Rita Enos

Rita is a Certified Master Christian Life Coach. She obtained her education online from International Coaching School, Founder, Prof. Clyde Rivers and Director and Co-Founder, Prof. Donella Pitzl. Her certification is  authorized and accredited by UACCMI, United Association of Christian Churches and Ministers International, Founder, Dr. Martin Wisor. This is her testimony regarding her coach training.

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First, this program has challenged me, mostly in the way I go about helping people. Being a Pastor for twelve years, you become accustom to counseling people, especially when circumstances arise in their lives. I have learned to give them knowledge and wisdom in what it is I believe will help them in their situation. As I began this Coaching Course it helped me transition into coaching people instead of counseling. I do believe there are moments in time that counseling is necessary, based on the individual needs.

The differences I experienced between coaching and counseling is the answers are in the people, they just have not discovered it. As I have discussed different situation with clients and used the different techniques, the answer usually comes out. It is being patience with them allowing the client to express their thoughts and feelings. I also liked that it made them responsible to their situation, instead of me trying to get them out of the circumstance. Coaching clients brings a more openness, and an atmosphere of discovery. I have seen that this has really made an impact on our church today. People feel that they have a voice to express themselves in a safe environment. I have enjoyed transforming into a coach verse a counselor.

Secondly, having the ability to apply God’s word, in different situations, is a huge component for me. The obstacles I dealt with the most are peoples thought processes. I am learning to help them combat their thoughts with the word of God and allow the client to express their thoughts as I keep notes. Noting what their thoughts are about themselves and/or their situations.

I have implemented the training I received from the International Coaching Schools (ICS) in our Women’s Ministry that I am currently leading. Our Women’s Ministry meets once a month. This has given me the opportunity to increase my skills I have received in the Christian Life Coaching Program. This is the material that I use in teaching, training and ministering to the women.

The ladies were asked, “How would they like to see themselves at the end of the year?” I came up with 10 questions to ask. This gave them insight on how well they full fill a goal they would set for themselves. Each lady answered the questions given. Using the open-ended question guidelines. What were your goals last year? What areas did you challenge yourself? What have you overcome? Where did you grow the most? Looking back at your goal from last year, what evidence do you see in your life that is congruent with the goal? Where would you say your state of mind is? What are your goals for this year? What is it going to take to get you to apprehend your goal? What areas do you feel hold you back from obtaining these goals? How serious are you about obtaining your goal?

I have continued to meet with the ladies twice a month, encouraging them and also e-mailing throughout the week, keeping them accountable and coaching them through this process. This has been beneficial to the ladies and also to me. It has established trust, unity, new relationships and spiritual connection. This has created an atmosphere for coaching.

Using a group exercise I learned in the training, the ladies had an opportunity to learn the difference between facts and fiction in their lives. Hebrews 4:12 NLT says, “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is shaper that the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul, spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” I explained to the ladies the importance of the power of God’s word, how it exposes our thoughts. I had them pair up with other women and had them share their thoughts that they struggle with. Then they had to get in the word of God and counteract those thoughts.

It was explained to the ladies that knowing God’s word is vital to your Christian walk. It is important to get in His word daily, memorize scriptures. It combats those wrong thoughts that we have towards ourselves that are contraire to God’s word. I also, gave the ladies some facts about our mind. We have approximately 30,000 thoughts on an average day. We have a different thought every 1.2 seconds. We have 21 thoughts per minutes. Eighty seven percent to ninety five percent of the illnesses, that plague us today, are a direct result of our thought life. Our thoughts are a powerful thing. Proverbs 23:7 says, “ For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

To build trust, I created an exercise that would help the ladies understand that we all need help and we need to trust others. In this exercise I gave the ladies a chance to experience hands on learning. Once we completed the exercise we debriefed. I asked open-ended questions to see what they were feeling. What were your feelings? What emotions were you dealing with? What was going through your mind? Where you having a hard time trusting? What did you learn about yourself?

It was interesting to see what the ladies shared and a lot of them had great moments of learning about who they were. Most people don’t know how to ask for help or to trust others; this was a great exercise to teach exactly that. The moral of this exercise is you need help along the way, whether it is Jesus himself, or people He puts into your life that you can trust.

