Blessed New Year!

Life Coaches Chris and Carol Green

As we close out this incredible year, we first want to thank all of you for your support in prayers and finances. We could not have made it successfully through this year without you.

We have been in full-time service to the Lord since we retired from our state government jobs in the spring of 2015. After leaving those jobs, we spent the next year training in a master life coaching program, serving other ministries in the community, hosting a monthly coaching session in an unemployment, and then, as the calendar rolled into 2016, we started serving in a local women's shelter. The shelter (Shalom House) is located in one of Harrisburg's most violent and crime-challenged neighborhoods. For us, it was like returning to the community in which we ministered while living in St. Louis, MO.

We are forever grateful for the executive director, Denise Britton, for taking a chance on a couple of unknown pastors, and allowing us to come in and coach the residents and staff, and for supporting us with prayer and finances as well.

We had no idea what was in store for us in 2016. The Chief Chancellor of the school, from which we were being trained to become master life coaches, conferred honorary doctorate degrees in Christian Leadership and Humanities upon us, to acknowledge our three decades of urban community ministry and outreach, and for the success we have had with innovative ideas to rebuild, restore and renew hearts and homes in our first 10 years in Harrisburg, PA. The honorary degrees were conferred on February 1, 2016, but publicly presented in Washington, DC, in April of 2016.

That same month, we re-launched our Fruitful Life Network of Ministries, Inc, with a new emphasis on life coaching, consulting and equipping people to become community care ready responders. We temporarily closed the Urban Life Family Center and converted its website into an online reference and resource to provide a massive 1500 video and audio teaching library. We titled the website Urban Life Family Connections (http://www.ULFC.org). We launched a new Home Church gathering that met in our home every Friday evening.

One of the pastors in the area, in their effort to support our work in Harrisburg, placed us on their monthly calendar to speak and minister in their church on a regular basis. This was the most amazing thing we could ever have imagined because most pastors would not feel secure enough to invite another pastor to speak in their church every month, but this was pastor and their church family are not your typical church family.  Pastor Paul Lebo, his wife Atha, and the leaders of Cumberland Valley Church (aka The Barn) are the most precious, genuine and powerfully prophetic people one could ever hope to meet in their entire lifetime. We owe so much gratitude to them for their support in 2016.

In the summer of 2016, we started a new Statesmen Training with Dr. Clyde Rivers, founder and president of iChange Nations™. We were chosen to be part of a handful of couples to participate in a special training that will prepare us to go to heads of state, presidents of nations, and world government leaders with our areas of expertise, providing practical solutions for them and their people. That training takes place monthly.

Our Overseers, Bishop Raphael and Pastor Brenda Green, invited us back to St. Louis, MO to be part of our home church's 29th anniversary celebration. It was a powerfully prophetic and strategic time for us to be there.

On September 21st, our first grandchild, little Robin Evon Green, was born to our youngest son David and his wife Michelle. At the time that she was born, we were conducting one of our monthly coaching support meetings with the staff of the women's shelter. That same day, we officially received our Master Life Coaching certifications.

As the year has come closer its end, the more things have been accelerating for us. On December 14th, we held our first Community Care Ready Responder Orientation/Training. It was our honor for that first-time event to be held at the Shalom House Women's shelter. A week later, we made our international streaming TV broadcast debut on Christ Family Network's Golden Rule Channel.

Dr. Clyde Rivers, brought us onboard as his first broadcasters on his new Golden Rule Initiative Channel. We call our broadcast FRUITFUL LIVING. The Christ Family Network is a Streaming TV Network, available online and also on the ROKU system. ROKU is a TV streaming system that allows customers to watch internet programs on their regular TVs. It has broken the barrier between internet and regular TV watching. The Christ Family Network reports that they are now being watched in 60 nations with a potential of 30 million viewers.

Along with the weekly streaming TV broadcast, we have the ability to go LIVE through Christ Family's C-Scope Application (similar to Twitter's Periscope). Catch us tonight LIVE at 7:30PM (EST) on http://www.christfamilynetwork.com/christ-scope/

We encourage you to watch the broadcast TONIGHT and every Wednesday at 8:00PM (EST) at http://www.christfamilynetwork.com/golden-rule-channel/

Or you can watch the replay on our Facebook page on Wednesdays after 8:00PM (EST) at https://www.facebook.com/fruitfullifenetwork/

Now let's talk about the New Year. As we move into 2017:

We are assembling a new board of directors for the Fruitful Life Network of Ministries, Inc.

We are changing the name of our local (home group focused) church from Urban Life Family Center to Fruitful Life Learning Center.

We have launched a new online media training in partnership with iChange Nations™. Our first online session is already booked for the first week of January with more coming on-board even as we write this letter. We are anticipating more opportunities coming up soon for Community Care and Ready responders Orientation/Training, so we find that we must adjust our schedules and calendar accordingly.

Starting immediately, we will adjust our newsletter from weekly to monthly. Look to hear from us in the last week of each month. However, you can still keep up with us through our blogs. Most of our writings will still appear there on a weekly basis.

Access our two most popular blogs at:

Urban Life Family Matters - http://urbanlifefamilypost.blogspot.com/

Fruitful Living - http://fruitful-life-connection.blogspot.com/

We will continue our Home Church Network gatherings on Friday evenings.

