The CFC Family Ministries...
(From Womb to Tomb)

For the first 12 years of the life of CFC, the single focus was on evangelizing and renewing married couples. Even though many non-couples were asking about how they could also be a part of the CFC community, the mandate of the Lord extended only to the work with couples. It has since become clear that the Lord simply wanted to assure a solid fondation, one based on the renewal of Christian couples and their families, for the large work that was to come.

And it came in June of 1993, on CFC's 12th anniversary. At that time, the CFC Family Ministries were launched:

The CFC Kids for Christ is basically an in-house program for the younger children of CFC members, those with ages 4 to 12 years. It is actually a children's club, where the kids of CFC members can identify themselves with, and where they can experience fun, friendship and faith. It is not a formation program, a catechetical instruction group, or a Sunday school type program. KFC exists to empower the CFC parent, having the right balance of activities which is integrated into the over-all structure of CFC. The Junior Kids Day (four hours) is the formal entry point to kids ages four to eight. The Senior Kids Camp (one and a half days), meanwhile, is for ages 9 to 12. With YFC members as facilitators, the Kids Day and Kids Camp is similar to a Youth Camp, but has more games and activities which incalculate the same values and teachings meaningful to those who belong to this age group.

The CFC Youth for Christ is for older youth, those with ages from 12 to 21 years. The Lord imbued YFC with a strong missionary spirit. The youth can be effective partners in mission and are in fact crucial to the future of Couples for Christ, the church and the country. To spread the good news more effectively by creating an environment in the campus and the community that is appealing and life-giving to young adults. Thus the need to organize sportsfest, praisefest, songfest and other social activities exciting to the youth. By focusing on the need for young people to grow in holiness and to view their body as the temple of the Holy Spirit - stressing not just purity for woman, but for the men as well. In YFC, we talk about virginity for men, particularly since they initiate sexual activities and often lead the girls to sin. To create a greater awareness for service to the community particularly the poor and the dispossessed. As CFC expands its ministry in depressed areas, YFC is a major component in its work since the youth oftentimes are the hardest hit victims of poverty leading many of them to gangs and a life of crime.

The CFC Singles for Christ is for single men and women with ages from 21 to the 40's. Truly, most single professional men and woman have been burdened in climbing the ledder to success. Fortunately, thousands of these singles have responded to God's call and acknowledged that only He can lessen the burden and make them live joyful and peaceful lives. They may be in the world, but they are not of the world. One exciting and interesting highlight about SFC's existence is its smooth integration to CFC, not only in terms of its structure, but also because a good number of its members have found their lifetime partners in SFC, while those who came in ahead invited their "loves" to join as well, thereby forging a stronger relationship focused on the Lord.

The CFC Handmaids of the Lord (HOLD) is for single parents, separated or divorced, unmarried mature singles, married with husbands working overseas or physically incapacitated and widows. The ministry has a vision parallel to Couples for Christ, that is, to bring all families into a life of renewal in the Holy Spirit. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, single parent women, with the dual role of mother and father, shape the lives of their children with direction coming from the Lord. Migrant women workers under the Lord's guidance can bring honor to their home country and spread the faith wherever they are. Wives of overseas workers can inspire their husbands to likewise live lives which have been renewed in the Holy Spirit, as they themselves are experiencing a life of peace and joy inspite of being apart.

The CFC Servants of the Lord (SOLD) is the counterpart of the Handmaids for the men. As the male counterpart of HOLD, the members of SOLDS are overseas countract workers, some members of the military, single parents (widowers, separated or divorced), unmarried mature single men, married with wives working overseas of physically incapacitated.

 

In addition, CFC has established Child Development Centers for kids ages 2 to 6 years.

What all the above has given us in CFC a "womb-to-tomb" ministry. When a child is born into a CFC family, its first two years are spent being nurtured and learning to walk and talk. Then the child can be enrolled in a CFC Child Development Center. At age 6 or so, the child can join CFC Youth for Christ. At age 12 or so, the budding teenager can join CFC Youth for Christ. After school, at about age 21, he or she can join CFC Single for Christ. Once they get married, they move on to Couples for Christ. When a spouse dies, the surviving spouse can transfer to CFC Handmaids or the Lord (for widows) of CFC Servant of the Lord (for widowers).

There is a continuity in spiritual formation and support which is not found in most other groups. There is an assurance of a familiar environment and community culture for the full length of one's earthly life. One can continue to grow in the Lord through the years in the same Christian community, able to deepen personal friendships and relationships which endure. A single person can find a spouse and be assured of solid formation and a compatible spirituality. There can be a focus on the one mission in which the whole CFC family is involved.

A CFC child starts life in the womb of godly CFC mother supported by a godly CFC father, is born into a godly CFC home where he or she is nurtured and loved, and then starts a lifelong journey of involvement in the larger family of CFC. In addition to parental formation and support, he or she is supported by a vibrant, loving community through the years of childhold, adolescence, single life, marriage, and later the death of one's spouse. In CFC, with is "womb-to-tomb" ministry, one can literally invest a whole lifetime.

This is God's gift to all of us in the community that is CFC. It is our assurance of the Lord's blessings from birth to death. It is God's provision for us to enable us after our earthly sojourn to enter into our eternal reward in heaven.