Community Life Coaches Offer Hope to the City's Unemployed

Pennsylvania, USA ----Community Life Coaches Chris and Carol Green, returned to the Pennsylvania CareerLink's Job Club during the Christmas holiday season to again uplift, encourage and empower the unemployed in the urban community of Harrisburg, PA.

"We went back in December and that workshop was incredibly awesome!" said Coach Chris Green. "At one point our dignity-restoring workshop was going so well that someone actually said 'amen' during the presentation."

The presentation literally captured the group. Every example, anecdote, story, and word of advice seemed to hit home in every heart. Since the workshop took place just before Christmas, at the beginning, it was a very melancholy group with lots of heaviness hanging in the atmosphere, but by the end, people were talking and engaging.

"There is definitely something special happening with this community outreach," explains Coach Carol Green, "We believe we have been given an open door to restore dignity, give wisdom and heal hurting people, desperately trying to find jobs."

This was the Green's fourth successful monthly workshop. The class was at maximum capacity, having seen its numbers growing monthly. 

"How awesome is that?" added Coach Chris Green, "We're just trying to do our part to lift up and encourage people who are in a very tough season of unemployment."

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. They are international columnist/writers with the award winning team of Dr. Clyde Rivers and iChange Nations Social Media News™. 

***

Renewed to Rebuild

The more we teach and talk about the spiritual battle over our families, the more we realize that God has placed us behind enemy lines like a covert special force unit of the military. He has placed us in one of the fiercest battles in our nation today. It’s a battle for the hearts and homes of America.

We want to start the year 2016 by talking to you about the internal battles we face within our families.

As you know, we’ve been following the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. After the reconstruction began, several enemies conspired together to attack them. Immediately after receiving the threats from Sanballat, Tobia, the Ammonites, the Arabs and the Ashdodites, the Israelites took a quick inventory to assess their ability to keep working under this threat of attack.

Here is the report that was brought to Nehemiah:

Then (the people of) Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall.” And our adversaries said, “They will neither know nor see anything, till we come into their midst and kill them and cause the work to cease.” So it was, when the Jews who dwelt near them came, that they told us ten times, “From whatever place you turn, they will be upon us.” Nehemiah 4: 10-12

The FIRST problem: The strength of the laborers was failing. In similar ways, our strength is failing. Many husbands, wives, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, and grandparents have just grown tired of trying to build the family any longer.

Have you ever said, ‘I’m tired of trying in this marriage’ or ‘I’m tired of trying in this relationship’? Many times, it’s not that you’re not willing to work at it. It’s just that it never seems to get anywhere when you try. That’s what the people were hinting at when they said, “There is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall.”

The SECOND problem: It’s one thing to rebuild a marriage, a relationship, or anything you’re trying to reconstruct in your life, but there’s another level of discouragement when all you have to work with is rubbish. The rubbish, in Jerusalem, was the burned out stones and almost worthless material that was left behind from the devastation the city had suffered years earlier.

It’s the same for many of us today. God wants us to rebuild the wall of our city (our families and households), but all we have to build with is the leftover shattered, battered, burned up stones, bricks and timber from years of family heartache and heart break.

The burned out stones look like this: The unreasonable demands, the bullying, the lies, the deception, the dishonesty, the disrespect, the nagging, the insensitivity, the carelessness, the discontent, the unmet expectations, the silent nights (that were not holy nights), the fierce arguments, the horrible fights – and we mean the physical, fist-flying stuff, too; the four letter explicative, the feelings that had no words, and the words that had no feelings.

The burned out stones represent our broken dreams, our failures, our shame, and our secrets. They are the ashes of our grief; the only thing left after our sorrow. They are the heaviness we carry around inside of us in our perpetual state of mourning.

Question: How can you repair the walls for your family when the only material that you have is rubbish and burned out, brittle, crumbling stones?

Answer: God says in His Word: Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31 (NKJV)

This Hebrew word for WAIT means: to look for, hope, expect, look eagerly for, or to linger. One word picture is to be like a waiter or waitress: To stand and wait for the order, request, words, and direction. The person who stands like a servant and eagerly lingers, with hope and expectation, for the order, word, and directions from the Lord, will renew their strength.

Renew means to go through, grow up, change, to go on from where you are now. This means your strength is going to carry you through this time. It’s going to grow up. It’s going to go on from where it is right now.

