Tyndale launches the Family Life Centre

Friday, September 18, 2015

God created humans with the need to be connected, accepted and loved. As relational beings, the most basic context in which these needs are met is a strong, loving family that expands to include extended family, friends and the community. These relationships have the capacity to bless and to wound, due to our fallenness. When they do wound, it can negatively affect the family for generations. The Family Life Centre, located within The Open Learning Centre at Tyndale University College & Seminary, seeks to understand and address this effect.

“The Family Life Centre provides a forum in which to help bring healing and reconciliation to homes and communities. What an exciting new earthly assignment to be able to help positively impact future generations!” writes Dr. Marion Goertz [MDiv Counselling 1999], Director of the recently launched Family Life Centre. Dr. Goertz is a well-known marriage and family therapist in Canada with over 15 years of experience. She is passionate about helping families and the marriage relationship flourish amid the tensions of our daily lives. The Family Life Centre is an exciting new project to further that passion. “We will be inviting members of the general public ‘to the banquet’ to experience community and personal and spiritual growth through practical learning programs and impactful presentations.”

With the move to Bayview and the expanded facilities the campus offers, Tyndale is seeing a move outward into the community. While the Tyndale Counselling Services provides resources for students and the internal Tyndale community, the Family Life Centre is outward focused to the broader community. The Family Life Centre personnel are excited to increase programs to fit the needs of the community and neighbourhood. The Centre provides clinical counselling, educational seminars and relevant programs for individuals, couples and families from all cultures and walks of life, who are seeking reconciliation and reconnection. Several programs under consideration are premarital screening and coaching, marriage enrichment and retreats, seminars on personality, parenting, budgeting, career development, aging, community building, computer training and more.

Dr. Goertz believes that the Centre’s purpose aligns well with Tyndale’s mission “to serve the church and the world for the glory of God.” Its task is to see where God is already working in the community and to increase compassionate community outreach. “There is no better calling than to serve God and his people,” Dr. Goertz writes. “I am humbled and honoured to be undertaking this important work at this stage in my professional career.” 

For more information, visit the Family Life Centre homepage.
 

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