Natural Family Planning, NFP

The Mission of NFP International
The primary mission of NFP International is to promote and teach Natural Family Planning. This includes ecological breastfeeding, systematic NFP, marital chastity, and the call to generosity in having children and raising them in the ways of the Lord. A secondary mission is to uphold traditional Christian teaching about love, marriage and sexuality and to provide materials that people can use to improve their spiritual lives.

We seek to accomplish this mission through this website and volunteer teachers.

Our service area is the world. At present, anyone in the world who has access to the Internet and can read English at the 10th grade level can teach themselves how to practice NFP from the NFPI manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach, available both in print and online. We recognize that most people prefer to learn from face to face instruction, and thus we encourage the development of networks of volunteer teachers in countries throughout the world. The International Mission statement describes the NFPI efforts in Eastern Europe that still suffers the effects of decades of Communist rule.

What you see at present in Western culture is fearful. Ordinary folks feel compelled to install outside security lights and indoor security systems. A culture once marked by respect for life and purity has become degraded. The daily news provides every thinking person with ample evidence that the family, the Church, and traditional morality are taking a beating. In short, the culture is in crisis.

At the heart of the downward spiral of morality has been the acceptance of a sexual revolution "based on the logic of birth control instead of the logic of human nature," as secular humanist Walter Lippmann described it in 1929. The sexual theorists of the early 20th century equated human happiness with unlimited sexual pleasure, and they set about to capture the American heart and soul with their ideas. Their hook was unlimited sex. Their line was that unlimited sex and very few children would make happy families. Their sinker was contraception, called by Lippmann "the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals." They promoted the immorality of serial bigamy as "progressive," but they were clueless about what happens when sex is idolized and married couples are encouraged to take apart the marriages that God has put together.

Gradually, the American public bought it-hook, line and sinker, and today American culture shows the effects. The organized promotion of contraception has not brought marital happiness but has been accompanied by a 500% increase in the divorce rate. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies have not only greatly increased but have become socially acceptable. The jails are full of men who were deprived of their God-given right to have their natural father in the home. Secular leaders offer no hope, only more police, bigger jails, and higher taxes to pay for them.

It doesn't have to be this way.

The Vision of NFP International
There is a way out. There is a way to reverse the downward spiral and to rebuild a culture of life and hope that respects purity and marriage. The downward sexual revolution started with an idea-the notion that it is morally okay to take apart what God has put together in the sexual act. The sexual counter-revolution starts with the opposite idea expressed by Jesus in his teaching about marriage-"What God has put together, let no one take apart" (Mt 19:6). This applies not only to marriage but also to the marriage act.

The NFPI vision is built on the rock of God's revelation. God exists and has made himself known. God created human nature and has a plan for us. Personal happiness and the well-being of society depend on following that plan.

In God's plan, sexual intercourse is exclusively a marriage act. Within marriage, the marriage act ought to be a true marriage act. It ought to reflect and renew the gift of self, the commitment, the caring love, the faithfulness, the fruitfulness, and the permanence of the marriage covenant. This can be summarized in a way that everyone can understand: Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant.

What's in this vision of a culture of life and hope?

There is an almost universal conviction that, in the words of George Washington, the first president of the United States, "religion and morality are the indispensable supports of democracy." The meaning of the "self-evident truths" of the American Declaration of Independence has been internalized. It is part of the culture to respect in others the "inalienable rights" to life, liberty (but not license) and the pursuit of happiness. There is a common sense recognition that without such respect for the God-given rights of others, civic life will eventually become governed either by the law of the jungle or a police state.
Citizens of all ages are conscious that God has a plan for us, and they internalize the basic morality described in the Ten Commandments. This provides peer support to live virtuously and peer pressure not to sin.
Legalized abortion is recognized as a national error of the past, and illegal abortions are almost non-existent.
Men and women of all nations and cultures believe that sexual intercourse is exclusively a marriage act. Therefore, these ordinary men and women postpone the sexual expression of their love for each other until they are married. Those who still think they are above God's law are few and are not taken seriously.
Parents are married, have children, stay married, raise their own or adopted children, and strive to make each marriage act a renewal of their marriage covenant.
Babies and their mothers are healthier because of extended breastfeeding. Most couples experience the natural birth spacing of ecological breastfeeding.
Couples who need additional spacing practice chaste systematic NFP.
Thanks to a pervasive culture of life, sexual crimes are rare, the overall crime rate is low, some jails have closed, and others are half empty.
Men and women of every continent appreciate and continue to build a culture of life and hope.