We did a quick study about the bald eagle and learned something special about part of its life span. In their five-year development to adulthood, bald eagles go through one of the most varied plumage changes of any North American bird. During its first four weeks of life, an eaglet’s fluffy white down changes to a gray wooly down. At about five weeks, brown and black feathers begin to grow. It becomes fully feathered at 10 weeks of age. In its first year, the mostly dark-colored bald eagle can often be mistaken as a golden eagle. However, the bald eagle progressively changes until it reaches adult plumage at five years. Its dark eyes lighten throughout its first four years of life until it becomes yellow. They are constantly renewing as they get older.

If you and I wait upon the Lord; live expecting God’s word, live receiving God’s word, live obeying God’s word, we are renewed as we grow in His Word like the eagle is renewed as it grows to maturity. God can renew the material within us as we seek to rebuild our families. We won't have to build with burned-out stones. We can build with spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational material that has been renewed. We can build with strength that has been renewed.

We cannot rebuild our families and households until we get renewed in our hearts. So let’s remain consistent and persistent in our pursuit of God. Wait on Him daily. He will give you the strength to rebuild, in spite of the rubbish and in spite of the threats of the enemy.

It has been our honor to serve you these many years with these weekly words of inspiration and encouragement for your hearts and homes. May you have a blessed New Year!


We are overcomers, under orders,

Chris and Carol Green

Singing Songs to Heavy Hearts

I am reminded of a scripture the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart just before we held our first public gatherings in Harrisburg, PA.  It was the fall of 2004 and every morning, at around 5:30AM, I would go to our facility in Uptown Harrisburg to pray. I was desperately seeking God for wisdom in how to reach out in what was a foreign land for me. 

After serving for 17 very successful years in my home church, I was keenly aware that I would need a new strategy in this new season and new region of the country. I will never forget this simple, yet profound passage from Proverbs 25:20, 

"Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, And like vinegar on soda, Is one who sings songs to a heavy heart." ---(NKJV)

"Like one who takes off a garment in cold weather, or like [a reactive, useless mixture of] vinegar on soda, Is he who [thoughtlessly] sings [joyful] songs to a heavy heart." ---(AMP)

I recall how I first shared this word with our team. I didn't quite know how to implement it, except to tell them that we would change our strategy. We would no longer be placing emphasis on the typical church gathering. Instead we would place more emphasis on prayer and teaching to bring healing to heavy hearts.

This scripture had literally snatched away all of the strategies that worked for us in our home city. God was clearly telling me that if we tried to do what worked before, we would be like those who were taking away garments in cold weather. 

Our current strategy would be like pouring vinegar on a substance called nitre. Vinegar dissolves the nitre, and makes it useless and ineffectual. Our method would make our efforts useless. We would not be comforting the lost and hurting. Instead, we would be thoughtlessly agitating them and making things worse. 

It took several months and years for us to understand the weight of that scripture. We've had a variety of people to come and go through the years. As individuals and families began to attend, each person came with severe damage in their hearts and homes. In each situation, we saw why we could not sing songs to heavy hearts.

Over the years we have had to make several adjustments in our approach to serve and help people. We could no longer do what we had always done in previous years. We could not always start our sessions with joyful songs (praise and worship). Many Christian Believers struggled with this because we had always been taught, according to Psalm 100:4 that we must "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise."

But something amazing happened as we followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. We found that when it came to heavy hearts, if we jumped right into the issues of life, that the joyful songs came forth in the midst of their healing process.

Sometimes we simply started our gatherings with prayer, but by the time we came to the end of our sessions, we would somehow end with joyful songs. We found that when we started with conversation or even soft music playing in the background during the teaching, that it spoke to the hurting souls; that it was like GIVING them warm garments on a cold day.

We look back over the years and we are amazed at how accurate that simple scripture was for our strategy in this community, and how appropriate it is for many devastated families across this nation, today. This Proverbs 25:20 understanding has forced us to stop following formulas and church traditions that no longer work. 

We are moving into the new seasons with great excitement and anticipation. Now we know how to better describe our work. We are a ministry that prepares and trains Believers to rebuild their families to serve in the community. We now have open doors to work with a local employment service, a women's shelter, and a drug/alcohol addiction recovery center. We are teaming up with intercessors for a weekly corporate prayer gathering that will give us the opportunity to collectively stand in the gap for this city, region and state.

