I’m Caushika Fernando from Colombo, Sri Lanka. I am a student at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about studying the Bible online, Click Here). I wanted to follow a course in Theology after my graduation. However, I’m not earning since marriage, so it was not financially feasible. Spending time and money on traveling for lectures would have inconvenienced my family. The Christian Leaders minister training being free, online, and flexible to do at my own pace was unbelievable!
Although a stay-at-home mom at present, I’m a teacher of Music and English and served as a visiting Instructor of English at a university before marriage. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and a Diploma in Technology(Civil). Also, I have excelled in music as well. In addition, I am an Anglican and a Sunday School teacher.
Being a Christian Leaders Ministry Student in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society is challenging. Many people are money minded, selfish, and competitive. Even those who are financially stable seem to lack something. As a result, they have a sense of insecurity and no peace of mind. There are many trials and daily struggles for me, too. However, the difference is that, as a Christian, I have hope.
My Youth
I’m the first child of three born to Anglican parents from generational Christians. I drew closer to the Lord through a great tragedy in our family. It was when we lost the elder of my two younger brothers, who was just 11 years old. His death was so sudden that we were not even given a chance to pray. This puzzle led us to a mighty man of God. The Holy Spirit revealed through that my brother was resting in Jesus and that God intended to use us all for His service.
Later on, during one of his fasting and prayer services, I was convicted of my sins and experienced inexpressible joy! Before, my world used to revolve around my family. Still, since that experience, everyone seemed to be a part of my family. I also felt more sensitive to other people’s concerns and prayed for them with a burden. God changed me.
We continued to serve the Lord in our Anglican church. I played the organ, taught in the Sunday School, and joined the Youth Fellowship and choir. My father served as a lay preacher and warden, while my mother was an active member of the Mothers’ Union. Later on, my youngest brother completed a Diploma in Theology and started serving as a lay preacher. But, by then, we all realized that God’s plans were superior to ours.
My Marriage and Family
Later, our family shifted to the Capital city, where I completed my higher studies. During this time, I married an Anglican, and we’ve been blessed with a wonderful daughter, now 17 years old. Since marriage, I have been a stay-at-home mom and continue to serve as a Sunday school teacher and in the online prayer ministry of our church.
Christian Leaders Minister Training at CLI
My spiritual dream is to be able to reach out to many, especially children, through music as well as various other talents. The Christian Leaders minister training will help me better equip the children in our Sunday school, serve in the Prayer Ministry of our Church more effectively, and reach out to society through my talents more confidently.
May God bless Christian Leaders Institute more and more!
Register a Study Account
Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Getting Started Class at the Christian Leaders Learning Platform. The Getting Started class will take you less than an hour to complete.
When you log in to the Learning Platform, you will notice that the Getting Started Class automatically appears on your dashboard.
The Getting Started Class will orientate you to the Christian Leaders Learning Platform and the Programs offered, including:
- Ministry Awards, Certificates, and Diplomas with the Christian Leaders Institute.
- College Degrees with the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
- Minister Credentialling (Ordination) with the Christian Leaders Alliance, including local Soul Center registration possibilities.
Note: You can enroll in tuition-free courses or mini-courses immediately without finishing the getting started class.
Find out more about women in ministry here
My name is Gregory Clarke. I currently reside in Kitchener, Ontario, but was born and raised in Hamilton and remained there until early 2020. Someone told me about the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about studying the Bible online, Click Here). Thus far, being a CLI student has been very rewarding. One of my greatest desires was to get to know Christ on a deeper level. Studying who He is, during the times He lived in and throughout Biblical redemptive history, and learning about God more, allows me to fellowship, understand and love Him on a deeper level. The youth pastor training at CLI is my next step in ministry training.
My Journey
Born in the mid-’70s, I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s. Ronald Regan, the Cold War, BMX bikes, the birth of hip-hop and rap, Televangelists, Transformers, and the like are what I grew up on. My family had a strong Christian upbringing in Jamaica, so going to church was normal for me.
My parents divorced in the mid-’80s, which was a very taboo thing in the church those days. For me, it was a very different experience. I didn’t even know what a “divorce’ entailed. I didn’t talk much as a child and kept to myself. Kids teased and bullied me quite a bit. However, in 1986, I was saved at my family church. I had doubts about my salvation, but a few years later, while attending People’s Church in Hamilton, a few good brothers in Christ prayed for me and reassured me.
Spiritual Wake Up
Things were “quiet on the Western Front,” as it were, in my spiritual walk with Christ. However, in 1995, God woke me up to Who He really is! Some call it “the infilling of the Holy Ghost” or “being baptized in the Holy Spirit.” The bottom line, God got my attention for keeps. From that time on, in every area of my life, God has been working in me.