Vision or pipedream?
A pipedream is a pleasant but impossible dream. A vision is an idea about what's possible. It guides your plans and actions. Our vision is about what is eminently possible with a change of heart. It should be obvious, however, that our vision is not going to "just happen," and here's why.

There will be no freedom from the culture of death and fear without building a culture of life.
There will be no culture of life without a stop to legalized abortion. As Mother Teresa said at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" If a culture cannot tell people not to kill others who stand in their way, how can it expect people not to engage in the lesser crimes of assault, muggings, rape, robbery, dishonesty, fraud, and mutually voluntary sins such as adultery, fornication, sodomy, and dealing in drugs?
There will be no stopping abortion without a widespread acceptance of chastity.
There will be no widespread acceptance of chastity outside of marriage without a widespread acceptance of chastity within marriage.
There will be no acceptance of marital chastity without the rejection of unnatural forms of birth control, many of which can also cause early abortions.
There will be no widespread rejection of unnatural forms of birth control without the widespread knowledge and practice of natural family planning (NFP).
There will be no widespread practice of NFP without serious efforts to promote it and without sufficient NFP teachers and/or materials.
In many sub-cultures, that will happen only when the clergy require couples to learn NFP, including ecological breastfeeding, as a normal part of preparation for marriage.
In the fast growing computer-oriented subculture, the vast, vast majority of married couples-say at least 90% and probably 95%-can teach themselves how to practice chaste NFP from the online manual and other materials at this website.

The bottom line is that in order to roll back the culture of death that is built on the logic of unnatural birth control, it is necessary to promote, teach, and practice the natural ways that God has given us to space babies.

The Role of NFP International
This organization shares the founders' 40+ years of experience with using and teaching natural family planning and explaining morality in a way that ordinary people can understand. The content of our triple-strand approach to natural family planning is unique within the NFP movement.

Ecological breastfeeding provides a wonderful combination of health benefits for mother and baby, the emotional benefits of attachment parenting, and the natural spacing of babies. It is truly part of God's plan for families. Only ecological breastfeeding with its frequent suckling provides a significant spacing of babies. Most couples can use ecological breastfeeding to space the births of their children and then use systematic NFP when they have a sufficiently serious reason for additional spacing or avoiding pregnancy.
The covenant theology of human sexuality provides an easy-to-grasp way to understand and internalize God's plan for love, marriage and sexuality. The knowledge that the sex act ought to symbolize the commitment of marriage provides meaning and motivation to postpone the "marriage act" until marriage. The knowledge that within marriage it ought to be a renewal of the marriage covenant provides deep meaning to this expression of married love. It also provides a challenge to spouses to maintain an attitude of caring love and gratitude throughout every aspect of their life together.
The Kippley-Prem Method of systematic NFP provides couples with maximum freedom of choice and minimum abstinence.

Your place in this vision
You, the individual person and couple, are at the heart of the effort to rebuild a culture of life and hope. God is calling you to accept the twin challenges of chastity and generosity in having children. You can learn how to practice chaste NFP from the online manual at this website---and available in print---or you can learn from local NFP providers. Then with thoughtful prayer, you can discern whether God is calling you to seek or to avoid pregnancy.

Do the right thing for the best reasons
Even if you intend to let the babies come as they may, learn NFP because it's part of God's plan for families. Practice ecological breastfeeding because it's part of God's plan for baby-care and baby-spacing. Pray for a generous heart. "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the rest will be given unto you" (see Mt 6:33). Seek first to do things in your own life in accord with God's plan. Do your best to share God's plan with others. Then let God take care of the rest of the culture.

That's the vision.
Please help make it a reality.