Free Seminary Training at CLI
My name is Luis Perez, and I am receiving free seminary training at CLI. I am from Cuba, but I have been living in the United States since 2015. I was born in a communist country, ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship. My father was born before the Revolution of Fidel Castro. He became a member of the Baptist Church before the dictator started ruling. Before the putsch established the communist government, there was religious freedom in Cuba. So, there was no problem for Christians regarding practicing their religion.
Then everything changed for Christians. Bibles were banned, the police searched houses to seize religious literature, Christians were sent to forced labor camps, and even the celebration of Christmas was prohibited. The Revolution wanted to raise a new generation of young communist men and women that blindly followed the diabolic system.
My Early Faith Journey
My father taught me about the Christian faith since I have memory. However, I did not see the Bible until I was eight years old. The government had to yield to international pressure and allow the celebration of Christian festivities. So, the possibility of buying and having a Bible opened. When I got that Bible, for the first time in my life, my hunger was huge. I could not stop reading the words of our Lord and about the lives of the believers and heroes of the faith.
I grew up and studied Dentistry. Also, I met good brothers of the Assemblies of God in Cuba and started attending their church. Experiencing church life was exciting, and I matured in my relationship with God.
The USA and Free Seminary Training at CLI
Finally, I managed to come to the USA as a refugee. Now I plan to get free proper seminary training and serve Him. While I was in Cuba, I saw many non-Christian practices making their way into the church as well as false doctrines. After arriving in the USA, I saw a lot more of the same. Many church’s beliefs are not biblically supported. Many people go astray by the many doctrines and teachings that seek more to please the world than God.
I do not want to offend anybody by telling them that their beliefs are wrong. However, I do want to be qualified to introduce others to the teachings of the Bible in a proper way. Now. I am starting my studies with Christian Leaders Institute, and I am willing to learn everything as fast as I can. CLI is an excellent opportunity to get free seminary training when you cannot afford to study at a Christian University. There you have to pay per credit hour the money you make working a whole week. It is tough to survive the month on a tight budget. Thank you, CLI!
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Free Church Teacher and Leader Training at CLI
Hello! My name is Leslie Thomas from Sacramento, California, where I have lived all my life. I serve in leadership at Abundant Life Church in South Sacramento. I am 34 years old and married to my husband, Brandon, for 15 years. We have four awesome children ages 13, 10, 6, and 5, who I homeschool. I am excited to study at CLI for free church teacher and leader training.
My Early Church Life
I came to know the Lord at age four, and I have attended Abundant Life my whole life. My knowledge of the Bible and God grew through my education at the Christian School. At age 14, I joined the worship team (at my grandmother’s insistence; she was the pianist). My journey with being a worship leader is thanks to my grandmother. I graduated from Capital Christian School in 2003. I attended one year of college at California State University Sacramento.
At 18, my experience teaching began small with two girls in a Wednesday night elementary Girls Club class. After my church started a bus ministry, the group grew to overflow. It was a significant growth experience teaching un-churched girls who had never heard of Jesus. I began working part-time at my church as the Pastor’s secretary in 2005, one month before I got married. By the next year, 2006, I was pregnant and underwent a harrowing experience in our church. It ended in a church split, including our Pastor leaving and taking many people with him.
Youth Leader
I took over as the Youth Leader for the few youths that were left. There was no one else to lead them. I was 19 years old and had no idea what I was doing. We had no Pastor to mentor me (my father was head of the search committee). For the first time, I felt the weight of leadership. I grew so much through that time. Also, I am thankful to God for sending our Pastor and his wife to our church. For the past 13 years, they have mentored me and helped me grow in my relationship with God exponentially!
I remained the Youth Leader for about five years. I have also been the worship leader at my church since 2006. In January of 2014, I began teaching the adult Sunday School class and have fallen in love with teaching. When my Pastor approached me with the idea for me to lead that class, I was terrified! I had only taught kids and youth. Saying, “Yes!” was one of the best decisions I ever made! The teacher learns far more than the students. God has also used my class to get me through some challenging and dark seasons of ministry, marriage, and life.
Servant of Christ
My life is not my own; I am Christ’s servant as a church teacher and leader. I have learned that it is possible to serve in church without spending much time serving God. The Lord has taught me to put others first and help wherever there is a need out of love for Him, not as an obligation. Because of this, I have taken on other roles over time. In addition to teaching the Adult Sunday School Class and leading worship, I also oversee our Connection Committee. It consists of our Usher Ministry and Guest Lunches held after Sunday Morning Services.
Furthermore, I chair a Pastoral Care Committee, which consists of four other dedicated church members who serve alongside me to care for our Pastor and his family. We meet monthly and talk about how to help, support, and care for them. I consider it one of the most important roles that I hold. I still work part-time at the church as the Secretary and handle all the weekly church office responsibilities. Also, I am the Secretary of the Church Board.
Two years ago, I felt God laying on my heart to volunteer my name for Vice President of the Church Board. The Board elected me, and I still serve in that capacity. I occasionally preach on Sunday nights on a rotation with the other Board Members to assist our Pastor. He was diagnosed with a rare spinal cord disease in 2012, and the Board has taken over preaching on Sunday nights to help. God has given me a passion for preaching that I have never desired or expected.
My Journey to the Christian Leaders Institute
My journey in church leadership explains why I finally decided to apply to the Christian Leaders Institute. I do not feel a call into pastoral ministry, but I do want to be the best church teacher and leader I can be. My spiritual dream is to know God better, to further God’s Kingdom in my life, my family, my church, and the world, to bring others closer to God and to teach others what God has revealed to me.
I have always considered myself to be a student and a learner. I love serving and loving the people that God has given to me. Now, it is time to further my education and have more resources to lead to the best of my ability. My husband and I don’t make a lot of money, and what we do have is quickly spent on our household and children. I have been urged to further my education and had a desire to go back to school for some time. However, I have not had the financial ability. I’m thankful for finding CLI and look forward to this opportunity.
My ministry roles, homeschooling my children, other family responsibilities have been my excuse not to apply. However, I feel God urging me to take this next step. I trust Him to help me find time to fit it all into my life. I’m grateful for what God has done through my life and give Him all the glory!
I’m looking forward to the next chapter.
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Responding to the Call to Chaplaincy
Greeting Brothers and Sisters! My name is Joseph Han of the USA, and I am responding to God’s call to chaplaincy. Born in the outskirts of Seoul, Korea, my birth name is Han Kee Ha. My Christian name is Joseph. In the USA, I go by Joseph Han. In the 60s, the poor in Korea lived in the hills with little to no infrastructure to support convenient systems for water, sewer, and power. I have wonderful memories of growing up near our extended families. For fun, the dozens of kids, about 50-100, in the neighborhood gathered for our favorite outdoor games. With so many kids, even a simple game of tag would last for hours.
Leaving Korea for the USA
When I was ten, my parents took their five children, left their home and life as they knew it to provide educational opportunities for us. When we arrived in Sonoma, California, it was as if we entered the promised land, flowing with candies and chips! I was a kid in paradise. It did not take me long to get used to this new life of ease and comfort.
While I remember going to a Catholic church in Korea, even becoming an altar boy, the church was not a big part of my memory. In the USA, we became religiously Catholic, attending Sunday mass, even though we did not understand English during our first two years. As a kid, all I knew was that the donuts and hot chocolate followed the second kneeling. While gaining fluency in English, we were faithfully religious all through my 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. We attended the church’s school in the 6th grade. During my junior high and high school years, Mom becomes more “protestant-like,” but the rest of us were much less focused on religion.
Dring my USMCRD training (Bootcamp) months in 1982, I became a more became “devout” Catholic on Sundays. Being religious was a way to escape the vigilant corrections of the drill instructors – for one hour a week.
Got on the Horse – Rode Too Fast
My first come to Jesus moment was during an 8-hour drive home after graduating from Bootcamp. My oldest sister, who became a Bible-thumper and married a fellow Bible-thumper, ganged up on me to share the Scripture. I was, fortunately, a captive audience hungry for a friendly, loving voice. My decision to follow Christ, in hindsight, was a rational decision, one based on logic.
Emboldened by my status as a U.S Marine and energized by my new-found faith, I entered my college years ready to take on the world. I became a fervent Bible reader and engaged immediately in debates with believers and non-believers alike. Believers around me, seeing my zeal and “potential,” advanced me in leadership roles prematurely. As Professor Henry Reyenga points out, leaders should not be quick to advance young believers into leadership roles.
During my college years, I found myself as a core leader of several fellowships, an elder of a startup church, with a growing reputation as “a mature leader in the church.” Privately, I was under conviction. With the realization of my turbulent walk with Christ, one filled with deep joy and delight, only to be thwarted by an unsanctified life of pride of life, lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh.
Thrown off the Horse
Wanting to be holy as God is Holy, I pushed myself to become holy in all that I did. The harder I tried, the more hypocritical I felt. At some point, realizing that I was Pharasaric and Sadusaic – I became highly critical of myself, other believers, and the church. I declared my faith to be impossible to live.
For years, I preached on God’s grace, but I did not understand it. While I preached salvation by grace, I was personally living under the law of works. I had no mentors, and I was too embarrassed to seek one. I completely pulled back from leadership roles in the church. Unable to pull back completely, I sat in the back seats of several churches I attended. Having walked away from the light and the warmth of the fellowship, it was a dark and lonely period of my life.
Marriage and Renewal
Fast forward a decade, I married an unbeliever. I stopped going to church. It did not take long for Rhonda to realize that something was missing for her, that getting married did not fill the void she longed to fill. I sensed God drawing her. We started attending Claremont Emanual Baptist Church. I went on several Mexico mission trips with the church during my college years.
Going back to an evangelical church was a convicting experience. My heart had hardened over the ten-year rejection of my calling. I sat in the back rows of the church in guilt, resentment, then anger. For a year, I sat in the back rows, arms crossed, doing my best not to listen.
A year later, we had our first child. When Josh was a one-year-old, as I found myself next to Joshua’s bed, a deep sense of fear entered my heart and mind. God instilled in me a deep love for another human being that I had not experienced and did not understand. Overwhelmed, I began to cry in helplessness. Amidst my outcry, God spoke to me. “This love you have for your child is just a fraction of my love for you.” My cry triggered by uncontrollably intense fear became a belly cry of deep gratitude. Grace, God’s unmerited favor! I preached it but did not know it. Now, I felt it, experienced it, and understood it.
Back in the Saddle Again?
Energized by the renewed sense of calling, I was ready to “get back into” church leadership. God said I was broken and needed healing. Two years later, my opportunity to serve finally came. I was to be a vocational pastor leading the small group and Sunday School ministry. We started numerous home fellowships.
However, a change in my job took us out of California and into several churches. I remained connected to my local church in men’s fellowship and teaching Sunday School classes, but was “too busy” for a role as a church staff. Numerous moves later, with four children all grown, I wonder where the years have gone.
Responding to God’s call to Chaplaincy with CLI
Now, after a thirty-year career in higher education, I am semi-retired. Currently consulting, teaching, and serving as a part-time law enforcement officer, my dream is to serve as a chaplain for a law enforcement agency. My education includes: Doctorate in Education Leadership, Masters in Business Administration, Masters in Organizational Leadership, Certified Ohio Peace Officer, and Certified Law Enforcement Executive.
For a brief second, I considered a “shallow ordination” path to chaplaincy. However, I just can’t! Seeking affordable training and ordination, I am drawn to the Christian Leaders Institute Training. It may take me a year or more, but the gifts, life experiences, and calling points me to serve as a chaplain. Now, responding to the call to chaplaincy, I have a mentor in place and the Christian Leaders Institute to guide me. I am God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for me to do.
By His grace and in His service,
Joseph
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.