Free Bible School Training Transforms Pastor

Thomas Bush pushed the church away as a young man because he was too much in love with the ways of the flesh. For a long time he wanted nothing to do with the church, but a remarkable change in his life put him on a quest for free bible school training. Even more amazing are the results he experienced in his search for something that he believed couldn’t exist.

Thomas Bush experienced his spiritual birth in 1993 after years of living contrary to the word of God.

I was born again March 1993. My best friend and my ex partner in sin talked me into going to church with him after he was born again. I grew up going to Southern Baptist Churches were they preached fire and damnation, and pretty much all told me that I would be going to hell if I didn’t change my ways. I didn’t think too much of it because I was having too much of what I thought was fun living in sin. I never heard anything that moved me closer to God until I went to church with my friend that day. I was amazed by the Pastor. He was telling a story about Jesus that involved Peter. What was so amazing is that for the first time I learned something. I learned that Jesus did not come just to send me to hell. Although it took a second service the following week for me to be born again, that first day God showed me a lot about him, what he is really about, and that’s to bring all to salvation. 21 years later, he’s led me to the city of Sacramento and CLI to teach and preach the gospel.

After growing up for years hearing that God wanted to send him to hell and would not hesitate to do so if he strayed from the path at all, Thomas was disenchanted with church. He was sure that he would never want to go back, but God had a plan for him. God reached out to his best friend. And when his best friend experienced a spiritual birth, he was so excited about it that he wanted to share it with Thomas. Like “doubting” Thomas in the Bible, Thomas Bush was reluctant to believe that church could be all that his friend claimed. Yet his friend’s persistence won him over, and Thomas found himself in a place he never expected to be again: church.

This is where the real miracle starts. As Thomas puts it:

When my wife and I where married, she told me of a dream she had, in here dream I was a Pastor and she was First Lady. I joke with her and asked her not to dream that one again. At the time we were not going to church, and finally I was asked at my church to read the scriptures during church service’s. They started to ask me to more and started to call me Pastor. They would not stop no matter what I said. I prayed about it God spoke to me. He didn’t let me use anymore excuses.

As amazing as all this is, Thomas’s story continues. He desperately needed to follow the Lord’s calling, so he started to look at Bible colleges. To his dismay he found that all of them were beyond his financial means. How could he find the training that God was calling him to without the finances to attend a Bible school? Thomas could do nothing but pray, and the answer that he felt was not what he expected.

I started to look at bible colleges and found that I could not afford any of them. I asked the Lord what to do because I could not afford the cost, and he told me to Google free bible college. I didn’t think that would find free education anywhere.

Google free bible college? How would anyone be able to give free bible school training of the caliber that Thomas needed for his ministry training? Nevertheless, Thomas searched for a free Bible college as he felt called to do. What he found was both a surprise and a blessing to him.

That night he led me to CLI. At that point I took my calling seriously. This is was the first time that heard God and followed his direction with out any hesitation.

Thomas Bush Became a Better Leader Through CLI’s Free Bible School Training

Thomas Bush enrolled in Christian Leaders Institute over a year and a half ago. Since enrolling, he has taken over 14 classes in his pursuit of ministry excellence. In a short excerpt about his ministry that Thomas wrote some time ago, he shared the impact that he felt CLI had on his ministry and leadership ability.

My education at CLI has led me closer to God… …CLI has made me a better person and a more effective Christian Leader. I have attended CLI for 1 year 215 days, and in that time have learned more about God than I have in all my Life.

And Thomas has done much with his ministry training. He now brings the love and the power of Christ to the streets of Sacramento. It is a very challenging environment, as he writes:

We Minister in the City of Sacramento CA USA, in the inner city where it is very challenging. We feed the homeless and other needy families. We minister to gang members, drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes, and inner city youths. The biggest challenge is to change the minds and hearts of the people we encounter. [It is hard for them to understand] that they can change their lives though Christ Jesus, that God forgives and forgets sin, and that they need to have faith in his promise.

As I reflect on this story, I see a man that God had great plans for. I see a man who could not escape God’s plans for his life even when he tried. Now he embraces the plans that God has for him with his whole heart.

Remarkably, though, I also see one of an army. Thomas Bush, in all the great things he is doing and will do for the gospel of God, is one man in an army of soldiers that God is raising up in the world today. It is my dream, my vision, and my privilege to help provide these men and women with the training they desperately need.
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