Hello! My name is Paul Fink. I am at the Christian Leaders Institute for further Biblical and theological education as I answer God’s call on my life (Learn more about free Bible and Theology classes online, Click Here).
My Story
I’m 20 years old. An American living in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, I come from a military family. I have lived in a few different places within the United States before moving to Europe. Louisiana is where I was born and originally lived for the first few years of my life.
Both of my parents are Evangelical Christians. So, I attended multiple churches to match the multiple locations we lived in while growing up. I was baptized upon my profession of faith at 8 years old in an Assemblies of God church in my hometown. Since the age of 16 or 17, I have had the call to be in pastoral ministry. It is the greatest honor in my life to be called to preach and teach the Word of God to the people of God. It is something that I have been increasingly interested in since getting the call to preach and shepherd.
Further Biblical and Theological Education at CLI/CLI
At the same time I felt the inward call to preach and an outward shift of what my interests were, I also became acquainted with Reformed theology. The theology in that particular tradition gave me a deeper view of the nature of God and everything that flows from that. It led me to seek further Biblical and theological education in the things of God. I desire to glorify God by loving Him and learning about Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I have confidence that the training/education I receive at CLI and CLI will edify me and those who I will have the privilege to serve. Ultimately, it will glorify God who I serve.
Another motivator for my ministry is the fact that I am serving currently as a small group leader with a parachurch organization. Therefore, I am getting some experience under my belt in the local soil of ministry. What I learn at CLI/CLI will help me instruct the people here in the Word and ways of God also.
I feel called to be a part of the institutional church, a natural part of pastoral ministry. However, I also want to learn to serve and lead the people I’m around now. I am overwhelmingly glad that God has opened the doors to me that he has so far. I am confident, hoping, and praying, that He will open more in the future.
Steps to Sign Up At Christian Leaders Institute
Step 1 – Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2.
After you register, you will automatically be enrolled in the “getting started” course. You will locate the course at your “home” button when logged in. Scroll down to find the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2 Link. Click the link and open the course.
Step 2 – Complete Part 1 of this course. Then you can enroll in mini-courses or regular courses.
The Christian Leaders Getting Started Class Part 1 shows you how to enroll in courses and mini-courses. Part 2 of the course connects your calling into ministry with programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute. Part 2 will offer some ministry training and introduce you to the other programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute.
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost college degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
My name is Kristi Collier, from the USA. I am studying at the Christian Leaders Institute for ministry training and credentials (Learn more about free Bible and ministry training and credentials online, Click Here). A verse of deep meaning in my life is Jeremiah 1:5. “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you.”
My Story Begins
My mother had prayed to be able to have me after going through several miscarriages. She told me I was an answer to her prayers. She fully gave her life over to Christ and was filled with the Spirit shortly after I was born. I was born at the end of 1980 and named, Kristi LaRee Collier. As a young child, I prepared sermons with my older sister, and we held mock “church services” with our mom and dad. We did this since we traveled and didn’t attend a church often.
My childhood was full of heavy heartaches as a result of my father’s abusive nature. At age eight, I fully grasped the salvation message. So, in the midst of my parent’s divorce, I devoted my life to Christ. I clung to the comfort of Scripture that God is the Father to the fatherless and near to the broken-hearted. For a short time, I was in foster care homes. There, I learned to dig deep into my relationship with God at an early age. Adversity gives us an opportunity to develop richer lives through what would otherwise be devastating when we pull in closer to Christ.
Longing to Serve God
As far back as memory serves, I longed to serve God in full-time ministry. In 8th grade at a private Baptist school, I had the privilege of praying and playing piano alone over lunch break. From then on, my longings were deeply set to live my life out serving in ministry. I practically lived in the sanctuary at my church, especially in high school. From as early as 6:30 am to as late as 9:30 pm, you could find me there if the doors were open.
