Parenting: Facing the Canon with Nicky & Sila Lee (Part One)

welcome to my youtube channel my guests on facing the canon are nikki and cilla lee founders of the parenting course [Music] nikki and cilla lee welcome to facing the canon it's wonderful to be here with you thank you for having us oh delighted i was reminiscing with kylie this morning i think we've known you for over 30 years i think that's right definitely yeah yeah yeah i mean we used to be together all those amazing focus summer yes conferences camps or whatever what'd you call holiday holidays and our children would have played a lot of football together we've got three sons you've got three sons i also got a daughter i know now you too you met at swansea docs is that right very good information we did and you were what how old were you 17 and 16 i was just 17 by a week yes and i was 18 18. yeah full head of hair right had my own car very old car but my granny's old car and you weren't heading to ireland yeah on holiday so i was going on holiday with a school friend whose family happened to be really good friends with nikki's family and they'd got next door holiday cottages and i drew up in the queue to get on the car ferry and cilla was trying to get the gb sticker off the car in front of mine i sat and i watched her from my mini and we met actually we both fell in love although we didn't know it neither knew that the other felt anything but we were with this big group of family and other teenagers and everything and i just thought oh my gosh i absolutely was just like that was it when i saw nikki and nikki by the time the holiday was over indicated his his i think it was 10 days in wasn't it yeah so i think it was two days we revealed our feelings for each other yeah so that was good and that was really it from then on we started going out i had still another year to do at school so but you went to university you kept on dating there's an interesting story where you both in order to kind of discern whether you should get married you decided to have a kind of don't see each other for a couple of months yeah tell us about that well both of us had come to faith uh six months into uh time was down in london i was up at cambridge she'd come up pretty well every weekend and well in fact every weekend it was an exception and it was uh i suppose it was about six months after we came to faith where we both thought independently we need to know whether god wants us to be together and we hated the idea that we might not be but we just felt this is the one part of our lives that we haven't really surrendered and the only way we'll know is if we decide to spend three months apart so we had this agreement we wouldn't talk to each other on the phone we actually continued writing letters to each other but we wouldn't see each other wouldn't communicate with each other and nikki wouldn't come to london and i wouldn't go to cambridge however a week later you're both in kensington yeah by accident completely by accident what happened i was i was going to play football at my old school went with two old school friends and to my horror on the way back this friend said i need to go back via london and i thought oh no i don't want to be in london but he said i've just got to drop something off at home i'll leave you on high street ken i'll pick you up in this spot in 20 minutes time so there i was standing on the pavement in high street can it was raining and we were going to get a mcdonald's or something and meantime i was i mean miserable i'd been crying for four days and i was on a bus the 49 bus going i can remember going to high street ken i was going to a meeting off high street ken and it was pouring with rain and we were stuck in this traffic and i just felt i mean it must have been god just saying get off the bus now and walk and i got off the bus turned right i looked up and there was silla walking towards me about 50 yards away coming down the pavement and we just looked at each other and i just i abandoned my friends there was some one random round on the pavement oh i mean it was just amazing and we thought whoa if if god can orchestrate a meeting when we had determined not to be uh together and we were in a city of however many million people london is that he we should meet like that we thought yeah i think maybe this he can show us he could be good so we did spend that three months apart and we did get married and we didn't get married and you've been married for how long 44 and a half years now to our viewers nikki and sula lee are the founders of the marriage course and in part two of facing the canon we're going to be talking about marriage and the marriage course and learning principles that will encourage and enrich and enhance our marriages so i hope you'll join us for part two but in this program we want to hear more about your faith and then we're going to talk about parenting so how did you two come to faith well uh neither of us had grown up in church-going families having said that selah's father he was a very traditional faithful church well he was in the episcopal church in in scotland but as as families my family would go to church on christmas day always absolutely regularly and sometimes on easter day but but apart from that we weren't a church-going family when i arrived at university i met a christian who i got to know and really liked and he started talking to me about a personal relationship with jesus and i thought that's the strangest idea i've never heard that in my life but it slightly intrigued me and i started going to talks and exploring it and having conversations with this guy and then other christians that i met and it was the second term at university there was a mission over 10 days the speaker david mcinnis coming to do a talk each night yes and i went on the first i was taken by this friend i on the first night there were about about