We also anticipate more travel opportunities and online coaching and training as well.

As you can see, 2016 was a surprisingly busy year for us. We did a lot of sowing and as the year came to an end, we began to see a little more financial support come back in return. Like most missionaries, we work in the community in which we serve, but often we don't charge full price for our services because frankly, most of the people that we serve are either homeless, unemployed or just starting over again. Therefore, we look to the Lord to keep us free to serve the people.

Our prayer request:
First we want to be able to go and see our grand baby. Obviously, when you're living by faith, monthly donations, and self-employed income, you never know what you will have from week to week, so this is a deeply personal prayer request.

Please join with us and pray that those who see our TV broadcast will obey the compelling of the Lord to sow into the lives of the people that we serve.

Pray that our coaching and consulting work will prosper, so that we can remain free to serve.

Pray for those whom we disciple and teach in the Fruitful Life Learning Center, that they would embrace the home-church-vision and run with it within their own households and neighborhoods.

And pray to the Lord of Harvest that HE would send forth laborers to help in the field.

May you have an very blessed New Year!

And remember that we do what we do because of Jesus Christ and....

For the least of these,

Chris and Carol Green

Merry Christmas!

  
Did you know that December 25th is not the actual birth date of Jesus Christ? Did you know that this was a date that was established by the Roman Catholic Church when they initiated a Mass during the same season that pagans were already engaged in various winter solstice celebrations? That's how the term Christ Mass was established. It was all part of an effort to covert people to Christianity. However they failed to steer the people away from the sun god rituals in spite of the new church-initiated Mass to celebrate the Son of God.

We share this with you because many skeptics in the urban world use this well established historical fact to attack urban Christians who are ignorant of church history. They feel that this discrepancy, concerning the birth of Christ, gives them leverage to deny the Bible and the Son of God.  

Instead they encourage many urban dwellers to replace December 25th with celebrations like Kwanzaa. This celebration honors African heritage in African-American culture, and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. We're not saying there's something inherently wrong with celebrating Kwanzaa. We're just providing a little more understanding as to why there is so much confusion and controversy surrounding December 25th. 

Many Believers already know that the Bible never says that Christ was born in December. The point is that it doesn't matter that He wasn't born on December 25th. We believe this church-initiated celebration should no longer attempt to celebrate December 25th as Christ's date of birth. Now it should be used to celebrate the REALITY and PURPOSE for His birth.

Since millions of people have come into the Faith as Protestants, they have never been aware of the history behind December 25th. Most of that history is very negative and even involves an annual persecution of Jewish people on that day.

Over the years, the Christmas (Christ Mass) celebration has embraced many not-so Christian-like traditions and those traditions have become disconnected from historical facts and understanding. Of course the history is far more complicated than this, but we really don't have space to cover every detail in a simple newsletter. Hopefully, this will get you started in pursuing answers in your own personal study.

As a side note, many Biblical historians believe that Christ was actually born at a much more significant God-ordained time (perhaps in the Ppring when sheep were giving birth). However, for most Jewish people, December 25th is directly connected with a negative history of persecution, and it is a 24-hour celebration declaring that there is another way to come to Jehovah God; so they want no part of it.

Over the past few weeks, we have been offering very important points for you to consider for making Godly responses to the pagan origins of December 25th. As Community and Spiritual life coaches, we have decided to provide practical answers and solutions for you and your family. 

Here are the four points we asked you to consider for responding to people who are caught in the midst of this controversy:

1.) Become all things to all men - 1 Corinthians 9:18-23 

2.) Don’t cause your brother to stumble - 1 Corinthians 8:4-13

3.) Use the opportunity (holiday) to bless your enemies - Matthew 5:43-45 

4.) Continue in the early church lifestyle of giving to others/helping the poor 
- Acts 2: 40-47

This week we are offering the fifth response:

5.) Consider a foundational Christian celebration: Partaking of the Lord's Table in Remembrance of Christ (Luke 22:14-20).
  
Jesus instructed His followers to partake of the communion table in remembrance of Him. The holiday season is another perfect opportunity to place emphasis on Jesus Christ by gathering to do what HE instructed us to do. That's what we choose to do every year with our Fruitful Life Home Church family. 

Millions of Believers will gather in sanctuaries or in their homes to partake of Holy communion and truly reflect upon the reason Christ came into the world. 

These special gatherings remind us that the Son of God is not to be merely thought of as a baby lying in a manger, but as our Savior who was brutally beaten and nailed alive to a wooden cross. We should remember that He rose again from the dead to usher all of us into the Kingdom of God.

As we stated last week, we are simply trying to communicate that in spite of the historical facts, controversies and conflicts, CHRIST must truly become YOUR reason for this season and all year round.  The world will continue to celebrate the sun god (in all of its many names and forms) as part of their annual winter celebrations. WE must celebrate the Son of God and give a Godly RESPONSE to our non-believing family and friends, and to our Christian brothers and sisters who may not have this insight.

Enjoy the day and enjoy the season!



World Peace Ambassador, Dr. Clyde Rivers calls Chris and Carol Green leading skilled experts in rebuilding, restoring and renewing hearts and homes. The Green are certified master life coaches who founded the Fruitful Life Network, Inc. an innovative community care and coaching outreach.