UMC Celebrates Graduations from Life Change Program
November 2, 2022
Pictured above, left to right: Derek Cornelius (Director), Gayle Fields, Charmain Wiggers, Pastor Jeff Fugitt, Quentin Hymas, Jerry Marple, Jennifer Jereczek, and Tiffany Miner.
Ezra DeVore
The United Methodist Church in Cassville has undertaken a program that its director, Derek Cornelius, hopes will offer a helping hand to local individuals struggling with keeping a steady line of work, as well as offer personal faith-based guidance to enrich one’s life. This program, the Life Change program, is a year-long course that delves into many aspects of what is required to maintain good mental health and keep moving forward. The Life Change Plan has many parts and chapters to it, one of which is Jobs for Life: a widely used evangelical jobs program that partners with churches and ministries to assist the unemployed in finding stable employment. Derek Cornelius states that upon seeing the program, he wanted its curriculum to be a part of his own.
Soon after, the program was implemented, taking shape as an eight week course that is taught at the Show Me Plaza, and although the surface of the program is focused on obtaining and maintaining a job, the primary goal of the journey, according to Cornelius, is to provide a sensible foundation for someone to make better choices.
Two nights a week, students gather to discuss their educational goals, their career goals, the paths to their short and long term goals in life, vocational plans, and the various ways one can tackle their own personal roadblocks. In the later portions of the program, mock interviews are held to acclimate the student to an interview environment, where HR managers visit the class and offer feedback and guidance meant to equip the students with confidence and practice for the real interview. In total, fifteen classes are held and the final class of the eight weeks is the graduation.
“Then, we talk about character, integrity, forgiveness, workplace relationships, respect for authority,” Cornelius says. “We talk about their past. ‘Okay, that’s back there, you’re right here, we’re moving forward.’ There’s a lot of things that you wouldn't really expect to have in a job-prep type class. You have to get to the core of the thing. It doesn’t take a lot to get a job, really, but to keep the job, feeling like you’ve got a purpose in it, and getting enjoyment out of the work that you do - is a whole different thing. So, you have to address some of those core things inside yourself and figure out who you are, and what you like to do, and what you were made to do.
“Once you get those to the end of the program, the idea is that you know what your purpose is because you went through those different career assessments, and you have your goal, and you have things lined up to where you’re ready for that first interview, and you’re more likely to succeed.”
On Sunday, October 30, three graduates of Jobs for Life, two of whom are also graduates of the Life Change Plan, were celebrated in the Show-Me Plaza. Charmain Wiggers completed Jobs for Life, Quentin Hymas and Jennifer Jereczek graduated from the Life Change Plan, including Jobs for Life.
The United Methodist Church in Cassville has undertaken a program that its director, Derek Cornelius, hopes will offer a helping hand to local individuals struggling with keeping a steady line of work, as well as offer personal faith-based guidance to enrich one’s life. This program, the Life Change program, is a year-long course that delves into many aspects of what is required to maintain good mental health and keep moving forward. The Life Change Plan has many parts and chapters to it, one of which is Jobs for Life: a widely used evangelical jobs program that partners with churches and ministries to assist the unemployed in finding stable employment. Derek Cornelius states that upon seeing the program, he wanted its curriculum to be a part of his own.
Soon after, the program was implemented, taking shape as an eight week course that is taught at the Show Me Plaza, and although the surface of the program is focused on obtaining and maintaining a job, the primary goal of the journey, according to Cornelius, is to provide a sensible foundation for someone to make better choices.
Two nights a week, students gather to discuss their educational goals, their career goals, the paths to their short and long term goals in life, vocational plans, and the various ways one can tackle their own personal roadblocks. In the later portions of the program, mock interviews are held to acclimate the student to an interview environment, where HR managers visit the class and offer feedback and guidance meant to equip the students with confidence and practice for the real interview. In total, fifteen classes are held and the final class of the eight weeks is the graduation.
“Then, we talk about character, integrity, forgiveness, workplace relationships, respect for authority,” Cornelius says. “We talk about their past. ‘Okay, that’s back there, you’re right here, we’re moving forward.’ There’s a lot of things that you wouldn't really expect to have in a job-prep type class. You have to get to the core of the thing. It doesn’t take a lot to get a job, really, but to keep the job, feeling like you’ve got a purpose in it, and getting enjoyment out of the work that you do - is a whole different thing. So, you have to address some of those core things inside yourself and figure out who you are, and what you like to do, and what you were made to do.
“Once you get those to the end of the program, the idea is that you know what your purpose is because you went through those different career assessments, and you have your goal, and you have things lined up to where you’re ready for that first interview, and you’re more likely to succeed.”
On Sunday, October 30, three graduates of Jobs for Life, two of whom are also graduates of the Life Change Plan, were celebrated in the Show-Me Plaza. Charmain Wiggers completed Jobs for Life, Quentin Hymas and Jennifer Jereczek graduated from the Life Change Plan, including Jobs for Life.