a thousand people that i we sat right at the back david mckays was tiny but i never heard anyone speaking with search power and authority and i felt myself being drawn and threatened all at the same time drawn as he talked about jesus the love of jesus what life as a christian is about but very threatened because i knew that it meant surrendering everything and that included my relationship with cilla and she knew nothing of what i was exploring i hadn't told her at all so actually during that week i was in london and nikki actually came to london and we went to this little um bistro for dinner and i remember him sitting across the table and explaining to me about this whole thing of faith and discovering about jesus and a personal relationship and he said i i i just sort of want to say i think i need to respond and become a christian i wasn't very good at explaining it because i wouldn't question i just myself i mean i don't really remember this but apparently i looked around yesterday oh that sounds wonderful my heart sank i thought she doesn't understand at all we've got to surrender everything our relationship everything to god so anyway thankfully i was going to to cambridge that weekend and i um got off the train on friday and nikki came and met me and dragged me straight to hear this same man david mcinnis and again we were sort of the very back of a thousand people but again i literally was gripped by what he was saying and really what had happened for nikki in the space of six months of exploring and discovering happened for me in about twenty years he's always been quicker than me oh wow and it was yeah it was when david talked very specifically the following night about the cross and why jesus had died and i suddenly it was like i need forgiveness i actually haven't got my life sorted out which i thought i had at that stage you know that the world was my oyster i could do anything i was in love i was you know it was like everything was fine i could control my life and suddenly it was like oh gosh and he's gone to the cross for me me personally and and he said if anybody would like to start a relationship with jesus you can do that tonight and he um invited us to go and pray at the same time this same talk was thinking i think that's true that jesus died for me and if i do nothing about it he's died in vain that thought just hit me and we went forward together both of you and knelt down by the front of this led us and there were i don't know 40 or 50 people who prayed a prayer commitment to jesus and something shifted something changed oh very big straight away well i it was a great moment of praying but as we walked away from the church this friend christian friend i said to him that was an amazing evening and he said to me is it yes or no then and i thought oh gosh it's one thing to pray a prayer it's another to say to him what i felt and it felt like an age it was probably i don't know 30 seconds that i paused and then i said it's yes and the moment i said that to him it's yes i had this revelation it's like my life was all different parts of my life were made up of different parts of the jigsaw puzzle and they all went f in place and everything i've just felt suddenly everything makes sense and that was a very key moment and that reminder it reminds me of that scripture nikki um if we believe in our hearts and confess with our lips and so the moment you confess with your lips yes exactly that exactly that and wow and and i think the difference that i felt was that the next day i was in the library i was i was reading english um doing english literature and i was and there was david mckinnis was doing one more talk to the rowing club of st john's college wasn't my college next door but somebody invited me to go and join the rain club and i couldn't wait to hear david speak about jesus again and halfway through the morning i thought gosh that's extraordinary i i'd never felt that before about i'm not sure about anything in my life i wanted to know jesus more and that again just helped to convince me some things happened amazing and then following fine university tell i know you lived in japan what were you doing in japan well we got married literally two weeks after nicki graduated i was still a student um at art college nikki actually became a student for another year so we were students so we got married 21 22 and um and then we just felt that it would be very good having got married so young to go and live and work abroad and get a very different perspective on life and we were very you know we were around a community of people who knew us really well and and all of that and we thought we would go somewhere you know like africa or south america that we would be missionary you know actually we ended up in japan which was so clearly god and into a culture and a country literally the other side of the globe you can't even see it from here on the map um that we knew nothing about we couldn't speak the language it was an absolutely different culture they don't even eat with knives and forks and they sleep on the on the floor and we lived in japan for three years and we had the most remarkable remarkable time and um we came to love the people yeah we love the country love the food love the food with chopsticks sleep on the floor amazing uh and we saw how very small the church was and while in korea you know just across the water church it exploded was a revival that hadn't happened in japan and yet we saw how relevant the gospel was there in a completely different culture to our own and before we left we did see some of our closest japanese friends becoming christians and that was the deepest joy for us there's a lovely story uh i gather there was the apple season in japan and you had loads of apples and um nikki wanted to go away to a friend for a weekend and you didn't want to go well we had just had the um new