Building my own ministry resource library by the age of 15, I also delved into every Bible study I could. I served on the teen worship team, ran overheads (yes, it was the 90’s) for adult worship, played ministry time background piano, sang special music, and prayed over people with the prayer team. I did anything I could to be there including stacking chairs, vacuuming, folding programs, cleaning bathrooms… anything! After high school, I planned to get my worship ministry degree. I had even begun the application process for a Bible college in Tulsa. However, when I married in 2000, it sidelined those plans.
Challenges and Victory in Christ
My whole heart and mindset were to raise a family and be in full-time ministry. We have an adversary who does not want the Kingdom of God advanced. The devil seeks to hinder, stumble, and at the very least, delay all efforts toward God receiving glory through our lives. Heavy onslaughts came to destroy my heart and cut me from those longed-for places through a hostile, abusive marriage.
After nearly ten years of holding the marriage together, it came to an end because of his abuse and unfaithfulness. I fought to protect my two miracle children after my dreams of a family were destroyed. For the next decade, the financial load and court battles accosted my life. I dug deeper in my time with God and went to battle spiritually for my children.
What the enemy meant for my destruction, GOD used for good. God built in me greater resilience with each battle. I learned the deep importance of daily delving into the Word to saturate my heart and mind. There is power in reminding my thoughts and situations of the character of God! I dug into my faith in the trenches of life’s battlefield. I did anything I could to stay connected in serving the church. However, with three jobs and trying to hold my children together, I had nothing left beyond regular attendance and coming to Bible study groups.
Study at CLI for Training and Credentials
Now, with my children safely grown and on their own, I can focus on my ministry calling. I can get the ministry training and credentials my heart has longed to honor the Lord with as I serve Him. Passionate about the health of the church, I long to teach and equip the body with hope for the weary, healing and comfort for the broken, and truth to bring deliverance from things interfering in relationships. I long to share my music and testimony and to write and speak. One day, I prayed for God to allow me to serve in practical ministry in a local church as a pastor’s wife. My heart is especially drawn to the needs and health of the church in family and marriage.
At first, I felt like I was disqualified for marriage and family ministry because of the loss of my own. I felt like a failure to the church, branded by the word “divorced.” Yet God has provided healing for those scars regardless of the stigma. He has given beauty for ashes to help bring life and hope. He has turned what was meant for harm to be used for His glory and my good.
By that sorrow, I see ministry needs met ahead for so many people who need to see the comfort and purposes of God through their unique heartaches. It will be a great blessing to be greater equipped for the journey of ministry God has been preparing me through life to serve Him. It is a joy to be given the opportunity to get ministry training and credentials through the Christian Leaders Institute. I look forward to all GOD has ahead through this process!
Steps to Sign Up At Christian Leaders Institute
Step 1 – Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2.
After you register, you will automatically be enrolled in the “getting started” course. You will locate the course at your “home” button when logged in. Scroll down to find the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2 Link. Click the link and open the course.
Step 2 – Complete Part 1 of this course. Then you can enroll in mini-courses or regular courses.
The Christian Leaders Getting Started Class Part 1 shows you how to enroll in courses and mini-courses. Part 2 of the course connects your calling into ministry with programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute. Part 2 will offer some ministry training and introduce you to the other programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute.
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost college degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Keeping My Arms and Legs Inside the Boat
My name is Melanie Hawkins, from Colorado Springs, CO. I am taking free Greek classes at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about free Bible and Greek classes online, Click Here).
My Journey
People have often asked me about my plans for the future. Nearing 51 years of age, somehow my life is just beginning. After a life of childhood trauma, adulthood diagnosis of complex PTSD, “quiet” BPD, and major depression, as well as alcoholism and riding with my demons, I collapsed, mentally and completely. About five years ago, I was done. I had had enough of this life and all of the misery that enveloped me. I felt completely hopeless. There was no way that I could carry on, any longer.
I was sitting in my car in the driveway of my rental home that I was soon to get evicted from. It was after another breakup with my, then, fiancee, feeling lost, broken, and devastated from crying for days straight. I always tried to hang on to this life, reasoning my children would be distraught and traumatized if I chose to check out early. However, all I could see at that moment was how completely done I was. Done. Convinced everything and everyone would be better off if I left, I had the details planned. Yet, I needed to check with someone before I left.
