Individual Development: The Next Levels Program
The Next Levels Program offers life coaching, spiritual coaching, financial coaching, relational coaching, career coaching, health coaching, problem solving, living wage subsidies, affordable housing opportunities and IDA matching funds to qualifying low-income people who want to: climb up to the Next Levels of life, live up to their full potential and realize the full extent of their dreams.
Next Levels Target populations
- Graduates of Transitional Housing who want supportive services beyond their move-out date
- Qualifying pre-homeless individuals who are struggling to keep their heads above water
- Homeless individuals who need/want to begin a path upwards
Why does the Next Levels Program exist?
At Agape Life Change, we are tired of people becoming homeless and of people staying homeless. We recognize that there are many great homeless shelter programs and transitional programs in the Los Angeles area, but we also recognize that they cannot do everything well. After much research, we have found that the people who come through transitional housing programs are released with practical education, some money in the bank and a spring in their step. Unfortunately, they walk right back into the reality of a world where there is a shameful lack of affordable housing and few living wage jobs. And they crash into this frustration without their case manager and without the 24-hour support that helped them get to that point. As a result, many of these would-be success stories and future leaders, fall back into old patterns of poverty and abuse. This is unacceptable.
We realize that there are a lot of people in the world who would love to climb out of their hopeless situations, but who cannot seem to rise up on their own. At Agape Life Change, we believe that if someone wants to move away from the struggles of their current situation and desires to reach for goals that match their built-in skills and passions, then someone should be there to help lift them up.
We want to take these hardworking people and do whatever is necessary not only to keep them off of the streets, but as well to support them as they live up to their potential in pursuit of their dreams. This is where The Next Levels Program comes in…
The Next Levels Program is a ministry dedicated to transforming the lives of needy persons. We help poor and oppressed individuals rise all the way up from their spiritual and physical struggles so that they can become who God intended them to be.
Why do we do this?
At the Next Levels Program, we take Jesus’ words and actions very seriously. Our mission is to obey what he said and do what he did. Since he reached out to the prostitutes, the homeless, the abused and the lost, we do the same by reaching onto the streets and into the hourly motels, transitional houses, homeless shelters and battered women’s homes and we actively love who we find. Since Jesus made it his focus to preach good news to the poor, we also make it our priority to witness about the amazing possibilities and abundant life, which exists in Christ and in his Kingdom. Since Jesus put his hands on the untouchable and broken to put them back together, we put our hands on lives that need healing and in the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit, we restore them. Since Jesus identified with the least of these and insisted that it is a must to clothe, feed and have mercy on them, we identify with Jesus’ people by building close relationships so as to discover and meet their felt needs (housing, living wage jobs, education, etc.).
Since Jesus never gave up on us, we do not give up on anybody. We take one life at a time. We put it in God’s hands. We pray and advocate and disciple and set goals and hold our people accountable. We find their gaps and fill them. We find their gifts and passions and we teach them how to use all of it for success in the world and in the church. We teach them how to be good listeners, better decision makers, effective leaders and all along the way, we learn so much from each of them. Mostly, we watch God do amazing life makeovers and we praise Him for allowing us to have a front row seat.
At Agape Life Change, we believe that each of the people who are transformed through our program will become powerful disciples of Christ who will not only break the cycles of poverty, abuse and oppression in their own lives, but who will also go on to have major impact in their own spheres of influence. We expect to see the Kingdom of God grow quickly through the movements of our graduates, because they have experienced God for themselves and therefore have an eyewitness, which cannot be denied.
Scripture References: Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 4:16-21, Matthew 28:16-20, 1 John 3:16-20, James 2:14-19, Isaiah 58:6-12