People’s Church had a bus ministry at the time. There, I was a bus captain to some of the roughest kids for the Sunday school that we picked up from the North end district of Hamilton. Wow, they really pushed my limits.
However, one particular day my patience ran very thin. Before the day even started, I thought to myself, “Oh great, not those kids again.” No sooner had that statement come out, than God sternly spoke to me. He said, “Those are My kids you’re talking about.” It may have been a “small, still voice,” but it was stern and firm. I’ll never forget it! Not only did I humble myself and ask for forgiveness, but He also gave me a heart for the youth. I ended up loving those kids the way God intended.
Heart for Youth
That heart for the Youth has never died, and it’s still there. Throughout my years, through bad relationships, bad decisions, tragedies beyond my control, trials, and triumphs, God has kept me, continually molded me, and is still working inside of me.
In early 2022, my hunger for God grew deeper. I knew that if I were to be used by God in any way, apart from God’s favor and blessing, I needed to be equipped. I had heard of the Christian Leaders Institute a while ago and took some classes. However, I never finished… now it’s a different story.
I desire to allow God to use the gifts of writing, storytelling, and drawing to reach, preach and teach to the youth of this generation. There were doubts that I struggled with, on many levels, because of all the things that I have been through in the past. My thinking has been, “God?…. How in the WORLD can you use me, when my past sucks!”
Yet, in His loving wisdom and grace, God spoke, “Because someone needs a father figure to have my love pour through to receive.” God always has the last say.
Youth Pastor Training
Friends and family, as of late, God has planted the seed in me to become an official youth pastor. I don’t have ten years, or more, to do a lot of training, with all due respect. However, CLI does have the youth pastor training tools that I need to take the next step.
For me, free youth ministry training is essential, because it’s important to be equipped. And not just for the obvious reason of education, but for everyday life. We are all called “…be ready to give a logical defense to anyone who asks us to account for the hope and confident assurance, elicited by faith, that is within us, yet to do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 paraphrased). It’s important to be equipped, on every level.
As God continues to lead me down this amazing path, I not only know He has a lot in store for me regarding Youth Ministry, but that my latter years are becoming greater than my former years! Praise God!
Register a Study Account
Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Getting Started Class at the Christian Leaders Learning Platform. The Getting Started class will take you less than an hour to complete.
When you log in to the Learning Platform, you will notice that the Getting Started Class automatically appears on your dashboard.
The Getting Started Class will orientate you to the Christian Leaders Learning Platform and the Programs offered, including:
- Ministry Awards, Certificates, and Diplomas with the Christian Leaders Institute.
- College Degrees with the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
- Minister Credentialling (Ordination) with the Christian Leaders Alliance, including local Soul Center registration possibilities.
Note: You can enroll in tuition-free courses or mini-courses immediately without finishing the getting started class.
Find out more about women in ministry here
From Lost life to Big Calling
My name is Rebecca Egly, and I am from Texas, USA. I am excited about the Bible study opportunity at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about studying the Bible online, Click Here).
I grew up around here in Texas, and there is no shortage of churches. The locals always boasted that the city nearby has the most churches per capita in Texas. It has the largest number of churches per capita in the entire country. Bible Belt, indeed. Having said that, I had a difficult, if not well-rounded, experience with churches.
My Story
In my youth, my father and stepmother took us to a Baptist church. My maternal grandparents took us to a Methodist church. While my paternal grandparents took us to the Church of Christ, my aunt took us to a Pentecostal church. I always enjoyed going to church. However, I was never shown or taught HOW to have a personal relationship with the LORD. I had a lot of confusing and conflicting examples of what a true Christian looks like.
I grew up in an abusive household. It confused me how a person could be so wholesome, giving, and kind on Sundays and Wednesdays, yet so very cold and calloused outside of service hours. My eighth birthday gift was a broken cheekbone. We attended a church in Joshua, TX. In 1999, a couple of weeks after a church Super Bowl party (that ended in me being knocked out by a cordless phone), I was “saved” and baptized at twelve years old. I did it because my abuser told me to.
Right before I turned 15, I moved in with my mother, and started going to the church she grew up in. I discovered a community. I discovered friends. What I did not discover was Jesus. I tried to commit suicide at 16, we swept it under a rug. I grew up, went to college, and made all the stereotypical bad decisions young adults make.
