My name is Julie Erickson, and I have a ministry call and now study for this call at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here). I am 47 years old and live in the United States.
My Salvation Journey
Salvation for me came at the age of 19. As a teen, I was involved in many sinful things. It is awesome when I look back and see how God was moving in my life even before I knew Jesus as my Savior. I was attending a public junior high school. A Catholic school in town came to our school to tell us about what they had to offer and recruit students. I chose to go to this school even though I was not Catholic and had no interest in religion. I had to work and pay my own tuition, but this did not deter me.
One year, I had to take a class called Comparative Religions. One of the class requirements was that we attend church services at several different denominations. One of the churches I went to was a Southern Baptist church. I had never heard someone deliver a sermon like the one delivered that day. The sermon was about our tongue. It stuck in my mind for quite some time, maybe about 2 years, before I felt God tugging at my heart in a way I could not ignore. I went back to that church, and Jesus saved me.
My Journey in Christianity
My journey as a Christian has been a long process of overcoming guilt, sin, depression, and trying to live up to others’ expectations. I look back and see God’s hand of protection over me through so much of my life. I am so grateful for His grace, mercy, and loving care. He truly delivered me from so much. Often, I didn’t recognize this deliverance and his hand in it until well after the fact. I look back at His amazing care through the darkest parts of my life and am in awe of how God carried me through.
Ministry Call and Study at CLI
This leads me to why I am here at the Christian Leaders Institute; my ministry call and the need to study for the ministry. I truly desire to minister to other women to help them overcome all that I have overcome through Christ. I want to help women look to God for their guidance, not other people’s expectations. So many women don’t have the tools to overcome depression and guilt. I want to give them those tools. Too many churches burden women with more guilt and never show them the way to true freedom and joy.
I also feel a calling to minister to police and their spouses, emphasizing police chiefs and their spouses. My husband has been an officer for 27 years and is currently the police chief in our town. There is no support system for us, no one to reach out to in the tough times. As America’s political climate becomes more and more hostile to law enforcement, the need for ministry to this group of people grows immensely.
Spreading the Good News
I also have a desire just to spread the joy that God gives. So many people question God, even when they have all the answers right there in His word. They don’t want to accept the answers and fight God on everything. I want to help them find faith in His answers, stop questioning, start believing, and step out in faith and joy in the Lord.
God is leading me in this direction, and I just need to follow in obedience. I don’t know exactly where it will take me yet, but I know God will be faithful and show me. I am so grateful for having found Christian Leaders Institute to get training to help me on this journey. God has guided me through so much, teaching me, shaping, and molding me. He has given me a joy I never thought I could have. He has protected me, loved me, forgiven me, shown mercy toward me, and handled me with such grace. I want others to stop questioning and to start trusting God.
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