Many of the community outreach efforts in our inner cities have been established by Believers. Most of them are looking to the Church to supply the volunteers and resources to help them reach the lost in their neighborhoods. We believe that we are one of those ministries that is called to raise up and train Believers who can serve with various community outreach efforts. We don't need to start new community outreaches. All we need to do is prepare God's people to go and bring aid to the places that are already on the front lines.

One of the prophetic words that was spoken over us, when we were sent to Harrisburg in 2004, was that we would strengthen that which was already built. So, we were not sent to Harrisburg to start anything new. We were sent to build people, so they could be released to serve households, neighborhoods, ministries and outreach efforts that have already been established.

From year to year we are moving forward in the zeal and excitement in which we approached our assignment way back in 2004. We are seeking God for His wisdom in how to minister to heavy hearts. And whatever HE speaks and however HE tells us to do it, we will obey HIS word.

We look forward to singing songs to joyful hearts!

Chris and Carol Green

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Green Family

We pray that you experience the genuine love of God as you spend time with family and friends during this holiday season.

As you know, we've been talking about Christmas a lot over the past four weeks.

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 use this well established historical fact to attack 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.

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 can 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 Christmas. Most of that history is very negative and even involves an annual persecution of Jewish people on that day.

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 Jesus was actually born at a much more significant God-ordained time (perhaps in the Spring when sheep were giving birth). However, for most Jewish people, Christmas is directly connected with a negative history of persecution, and it is a 24-hour celebration declaring that Jesus Christ is the only way to come to Jehovah God; so they want no part of it.

Pagan rituals, like the evergreen tree, mistletoe and December 25th itself, have had attempts by many generations of the Church, to be Christianized and set apart from their wild, sensual and wicked celebrations. 

For instance, many songs (Christmas carols) have been written to point the celebration away from other gods to Christ. Christian meanings of the evergreen tree were reassigned and it was declared to be a symbol of new life in Christ and not an actual god to be worshipped.  Some church leaders vehemently rejected these ideas and they are still rejected by many to this day.

Since tree worship is firmly forbidden in scripture (Jeremiah 10), many Believers cannot, in good conscious, celebrate the season with an evergreen tree. Still there are others who desire to use this holiday, with its many pagan attachments, as a way to connect with their non-believing family and friends, for whom Christmas has no religious or spiritual meaning at all.

Over the past few weeks we have been offering very important points for us to consider for making Godly responses to the pagan origins of December 25th. As Christian 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 (NKJV)

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

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

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.) Partake of the Lord's Table in Remembrance of Christ - Luke 22:14-20 (NKJV)

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 Urban Life family. We did it this past Sunday.

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!
  
---Chris and Carol Green

Community Life Coaches Give Hope, Restore Dignity to the Unemployed in the City

Pennsylvania, USA ---- Urban Community Ambassadors, Chris and Carol Green, were invited to EDSI - PA CareerLink® Capitol Region's Job Club in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the third consecutive month to host what the Greens call a 'Beyond the Resume' Life Coaching workshop. 

EDSI operates the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) program, serving the unemployed and underemployed populations of Pennsylvania. Their core services include job readiness workshops, job search, the Job Club and other career development topics. 

"We held our first workshop in October," explains Coach Chris Green, "We seized the opportunity to give hope and restore the dignity of those who were unemployed in our city."

"After that first workshop, several people said the presentation gave them a new way to view themselves as they face a very tough job landscape,"added Coach Carol Green, "Most seemed to be very encouraged." 

Coach Chris Green said, "From our perspective, we were just thrilled to be able to move out beyond the walls of the church setting and reach people who needed hope in a time of great despair."

EDSI - PA CareerLink® invited Chris and Carol Green back again in November. 

"It was just before Thanksgiving, so it was kind of tough for the participants," Coach Carol Green explained, "That month, we had a wonderful, engaging conversation as we explored various workplace personality profiles and offered tips on how to work with conflicting personality types and how to improve one's own responses to others."

The session came alive with conversation, questions and comments. During their sessions, the Greens introduced their Life Coaching website and offered the opportunity for participant to attend to their weekly small group sessions.

At that time, the Career Link site administrator sat in on part of the workshop and later proposed that the Greens return to conduct a sessions for her staff.

Afterwards, the Community Life Coaches were placed on the EDSI - PA CareerLink®  regular monthly schedule, which continued with this month's workshop.


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

***