Spiritual Warfare Struggles
One night, in a moment of clarity, I decided once and for all that I would clean up my life and start living for God. The attack from the enemy was sudden and soul-crushing. I was physically attacked in my dorm room that night. I reported the incident to the police, went to the hospital, and had tests run. However, nothing happened— I had to see my attacker every day until I dropped out two months later.
A year and a half later, in 2009, my daughter was born. One year and two weeks after that, my son was born. I was engaged to their father, but we never married. My broken mind said we could have kids together, but I wouldn’t marry someone who was always unfaithful and as abusive as any other “meaningful” relationship I’d had. We were two very broken people trying to play house in a broken way.
We went to the church he knew, which was Catholic. My kids were both baptized in the Catholic church. I went through Catechism before I realized I was acting out more rituals than I was committing to any sort of faith. I had a gnostic belief in God at this point. However, I never took a Bible study opportunity at this time.
In 2013, I gained the courage to leave the abusive relationship I had with him. I came back to Texas after having lived in Iowa, isolated from everyone and everything I knew for two years. However, coming home wasn’t what I’d thought. I was still traumatized and felt alone. Further, I was trying to raise two very young children and work a full-time plus job without any help.
First Encounter with God
It took its toll. In 2014, I tried, again, to commit suicide. This is where I met the power of God, and also where I had my first encounter with the work of God. My best friend, who had passed away in early 2012, came to me while I watched my lifeless body on the stretcher in the emergency room. He told me I had to go back, that it wasn’t my time, and that there were bigger plans than I could see. I, of course, argued. Turns out I had been dead for 7 minutes.
Second Encounter with God
Two weeks later, as a patient in a psychiatric facility, one of the behavioral techs was talking to us about struggles and God’s presence and grace. I said, “God doesn’t see me anymore, and if He does, He thinks I’m a lost cause.” He gave me his Bible, and told me, “I’ll make you a deal. If you sit quietly in your room and pray…REALLY pray… ask God if He sees you, to SHOW you in scripture if He sees you, and if He doesn’t show up, I’ll buy you a carton of cigarettes.” I was broken, broke, and thought, “Well, I’ve got nothing else left, and I could use cigarettes.”
So, I did what he asked, prayed over the Bible, and opened it. The passage I saw was Psalm 139:7-12. You can’t stop God from seeing you, and you can’t stop His plans. It was a Bible study opportunity for me.
After some intensive therapy, trauma therapy, counseling, and the help of some medication for a time, I was the happiest I’ve ever been. However, I felt an absence in my life that I tried to fill with partners, with friends, with the occult. Then, I met my husband, and very quickly, everything made sense.
New Beginnings
In 2018, I became a member of the church he was attending, and I was truly saved and baptized in 2019. We both felt the call to minister. I felt the call to witness to other survivors. As soon as we had a plan and set a wedding date, the enemy set to work again. My husband came under a very deep and long-lasting spiritual warfare, and I was dealing with the death of my #1 mentor and supporter, my grandfather.
Through his warfare and my grief, I prayed. I went to church. Then, I prayed some more. I never lost faith that my God would carry us through this so we could emerge on the other side, stronger and more faithful than ever.
We married in 2021. We found a spiritual home at Old School Ministries. The Holy Spirit ignited us and revealed some of our spiritual gifts. Praise God! I have started the process of bringing my children back to Christ. My husband, my best friend, her husband, and I started a weekly Bible study. I read my Bible for hours each day. Often, God directs me on what lesson, devotional, or sermon to write, and I share them with a group of women from the church as they’re written.
Bible Study Opportunity at CLI
I love the love that the LORD has given me, I love that the void that I felt for 31 years of my life is finally gone. God has exciting things in store for my life. I have realized that His plans for me must be pretty big if the enemy had to try so hard to break me for so long. “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me” – Philippians 4:13.
However, I also know I need Bible and ministry understanding to prepare for my ministry calling from God. I found the Christian Leaders Institute and am grateful for this Bible and ministry study opportunity.
Register a Study Account
Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Getting Started Class at the Christian Leaders Learning Platform. The Getting Started class will take you less than an hour to complete.
When you log in to the Learning Platform, you will notice that the Getting Started Class automatically appears on your dashboard.
The Getting Started Class will orientate you to the Christian Leaders Learning Platform and the Programs offered, including:
- Ministry Awards, Certificates, and Diplomas with the Christian Leaders Institute.
- College Degrees with the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
- Minister Credentialling (Ordination) with the Christian Leaders Alliance, including local Soul Center registration possibilities.
Note: You can enroll in tuition-free courses or mini-courses immediately without finishing the getting started class.
Find out more about women in ministry here