Crying Out to God
Recalling memories of attending church with my grandparents as a child and how I believed in God but never felt the connection, at least not for many decades. I began audibly speaking to God as my last resort and as the last thing I ever intended to do. I bitterly called out to Him. Also, I asked Him why I had such a life. Why was I meant to suffer through trauma after trauma and why did I have to live with such a broken brain? I asked for something, anything, to keep me going.
Then, something said, “You don’t have faith.” I thought about it. I really didn’t have any faith (yet, I was speaking with the God I had previously decided didn’t exist. So, I asked how I can have faith. I told the voice to show me faith and I would listen. Well, I didn’t end up checking out that night. I’m surprised I’m still here.
My Faith Journey
My tutorial on faith didn’t begin immediately, but almost. Shortly afterward, I heard the voice again. It wanted me to pick a penny up off of the ground in a convenience store parking lot. I almost ignored it at first, but, I felt it was important. It reminded me that this was what I asked for. I felt a little silly picking it up. As I did, I kind of rolled my eyes and mouthed, “Whatever.” It had me picking up pennies. Then, I began having visions and dreams. The synchronicities are unending. I began seeing things as they are. That was five years ago. The events that occurred and the experiences that I have had since then have given me faith. My faith cannot be shaken.
A lot has happened in my life over the past five years. My thought process has completed changed. All of my free time has been spent learning from Google and YouTube what I can decipher as truth amidst the many lies on the internet. I tell people that I am in a boat. I’m being led somewhere and the best thing that I can do is to keep my arms and legs inside the boat. I no longer need the medication I was taking for my diagnosis, and I laid down the alcohol (something I always thought I’d need in my life to cope).
Living By Faith
Now, I live my life completely through faith, which is something foreign to most people, it turns out. For example, my friend, who was concerned about me finding a place a few months ago, started chastising me for not being more active in finding something to live in. I wanted an RV instead of paying high rent that I could never afford. Being so far removed from materialism at this point, I chose to live in my car until I could find such a prospect. I had a job, just no savings.
My friend said to me, “Look, Mel. Enough is enough. You need to start figuring something out. It’s ridiculous, you living as you do.” I told him, “I’m not worried about it. Something will pop up as I’m on a path. God told me to be still.” My friend then said, “You think God is just going to give you an RV?” I, a little weary, replied, “Maybe.” A month later, someone that I happened to encounter gave me an RV. I was going to make payments to them for it. However, they decided to just give it to me. So, God did give me an RV. Faith. It’s all about faith. All I need to do is keep my arms and legs inside the boat. I do what I am told.
Finding CLI
A month ago, I went to Google to find free Greek language classes. I wanted to learn to read the earliest gospels of the New Testament as unadulterated as possible. That’s when I found the Christian Leaders Institute. That’s when the voice told me, “This.” I knew God had plans for me. However, I’ve been in growth mode for so long that I didn’t think I was ready to receive the task. I’ve spent this time moving through the modules at a snail’s pace. I just wanted to be sure God wants me to lead anybody. That wasn’t a part of my plan. But, I don’t make the plans. I just keep my arms and legs inside the boat.
I am grateful for God’s grace, and I am only at His service. Also, I am thankful for the free Greek and ministry classes at CLI, without which I wouldn’t be able to continue my journey.
Steps to Sign Up At Christian Leaders Institute
Step 1 – Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2.
After you register, you will automatically be enrolled in the “getting started” course. You will locate the course at your “home” button when logged in. Scroll down to find the Christian Leaders Getting Started Course Part 1 &2 Link. Click the link and open the course.
Step 2 – Complete Part 1 of this course. Then you can enroll in mini-courses or regular courses.
The Christian Leaders Getting Started Class Part 1 shows you how to enroll in courses and mini-courses. Part 2 of the course connects your calling into ministry with programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute. Part 2 will offer some ministry training and introduce you to the other programs offered through Christian Leaders Institute.
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost college degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.