advent of a child in our relationship well so you had a baby so then you decided to start throwing the apples at nikki so tell us tell us that story oh god well i i this friend he was a bachelor lived in tokyo we'd been to stay with him several times before we had a child and and he was social carers loads of parts parties non-stop breakfast coffee lunch tea dinner out yeah it was the wednesday before we were due to go for the weekend silla said i don't think i can cope i'm too she was exhausted i felt we had to go because he would have arranged all these parties around us being there so i clearly was not understanding how tired zilla was missing misunderstood and misinterpreted and she lost it with me completely lost it and i just happened to be standing by this basket of apples and there were a lot of there were as you said arranged in the pyramid and i just saw red and started throwing these across the room he luckily was behind the scenes well i ducked down behind the sofa and i said the basket was empty but i re-emerged got rid of my aggression then um yeah and then you talked it through yeah well but we still didn't agree and then and we prayed that night yeah we prayed that evening before we went to bed said lord what do we do and you know into my mind as we were praying i thought i'm more concerned about the embarrassment with our friend than i am about the welfare of cilla and i thought i need to say i'm sorry my darling i haven't understood i haven't taken enough account i'll ring our friend and say we can't come the moment i said that silla said oh well if you understand how tired i am i'm sure i'll be able to go so we went understanding was very important very very clear when he expressed some empathy yeah absolutely responded yeah exactly so then you went on and um got ordained in the church of england nikki it was we i did although it was a question do we stay in japan because we saw the need we longed to see more people becoming christians there or do we come back to the uk in the end having talked to various people including david mcinnis yes we felt the greater opportunities for talking to people about jesus are here where we can talk in our own language and pastors because we were not fluent in japanese and we were 30 by that stage and apparently learning a language fluently after 30 is quite a challenge absolutely but you went eventually went to durham you studied theology and you ended up as a curate which is an assistant minister holy trinity brompton and then subsequently associate vicar 1985 ray arrived as a as a curious and i remember the vicar at the time saying nick i hope you'll stay a long time i don't think he was thinking six years when he said that that we've been there ever since and uh it's it's a thriving for those that don't know um holy trinity is a thriving flourishing church and i've had the privilege over um several decades of both fellowship friendship and ministry at hdb and i have to say uh it is a church that thinks globally and also acts locally um and that is just so encouraging and out of the church have come so many things now one of the books that you guys have put together is the parenting book and you also run um of course the parenting course okay tell us first of all what prompted you to do that we have we have four children uh and we were getting i think partially because we got married a little bit younger than most of our friends and contemporaries and then started to have children a little bit sooner some of our friends in contemporaries we were getting a lot of questions what do we do how do we build a family life what what does what does it look like and some of course haven't had the advantage we've we've had which is of coming from close loving families so we were taking what we've we've learned the legacy from our own parents what we've learned from having children ourselves building a family life and from what we understood as lies at the heart of the christian gospel what it means to show unconditional love to to our children we so we we started running uh actually two courses initially it was the parenting children cause for parents of children naught to 10 and then parenting teenagers which we started from 11 to 18. i think by the i i've got three sons uh one daughter-in-law three grandchildren i think by the time you get the hang of parenting your children have left home yes exactly exactly what i love about your book um also with incredible illustrations from our mutual friend charlie mcassy i i liked very much near the introduction actually uh where you you confess that you haven't always got it right and um you actually asked your children each write down incidents that they could remember just one instant because we knew they'd be limited so we said one one and what i find so lovely is that you actually included them in the book and and we don't always get it right do we yeah but you look back at hindsight and you know what do we do with regrets you know we all have regrets when it comes to parenting and you you go you know what do you do with those i would say because i got it wrong many many many times and i think what you can i would want to say to people is you can start from where you are now and that actually i mean that applies whether your kids are five and under or 10 and over or 25 and over because we're all in relationship with our kids whether they're adult kids now or you know they're you're parenting them now and we can all start where we are now and i'll just give you an example from from our family so so um we have our daughter kirsty and then three boys and our middle boy barney um when he got to be about 14 13 14 he and i are very similar yeah quite strong characters clashed quite a lot but actually our relationship was not in very good shape and one day he said to me came in from school he just said i must have said something to him and he