Getting started
In 1991, Dick and Madge Wilson, founders of Christian HELP, were getting ready to sign a new ten year lease for their gift business. They began to have serious reservations about signing, because they were sensing that God wanted them to be involved in full-time ministry. They weren’t quite sure what this meant or what they should do, but they decided not to sign the new lease and officially ended their gift business.

As members of Northland Community Church at the time, they were seeking God’s direction and talked with Pastor Joel Hunter. Pastor Hunter encouraged them to help set up the Saturday and Monday evening services. Not too long after they began this, Northland participated in a John Guest crusade where Ray Baake talked about how non-Christians could be reached most effectively by serving outside of the church walls. He happened to mention helping the unemployed find jobs as a way to reach these people.

In March of 1992, with this in mind, Dick and Madge Wilson and Harry Kunisch officially founded Christian HELP. They leased a space down the road from Northland Community Church and formed their mission, vision and by-line which has guided and continues to guide everything they do, and remains the same today.

This was a huge step of faith as there were many great ideas which God directed and re-directed along the way. Christian HELP has grown significantly over the years and we continue to add services and programs that help the unemployed find work, while providing for them materially and spiritually.

Connecting with the unemployed

While our staff and volunteers worked on building relationships with unemployed and with employers, we focused on meeting basic material needs of the unemployed such as providing food. After we were turned down by ten markets, God provided one person who had the contacts to provide food to give to the unemployed.

It took some time for the word to get out to those who were unemployed. Churches referred a few people to us, but it wasn’t until we hosted an employment seminar at Shoney’s, which Channel 9 and then Channel 2 covered on the news, that the word began to spread about the services we were offering to the community. This was God’s second intervention.

Founding Central Florida Employment Council

We finally had had many people receiving material support, but there simply weren’t enough jobs for all of them. So, in 1994, Dick Wilson sent a survey to many different companies inquiring about their needs and to generate interest in forming an organization that would focus primarily on providing jobs for the unemployed. God provided six Human Resource managers from different employers who spent six months formulating and founding the Central Florida Employment Council – CFEC. Today over 800 employers belong to this organization.

Job fairs

One of the HR managers who helped found the CFEC suggested doing a job fair. Because of its success, hosting these job fairs has become a major part of our ministry and services that we offer. CFEC provides the employers with the jobs, and we bring in the unemployed. As many as 8,000 people have been placed through these job fairs in a single year. We always have a booth at these job fairs where people can come and receive spiritual guidance, in addition to all the Other Resources offered.