Are you ready for NFP Awareness Week?!?!

I’ll tell you who is, friends: Fathers for Good, the awesome initiative of the Knights of Columbus. If you’ve not been tracking with these fellas, the KC’s launched this sort of holy man-cave initiative a couple years ago, and they’ve been doing great things to promote authentic masculinity and fatherhood, to include….yes, natural family planning and the culture of free, total, faithful and fruitful love. Hipster Catholic fellas, are you KC’s? If you aren’t yet, the launch of FFG is if nothing a game changer for the KCs and their constant support for love and life, so join. Mr. NFPworks is, in fact, a third degree night.

Anywho…..I’m pluggin’ them because 1) KC’s FFG Initiative rocks, and 2) Because they recognized that there’s a growing moving movement of NFPers/ family advocates who are young culture engagers, including  a little featurette of yours truly that hit the web today:

Is the Church’s message on natural family planning (NFP) reaching young couples? Jessica M.H. Smith thinks we all could be doing a better job of spreading the good news on NFP so she started a blog that has created an online buzz.

She is married for five years (with no children yet) and lives with her husband in Central Wyoming, where Fathers for Good flagged her down via e-mail in advance of “NFP Awareness Week” (July 24-30).

Fathers for Good: How did you get into blogging about NFP?

Jessica M.H. Smith: Four years ago I became the first full-time coordinator in the Diocese of Madison. I quickly realized that a lot of NFP promotion was boring, unfunny and uninteresting. Although the target market for NFP was largely (though not exclusively) young adults, there was a distinct un-young staleness to it all. My well-formed Catholic peers think the culture of Humanae Vitae is beautiful, relevant and exciting, so why was NFP promotion so uninspired? A simple and free way to light some fires and get the gears going and drive traffic to our diocesan site? Start a blog with a commentary on all things NFP/ Family Life related.

Keep reading here….

What do you think? Is the Church’s message reaching young couples? (Not just you, rock stars…all your peers in the pews and beyond.) How can we help this dialogue with youth and young adults in the contraceptive culture? Dream big. What do you want to see? What do you wish you would have seen? For you reverts and converts to NFP, what do you wish you would have known now that you didn’t know then? Things can change, and you can be a part of that right here

Detroit’s NFP Office got caught in my Google Alerts net today.

I found this great sheet of tips for how to promote NFP in your parish communities, just in time for NFP Awareness Week. How great is that? Here’s my edited version of their great suggestions (If you’re in the Detroit area, here’s the actual list). The easy and free ones are in bold!

1. Designate a parish/ community liaison with your Archdiocesan/ Diocesan/ Regional NFP apostolate
2. Include Prayers of the faithful at Masses for openness to life. The USCCB has some here.
3. Sign up for the monthly NFP newsletter, The Loving Choice. www.aodonline.org/TLC [Many dioceses have these. The USCCB also has two newsletters called NFP Forum & Current Medical Research.]
4. Publish NFP articles in the weekly parish paper. [Email me for permission to use mine--see right. Many others available online.]
5. Provide couples informational DVDs on NFP (I recommend this one from the Diocese of Rockville Centre)
6. Display NFP posters on bulletin boards in Church areas with phone and email contacts. (The USCCB has a great one.)
7. Include an insert in your parish bulletin. I recommend:
   • Natural Family Planning: The Key to Intimacy, published by OSV Press
   • Married Love & the Gift of Life Bulletin Insert, published by USCCB
8. Invite RCIA adults and parents whose children receive the sacraments [Great idea! I've been trying to get NFP formation into baptismal classes for years!] to attend local NFP Presentations.
9. Invite an NFP witness couple to speak to various groups of parish members. Be sure to also consider younger couples who are on fire!
10. Provide a table of NFP information at parish events after Masses. A few of my favorites:
    • Pure Intimacy: How Your Marriage Can Benefit from Natural Family Planning (My *favorite* resource! It’s written in a very accessible Q&A format that also doesn’t skimp on details/ resources.)
    • Married Love & the Gift of Life pamphlet, pub’d by USCCB Publishing
    • Brochure: What a woman should know about birth control (Print your own PDFs for free!)
    • IUDs: What every woman needs to know (Print your own PDFs for free!)
    • …and many many more!
11. Include NFP information (to include materials on the ills of contraception) at Pro-Life activities. Consider playing the “Abortafacient” video on a computer/ TV on the table to illustrate how most contraceptives can cause chemical abortions. Most people do not know this!
12. Distribute prayer cards for conversion from contraception
13. Host an NFP forum night of personal testimony and resources and give it a catchy name.

2011 NFP Awareness Week Poster in English

The California Association of Natural Family Planning has a Facebook Page, and recently asked a timely question on their wall:

“NFP Awareness Week is a couple months away–what are you planning?”

So…what are you doing? NFP Awareness Week is July 24-30th this year. I’m addressing this question to: bishops, clergy, NFP instructors, Family Life/ Respect Life offices, DRE’s and more. It’s never to early to start planning, but right now you should be putting your plans into action. Don’t have a plan? Contact me, and I’ll give you some ideas. Start here for a quick brainstorm, or check out all posts under NFP Awareness Week.

See also more ideas inspired by the Archdiocese of Detroit NFP office.

USCCB's NFP Awareness Poster 2010

[Update: as was pointed out in the comments section, NFP Awareness Week this year has changed to begin July 25th, rather than culminate on the anniversary of Humanae Vitae's release. Take note! You have time!!!]

No pun intended on the title!

How did your NFP Awareness Week begin this weekend? Did your parishes get something going? Posters? Bulletin articles? What’s happening in your area? Or perhaps, what’s not happening in your area?

I had a panic attack last weekend when I realized NFP Awareness Week was coming up and I knew it was completely off my pastor’s radar. To make things more difficult, he’d just left for a trip abroad, so the possibility of getting approval for my ideas was slim. Uggh. I still shot off an email with a bullet point list of ideas. The day after I sent it, I was inundated at work, and never got/ made the time to do any of my things. There’s still time for some of them, I suppose, but Sunday is really the launching point for the week. Here’s my list of things I wanted to do/ advocate:

• Order or print out a couple NFP  Awareness Week Posters–theme this year: “Trust: God has a plan for your marriage”
• Have Prayers of the Faithful taken from the USCCB’s suggested prayers for this week
• A mention in the homily about trusting God and how this relates to our family choices and openness to children
• Have some catchy brochures available in the vestibule–I can just print ones posted online
• Include a bulletin insert (such as the one here) in the bulletin
• Have a bulletin article telling people that I can help answer questions about NFP and family planning.

On a positive note, I was happy to find out that we have four NFP Instructors in the Diocese of Cheyenne (the entire state), when I wasn’t expecting to have more than one or two. One of them is even a Creighton Model Practitioner! So if you’re in Wyoming and looking for an NFP Instructor, shoot me an email!