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Free Formal Ministry Training

The need for free formal ministry training is not being met by traditional seminaries. Many do not have the resources or time to do residential ministry training. Christian Leaders Institute recognizes the there is a need for free formal ministry training and we desire to make high-quality ministry training available. Graduates of CLI have shared their stories of how they found free formal ministry training at our website.  Here is one such story.

My name is Sandra Roberts and I reside in the United States. Since my earliest childhood, I always had a desire for Jesus. At the age of seven, I would gather all my neighborhood friends in my room and preach to them the little I knew about Jesus and then I would teach them how to pray.

It wasn’t until I was sixteen, that I officially asked Jesus into my life. It was an unconventional event. (I had no Christian friends and no one that I can recall ever invited me to church.) A family member asked me if I wanted a small Gideon New Testament Bible they had received from someone at a community college. I said yes and read the Sinner’s Prayer in the back of the book. It so touched my heart as I received Jesus and wrote my name in the space provided.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I connected with other believers. This happened through a Bible Study during the noon hour at my place of employment. I was in awe when I attended the first study because the man teaching talked about the Bible as if he knew God personally. A few times after that, he asked me if I had ever been baptized. I told him as a baby and then he gently explained my need to do that again as an act of my will. So he arranged to baptize me on the following Saturday in a hot tub of one of the other Bible Study participants. After that, God led me to a church to connect in.

About a decade later, God told me to start a Bible Study at a the company I was working for. I hesitated much and ran from God’s calling to do that. It was due to the fact that I had never taught anything and had no . I had only attended the one Bible Study at my other job years before and in my church, it was small and there weren’t many Bible Studies going on. Any that did occur generally happened while I was a work. A year later, my unsaved boss, whom I never really shared anything deep with about God, out of the blue one day told me I should start a Bible Study there at work. I was incredulous because my first thought was why would she care? She wasn’t saved and she had no intentions of attending.

Thus, I started the study and long story short, it grew and people from all over the city began to attend. It then led me to an appointment to teach a Bible Study in my State Capitol for two years. The Minority Republican Senator’s Chief of Staff offered me the Senator’s office to conduct the Bible Study in. I was amazed and humbled God put me there because I did not advertise for it. A lobbyist went to the Capitol and sought the appointment and sponsorship.

In 2010, I retired from the secular and was called into full-time ministry. My husband and I planted a church in our area. Many of the people over the years from conducting a Bible Study in companies I had worked at were the ones who first populated our church.

Since leaving the secular, I have now authored three books – one for the legal field with a traditional publisher, and two self-published, a devotional and a children’s book for little girls 3 to 5 years of age. Even so, with all these happenings, my most important jobs are being a great wife to my husband and mother to my children. God has truly blessed me and there is so much more, but I will stop re this subject for now.

My ministry dream is to share the grace and promises of God in such a way that even the hardest of hearts will be compelled to hear more. My husband and I both identify as planters. We love to start ministries and then let others take the reigns. I was once called to be a Women’s Ministry Pastor at a new church plant. Within three months, I had engaged sixteen women as directors of sub-ministries. For a time, the women’s ministries was the core of the church until it grew. Afterwards, I stepped down to go off to plant something else.

I think the unique challenge in our geographic area is that there are a lot of churches, which can afford people an attitude of not wanting to commit. I have found many people church shop and hop because they can. It’s not uncommon to hear that a person attends more than one church on a regular basis. For example, we have people who only attend our evening services because they are “committed” to attending other churches’ morning services. It’s a challenge for support not only monetarily, but also for event planning and so forth.

A scholarship at CLI is very important to me. With leaving the secular to minister full-time, we rely upon and trust the Lord to provide for us, and sometimes there is only enough to keep the lights on so-to-speak. I have a great desire to continue learning and growing in my relationship with Christ. CLI has made this opportunity available to me, for which I am greatly appreciative!

I would love your prayers for helping us continue to do the work God has called us to.

Thank you CLI for all you are doing. You are a blessing!

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