said mum you're always so stressed with me gosh and i thought wow perhaps i am and he then described that i was on his back that my voice was always stressed i was always going higher and higher asking him questions you know pro pro and actually it really brought me up short and i then had a very good conversation with him and and i said to him okay i'm gonna i didn't even realize i was doing this and i'm going to give you permission to tell me when i'm sounding stressed and see if i can bring some change and you know that really started a new thing and i had to change it wasn't his problem it was my problem and it really helped and there were times when i still got it wrong and um he had to say mum you're sounding stressed and it but it totally changed our relationship yes and uh i can say we are really good now you're good now but you're you're hinting there uh cilla on the word listening aren't you like we want our children to listen to us but we obviously have to listen to them as well don't we yes absolutely and i think what we've heard a lot from families is how they've needed to listen to their children what are their children feeling experiencing and so on as well as you know with partners listening to each other because we all process anxiety stress struggle challenges in different ways and we can't assume either our partner or our children are processing and feeling the same things for me personally and i know other parents may not feel like this but some do that worrying about our kids brought out the worst in me yes and that was probably why i was stressed with barney because i was worried about where he was what he was doing who he was with what he was thinking about doing you know because i knew he was like me he was going to do all sorts of things that i and you were magnified i was and so i was stressed and worried and anxious a lot more than nicki was and and actually looking back now i would say if i had my time again i would pray more and worry less because the praying of course helps you to really get inside their skin as you're praying for a child and thinking about what what are they going through and i think i didn't do that enough and um got stressed yes it's interesting that the uh two of the most unlikely people in the bible lost jesus his mother and his stepfather scripture says that he went back with his mother and stepfather and he grew in favor with god uh and in favor with people what tips would you give um to parents to encourage their children to grow in favor with god and with people i think you know the uh the the home environment within which our children grow up as as we've said we won't get everything right no parent can do that but there are things that we can do to seek to create a home environment that is that is nurturing and in the home the thing that makes a home a loving home it's not the furniture it's not the number of toys it's not the holidays it's the relationships and it's the adult relationships if we're parenting as a couple it's the relationship between us are we able to uh communicate are we able to resolve our conflicts forgive each other say sorry forgive each other and relationships with our children at the end of the day this is what is most important we believe that showing them love you know everybody needs encouragement and our children need encouragement most of the time we think they need correcting or advice how to do this or that but actually more than anything i think they just need encouraging well done praising for what they've done well not not sort of praise for something they've done terribly but there'll always be something we can find that they've done well and i think another thing is is feeling safe and a home environment that feels safe is not a place that's perfect it's a place actually where you fail but when you fail there's forgiveness and restoration and it's okay and that of course when they see that between parents or other adults that gives a great sense of security it's okay we can get it wrong we can mess up but actually we can make a new start and we can say sorry and be forgiven and um and that that builds trust that is so and and i think this safe place is a place where you can trust and and that's why consistency and um and building that place of you know it's okay to fail but we can start again and we still love you and love is unconditional absolutely well there's lots of advice and lots of tips in this book um as i was reading through it yesterday uh i thought oh uh if i was giving you a little commendation i was thinking i'd give you this commendation uh how to raise children without raising your blood that's pressure but the um the course is that available for anybody tell us about the parenting course well the parenting course is on dvd so what typically happens is people gather a group of parents together they get the dvd they watch the they watch the the film and then they discuss it as parents together and actually that discussion that they have with other parents they find oh my goodness we're not the only ones who feel this and they pick up tips from each other we we we raise the subject really we sort of set the topics we give some ideas great but it's what they gain from each other as parents that is so valuable and and it's age related so parenting younger children that's the parenting course and parenting teenagers parenting older ones brilliant nikki celely thank you for joining us on facing the canon thank you for having us very much oh i hope you enjoyed that i hope it inspired you uh do do look at these resources and please join us again next week we'll have nikki and cilla lee back and we'll talk about marriage and the marriage course thank you for joining us on facing the canon [Music] you

Channel: J.John

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Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021