On Friday, March 13 the word came to us that the Governor of Pennsylvania was closing schools and businesses for at least two weeks due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The following week saw the edict expand to public gatherings being reduced to 250 people, then 50 and then 10.
Suddenly there was a scramble throughout our city, state and country for many ministries, organizations and churches to formulate plans and rethink ways to conduct meetings and weekly gatherings.
For the Fruitful Life Alliance of Families, Small Groups, Churches and Ministries, there was no scramble, no panic, and no last minute planning strategies.
Why?
We were already prepared. We saw this day coming nearly six years ago. We not only saw it coming, but we made the necessary transition and have been practicing for a time when we would not be able to physically meet together.
We trained our leaders in CARE-Readiness, Life Coaching, and Home Church facilitation. We held online training, posted videos and even got our followers and supporters to adjust, by watching worship videos and teaching videos as part of their Sunday in-home gatherings.
We shifted and moved out of a church facility and into our homes. We took our ministry and outreach directly to the Harrisburg, inner city community, dropping the titles of pastors and becoming known as community life coaches.
So when the COVID-19 outbreak was announced and the gathering bans were set in motion, we simply kept doing what we have already been doing for several years, now.
We share this with you, not to boast or brag, or even to say, “We told you so.”
We share this to let you know that God is truly in control. If He can speak to us as a group, and give us detailed instruction in wisdom and preparation for this moment, then certainly HE will continue to speak to us, giving us wisdom and instructions that will carry us successfully through this.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we know the One who holds the future.
----Chris and Carol Green
Learn more about our Home Church Connection HERE.
***The Fruitful Life Learning Community is a unique merging of a Life-Development Ministry with an alliance of Families, Home Groups, House Churches and Ministries. They convene in strategically orchestrated weekly and monthly online sessions that resource, equip and empower people from all spheres and aspects of life; giving them access to healing within their own hearts and homes, and then the ability to extend their extraordinary transformation to their friends, neighborhoods, colleagues, and anyone in their world.
As a neighborhood-supporting faith family, Fruitful Life is patterned after the 1st-century Followers of Christ, who continued steadfast in the Apostle's teaching and fellowship, in Breaking of Bread, and in Prayers. They met privately in their homes and corporately as a community on a regular basis; and they took care of widows, orphans and the poor, while experiencing miraculous signs and wonders. In its DNA, Fruitful Life carries the Ephesians 4 directive of equipping and empowering Believers to do the work of ministry.
Before there was a religion called Christianity, there was a movement known as THE WAY. Chris and Carol Green launched the Fruitful Life Learning Community as an intentional effort to help people of faith and Christian leaders return to that simple mission and lifestyle that demonstrates God's love and healing to hearts and homes.