         As I prepare for the Women’s Ministry I do take into consideration the things I learned from ICS, and see how I could use it in the message that I would be bringing forth. I am teaching the ladies the skills that I have obtained through Christian Life Coaching. Also through this year of teaching the women, I have been asked by some of the ladies to coach them personally on some things that they need help with. This training has opened up doors for me that would not have been available to me without the schooling I received. As the Women’s Ministry grows, I would like to start teaching other women how to Life Coach using the material and training that I received. Also, with this training, my hope is to help each women individually and to see them walk into their destiny.

       These are just a few examples of what I have used from the training I received. I am going to continue to use the exercise of setting goals at the beginning of each year to give other ladies the opportunity to work with me in obtaining their goals.  I will also use some of the ladies that have completed the process this year to help me with the new ladies coming in next year.

Using these different techniques has opened me up to a unique way of helping and dealing with people. It is gratifying to see a client transform, right in your midst. These tools have also helped our pastors, leadership and congregation get to the next level in their ministry. Setting goals and holding them accountable has released a lot of responsibility on me. I will continue to use these tools that I have learned in taking this Coaching Program with ICS.

Submitted by Rita Enos, California, USA

Leadership and Youth Development

Gebru Abraha - Ethiopia

Gebru Abraha is an alumni of United Graduate College and Seminary International. He is a UGCS Regional Representative in Ethiopia and is currently working on his Doctorate with United Graduate College and Seminar.

The fact that I have been under different leaders has made me fortunate enough to study many leadership styles. In the way along, I observed a few leaders that were exceptional, while others fell flat. The exceptional leaders were capable of leading their followers to their esteemed vision. Thus the title leadership alone is not sufficient in the essence of societal transformation. That is why it is said that leadership is more than having the title leader. There are several aspects that make up a good Christian leader. A good leader is first a servant, a good leader is one who loves his followers, and a good leader is capable as well as credible.

Good Leadership is important because it provides an inspirational figure to lead groups or people towards great accomplishments. Leadership can provide a foundation for ideas to show that anything is possible, to make the invisible visible. Leadership plays an important role in the development of youth. Since youth are the future of a society, societal success depends on what their future actions are going to be. Nelson Mandela the freedom fighter and the former President of South Africa once said ‘‘the youths of a country are the valued possessions of a nation. Without them there can be no future’’. Indeed the future development of a nation depends on how well the youth are cultivated. When the youth of a society or a nation have not been given due attention, the nation goes down, or the society perishes.

In developing countries, the majority of their population is youth. Nearly 40 percent of their population is between the ages 15-30. Young people in such societies are now growing under circumstances unfamiliar to previous generations. They experience powerful socio-ecological impact due to globalization. The world has now become closely connected. Though the youth have more freedom now, this comes with responsibilities. These responsibilities appear right in the early ages of the youth before they are able to carry on the responsibilities. Family relationship is being reduced to only a few members. Societies that were characterized by extended families are now breaking down into only two or three members in a family. Money is misguiding many people.

Leadership in such societies has double responsibility and must give proper attention to youth development. The leadership must design a system to support social, economic and environmental livelihoods of the youth. Not only appointed leaders but also community elders should shoulder the responsibility.

Since the needs of the youth are immense and urgent we must protect them from developing bad addictions. We should find ways to decrease destructive behavior in the youth’s life and increase their positive behavior. Youth should be taught about how to get good defense against certain behavior initiated diseases such as HIV or other diseases related to smoking, drinking, and unhealthy eating and drug addiction. We must transform the desires of the body to the desires of the soul. A big barrier for personality growth of the youth can be the overflow of emotions and rush of blood associated with their age. Despite this fact we must help them to learn how their emotions can be used positively and how they can make a difference in the society they live in. They should learn to conceive a purposeful life that not only fulfils their needs but also has impact on others and even those they may have to teach later in their life. In this regard the leadership and senior community members must show their Christian brotherhood to the youth, for the Lord says, “So we who are many are one body in Christ and individually member’s one of another.” Romans 12:5

Youth Development by its very nature requires personality and character building. The healthy individuals have better capability of grasping and adopting positive attitudes. Improved health habits and improved health risk management skills can therefore be obtained through physical development.

