invite them to join! See also the Help Us Grow membership campaign resources, available on the members’ section of the Mothers’ Union website.
• Pray for your local clergy, and offer them encouragement and support.
Ideas for the clergy
• Check out what the Mothers’ Union is currently doing in your parish and diocese, to see if that will help you as you support families. Please affirm and pray for these members, as they seek to reflect God’s love to those around them.
• Encourage members to explore Inspired during one or several of their branch meetings (sample programmes are provided on this website). If you can, join these sessions so that together you can prayerfully consider opportunities.
• The Inspired ideas include a wide range of initiatives so that any individual or group, whatever their circumstances, will find possibilities to prayerfully consider. Encourage those who may feel that their circumstances prevent them from getting involved by sharing with them appropriate Inspired ideas.
• If you haven’t (yet) got any members of Mothers’ Union active in your parish, click through the Inspired Ideas on this website, and suggest to your congregation that it might be time to join Mothers’ Union. Contact us at inspired@themothersunion.org and we’ll put you in touch with Mothers’ Union leaders in your diocese who can help with this.
• Contact the Mothers’ Union diocesan chaplain, to get an overview of how Mothers’ Union and the clergy are already and could in the future work together to reach out to families.
“For you cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine;
the Lord my God illumines my darkness”
Psalm 18:28
An Inspired idea:
