Port Harcourt has a population of over 1,000,000 people and is the 5th largest populated area in Nigeria. Port Harcourt was founded in 1913 to be a port for coal transportation. This port is now a key oil industry port for Nigeria. The religious make up of Port Harcourt is polarizing consisting of Christians, Muslims and Other Religions.
Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) is opening a Bible School in Port Harcourt beginning January 1, 2014. This Bible School in Port Harcourt will be a local Mentor Center or Study Center of CLI. An entire Bible school course of study will be available online, but students will gather at the study center to process their online education. This allows accountability and encouragement that brings online Bible training into a geographic location.
This study center is being started by local ordained leader Godswill Alao Jr. Godswill is a pastor of King’s Word Ministries in Port Harcourt. He began studying at CLI in May of 2012 and is a graduate of Christian Leaders Institute who is still progressing on to more 
advanced diplomas.
Godswill came to know the Lord from a personal encounter with Him after a period of seeking Him in fasting, studying and prayer. He writes, “It is my ministry dream with a burden for missions to nations in Africa and the unreached people of other nations preaching and declaring the saving power and grace of Jesus as a shinning light over a dark generation.”
Godswill Alao Jr. is called to begin a local study center of Christian Leaders Institute in Port Harcourt. After a time of vetting and conversation, CLI is pleased to authorize Godswill to offer this Bible School in Port Harcourt beginning in 2014.
This Bible School in Port Harcourt will function as an outlet of the online ministry training of Christian Leaders Institute. The Harcourt Study Center will have a governing board independent of Christian Leaders Institute.
Hybrid Bible School in Port Harcourt
This Bible School in Port Harcourt is a combination of web based learning with local mentoring relationships. Students will study on their own during the week. On the weekend students gather at the study center to process their learning. This process could include taking the insights learned in their online studies and bringing those insights into a mentoring environment. For instance, students can take the preaching class online. They can receive training online and now they have a local outlet in a local indigenous culture to process and practice what they have learned online. The web learning and local learning come together in this hybrid Bible School in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
If you are in the Port Harcourt area email livingprophet2000@yahoo.com
Like the Bible School in Port Harcourt at Facebook. Click here.
Bible School Study Centers Everywhere
Christian Leaders Institute is seeking to offer Study Centers everywhere. Mentor Centers or Study Centers are being started with a local ordained leader who applies at CLI. Each study center or mentor center leader must meet certain qualification in order to start a center. Please email CLI president’s office at hreyenga@christianleaders.net to indicate your interest in starting a study center.
Syria is not a welcoming place for a calling into ministry. This Islamic country is struggling politically. Christianity is not technically illegal but it is discouraged in the cultural system. A calling into ministry is rare in a place like this. It is here on the road to Damascus that the apostle Paul encountered the voice of Jesus. It is here that he received his calling into ministry. As Paul neared Damascus on his journey to persecute Christians, “suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:3-4) In an instant, Saul (Paul) became a new man. He met Jesus and Jesus changed him.
God still does miracles in Damascus. Hasem was watching porn in Damascus seven years ago when he was visited by God and given a calling into ministry instantly. Let him tell his story,
I have been involved for almost seven years in full time ministry after and amazing encounter with God as I was watching Porn. A voice called me to change the channel and as I did I stopped on an Arabic Christian TV program. I heard I felt the power of God touching me and I become a new creation without even knowing that at the beginning.
I started to read and study the Bible after the change happened in my life. I noticed from John chapter three that what is happened with me was the born again experience and I am glad that the Lord choose me for His glory.
God may be giving you a calling into ministry today. God still does miracles like this. Maybe God will do a miracle for you. What do you need from God? Even in places like Syria where Christianity is oppressed, God is calling people into ministry like Hasem. I have noticed that many of the students at Christian Leaders Institute have a story of how God stopped them on their journey to destruction. At one moment they are persecuting God, then God shows up and gives them a calling into ministry no matter where they live.
Recently, I was in Israel. I saw the wonder of what Herod built. I also learned how in control he was of that land. In tyrannical control he even tried to kill the newborn Jesus. But in a vision to Joseph and in fulfillment of a prophecy, Jesus was kept safe.
Calling into Ministry and YOU?
All the world’s power, wealth, philosophy, scientific illusions, political control, and religious oppressions can not stop the interruptions of God as he calls his leaders to proclaim his love and salvation. Is God’s speaking to your heart right now? Do you need to be healed? Are you called to a purpose higher than yourself? What are you going to do about it? Are you sensing the calling into ministry? Like our Facebook page
Philippines Online Bible School – Before we talk about Christian Leaders Institute as a Philippines Online Bible School, we should first share a little about the religious climate of the Philippines.
The Philippines is considered to be the only Christian nation in Asia. Christianity spread in the form of Catholicism. This Catholicism was introduced in the Philippines by the Spaniards in 1565 with the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi. The Catholic faith overlaid itself on a pagan religious foundation. Jack Miller wrote,
The pre-Hispanic belief system of Filipinos consisted of a pantheon of gods, spirits, creatures, and men that guarded the streams, fields, trees, mountains, forests, and houses. Bathala, who created earth and man, was superior to these other gods and spirits. Regular sacrifices and prayers were offered to placate these deities and spirits–some of which were benevolent, some malevolent. Wood and metal images represented ancestral spirits, and no distinction was made between the spirits and their physical symbol. Reward or punishment after death was dependent upon behavior in this life. file://localhost/(http/::asiasociety.org:countries:religions-philosophies:religion-philippines)
When Catholicism was introduced, many of the local “gods” were replaced with saints. Miller goes on to talk about the development of Filipino folk religion, “combining a surface veneer of Christian monotheism and dogma with indigenous animism. It may manifest itself in farmers seeking religious blessings on the rice seed before planting or in the placement of a bamboo cross at the comer of a rice field to prevent damage by insects.”
Even though the Philippines has been heavily influenced by Christianity. There is much mission still needed in the Philippines. A Philippines Online Bible School is offered free to students who want to learn what the Bible actually says. This is so needed because most Christians in the Philippines do not even know that much about what the scriptures actually teach.
Christian Leaders Institute has 469 students enrolled at our Philippines Online Bible School. One of these students is Christine. She is from Manila City, she comes from a very poor family. None of her family members are Christians. Her parents did not raise any of the five children in her family in Christianity.
Disease stuck her at only 20 years of age. She developed a serious liver condition, which required expensive medicine and dimmed her dream to get an education. Desperately, Christine searched for answers. The medication was too expensive. The doctors gave her little hope without the expensive medications.
Christian Leaders Institute student Christine wrote,
I began to seek for God’s guidance. I challenged God to move in my life. Because we are from the “lower families” of our barangay or village, we were just too poor to buy my medicines, so instead I drew near to God. And God met my expectations with Him. I gave myself to Jesus. I asked God to heal me. And God did. The doctor was amazed with the result of my test. The liver disease cleared. And from that time I began to believe in God’s greatness.
Philippines Online Bible School
God had a plan for Christine. She continued to grow in her faith. Soon she was looking for more Bible School training. What could she do? She could not afford medications, how could she afford a Bible School education? Here is where Christian Leaders Institute comes in. CLI is beamed into the Philippines on the Internet. This Philippines Online Bible School is free and Christine can get high quality Bible school training right where she lives.
Christine writes, “And now I am chairwoman of the Youth Ministry. I love to see the youth crying and craving for God’s presence. I love to see them maturing in God’s Kingdom. My dream is to have a quality training and strong faith in Jesus. And my calling is to reach for more souls and to enlarge our borders in Christ.”
Will this Philippines Online Bible School be right for you?
Maybe you are a pastor and you do not have much ministry training? Consider studying at Christian Leaders Institute. Once you finish the Getting Started Class, you can open a mentor center to offer CLI training to your leaders. Maybe you are like Rev. Virgilio, who has been a pastor with little training for over 30 years. He desperately needed more training. This Philippine Online Bible School is perfect for him. He writes that this “CLI scholarship is important to me, because of my age and low financial capabilities. I could not study at any seminary or Bible School. But CLI made it possible for me to get needed training. I enrolled at CLI.” Rev. Virgilio needed a Philippines Online Bible School to be accessible to him.
Maybe you are like Christine or Rev. Virgilio and you are searching for a Philippine Online Bible School. Just sign up and see if CLI is right for you.