To help young people better adapt to their environment, enhancement of their intellectual ability is crucial. They should be helped in recognizing their own spiritual gifts and strengths and how they can benefit through them. As the Holy Bible says, “In everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and knowledge.” Corinthians 1:5

In developing their positive attitude, the youth should learn also about how to practice sympathy, humility and respect and how they can be beneficial to society as a whole. They must be helped to understand the importance of planning for the future and future life event, spirituality or a sense of a “larger” purpose in life, interconnectedness and interdependence and strong moral character.

To conclude, since our life in this world is limited we must live our limited life without regret and for this we have intellectual capacity and wisdom. We must be able to lead people in bad situations to a better one. Only if we follow God’s path we can live our life without regret.

Proverbs 9:10 says, ‘‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” hence a good Christian leader who fears God will have all his paths paved and will successfully develop the youth of his nation to be useful citizens. This is how a leader is ultimately evaluated.

By Gebru Abraha - Ethiopia

“Neither height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39 

GOD EXALTS HIS NAMED AND HIS WORD

Pastor David Mwasota
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

The following is part of the work of one of our United Graduate College and Seminary students in Tanzania Africa. Pastor David is a Bachelors student of Christian Leadership with an emphasis on Biblical Counseling. This excerpt of one of his case studies is  amazing. What a testimony of the power of God to move on our behalf if we truly believe. What an example of the importance of bringing our thoughts into the realm of aligning with the thoughts of God to produce the results God would like to give His children. Enjoy this testimony!

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A SERVICE WITH WOMEN IN MBEYA REGION IN TANZANIA

Two months ago when I was counseling a group of women in Mbeya, the Holy Spirit gave me a verse in the book of Mark 11:23 to use to counsel this group of women who were very much depressed. The seminar was very good; it attracted the attention of many women.

Last week when I visited the same village, one woman came out of the congregation in the Sunday church service to give her testimony and thanks giving; she started by saying that God had given her a miracle, that she had a problem in her inherited land which was about ten acres land but only one acres could be activated, the rest was a mountain which could not be used as farm since it was full of stones and rocks. She went on saying that, “Mark 11:23, was purely given to me that, ‘I tell you the truth if anyone says to this mountain, go, throw, yourself into sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believe that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.’”

THE OUTCOME OF MEDITATION

The woman said, “I meditated on the scripture with all my strength, because practically I needed that scripture to ensure the “mountain” is removed and leave me with a big land for cultivation. I meditated on it strongly. The following week a construction company came to my house saying that we are told that mountain belongs to you. We are in need of the stones that are found in your mountain. They gave me some money, as they were saying they are buying the stones that are in my mountain. I was given a lot of money and eventually they had removed the entire mountain. After the exercise, I was left with money and a big land without a mountain, hence as for now I am left with a big land for cultivation and money.” She was responding to the command given in Palms 107:1 that states, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures for ever.”

DIVINE COUNSEL OF THE OMNIPOTENT GOD

God is so good and very good as He has said in Isaiah 46:10, “I make the end from the beginning, from ancient time what is to come. I say My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.” The removal of that mountain in a woman’s land was announced before she got birthed; and this was the very day the Word could reveal itself. I thank the Sovereign Lord as He has given me an instructed tongue to know the Word that sustains the weary.

THE ESSENCE OF THE WORD OF GOD

The significant point underlying the Word of God is found in Joshua 1:8 that commands, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

GOD EXALTS HIS NAMED AND HIS WORD

The woman meditated strongly on the Word, the promise of God in Mark 11:23, and alas the mountain was removed. This is because the woman clearly knew Psalms 138:2, which states that, “I will bow down towards Your Holy temple and I will praise Your name for Your love and Your faithfulness for You have exalted above all things above all things Your Name and Your Word.” The secret underlying the Word is that, “God is not man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind.” Numbers 23:19 This is why the mountain, which was troubling the woman had to be removed because the woman was promised in Deut. 23:14, “For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.” 

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Thank you Pastor David for your faithfulness to hold forth the Word of Life. You are changing lives and you do have the gift of instruction! Blessings to you!