Hi, my name is Suzanne Thibault, and I reside in beautiful Northern California with my husband of 35 years and adult daughter. After getting my scholarship for free ministry training, I am excited to be studying at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here).
As a child, I was not raised in a Christian home. I did not find God in church. As an adult, I was living with deep depression and anxiety. I found myself in a place of despair, feeling like I was dying inside. I cried out to God for help. Two days later, while walking in the Target parking lot, I noticed something shiny on the ground. I picked up a small medallion with a picture of Christ inside! I found Jesus in the Target parking lot! My life then began to change for the better as I realized God had answered my prayer.
My Childhood
I grew up in California’s Silicon Valley with highly dysfunctional and abusive parents. As a child, I knew I was not wanted and felt so alone. I was taken to Sunday School as a young child but always thought of Jesus as a cartoon character in a book. I never was taught or understood who God was until I became a teenager.
My spiritual journey began as a sophomore in high school, where I was a Young Life Christian Group member on campus. I was invited to this group by a friend, naturally drawn in by their kindness and caring, things I never received as a child growing up. Young Life had a weekend retreat I attended. There I accept Christ as my Savior, tears rolling down my cheeks. I was then baptized in the swimming pool, an experience I will always remember.
The Drifting Years
Once leaving high school, I fell away from knowing God as I had no spiritual base or church to turn to. I walked through life thinking I could handle everything myself. This belief stemmed from my childhood where I had to take care of myself. While this made me a strong person, my life was unbalanced and filled with stress. It felt as if I were drifting along a river of no end, with no real purpose or passion for living life. I developed anxiety and depression, which sent me into a raging river of despair. That is when my prayers were answered in the Target parking lot, and I knew I was saved!
Ministry Calling and Scholarship for Free Ministry Training
I began reading the Bible and searched for a church that felt comfortable. That was challenging. My co-worker’s brother was a pastor at a church near my home. So she invited me to attend one of the services. I attended the early morning service and sat by myself in an outer row. A woman noticed me sitting by myself, came over to me, and invited me to sit with her. I knew that was God in action, which gave me the confirmation I was in the right church. Thrive Church is an Assemblies of God church which makes my heart sing with joy!
I felt a calling to serve the Lord in my heart and became a Spiritual Life Coach. I enjoyed serving the Lord and supporting women to let go of pain from the past and forgive. Also, I did training with the HeartMath Institute® and Transformation Prayer Ministry with Ed Smith. But there was always something missing – a deeper biblical understanding. That is when God put it upon my heart to do ministry training. As a retired woman, I asked Jesus to please lead me to no-cost training since I am on a limited fixed budget. I did a google search, and the Lord led me to the Christian Leaders Institute! Their scholarship for free ministry training opportunity is making it possible for me to serve the Lord!
My Walk with God
Never in my life did I ever imagine that God would lead me to ministry training. I have no desire to work in a church. I do not feel qualified. Christian Leaders Institute has taught me there are many ways to minister to people. I began having some self-doubt about ministry training and where it might lead. However, God gave words of wisdom to me: “God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” I now remind myself of this as I continue on my ministry training path. Christian Leaders Institute is helping me become qualified to minister to others.
Reflections
I now look behind me and see all the places God was there with me when I thought I was alone. He has been with me my entire life, even though I did not know that as a child. He was with me as a child and during my drifting years, always faithful. God’s love is so big, bright, and inspiring! Today when I look at who I have become, I am truly amazed that He could take a lost, lonely soul like me and create a new life of possibilities in becoming a Life Coach through Christian Leaders Institute to serve. I am forever grateful to my Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, and Christian Leaders Institute!
My name is Tena Qualls, from Sparta, Tennessee, USA. Currently, I am receiving free ministry and ordination training at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here). I was born and raised with one younger sister in rural middle Tennessee. We were brought up predominantly Pentecostal. My parents sang, ministered, and traveled with a gospel group for most of our lives. My father evangelized for many years and eventually Pastored for several years. I received Christ at a young age, yet I turned away from the Lord in my teen years.
A few days before my 21st birthday, my parents had an automobile accident. My mother tragically died at the young age of 39, and my father was very severely injured. Our lives changed from that day forward. My father was unable to deal with what happened. He turned away from the Lord, from ministry, and became someone unfamiliar to me.
Earlier, on the day of the accident, I had lunch with my mother. She asked me to run an errand for her after I got off work. I ran the errand as she asked and met the man who would become my future husband and ministry partner. Unbeknownst to me, at approximately the same time I ran the errand and met my future husband, was the same time that my parents were in this fatal car accident. After 35 years of marriage, we still reminisce about how my mother was the angel that introduced us.
Ministry Journey Begins
I met my husband in 1985, and we married in 1986. When expecting our first child, we decided to return to church. My husband and I gave our hearts and lives to the Lord in 1988. We faithfully attended this church. Soon, we began to work with teens, and, then eventually became youth leaders. Shortly after that, we accepted the youth pastor position. We served in that capacity for 17 years. After which, we were asked to take the Associate Pastor position. My husband and I worked together in every facet of ministry that God led us into.
After serving on staff as associate pastors for several years, our Lead Pastor retired. In this assembly, when the lead pastor retired, my husband and I would step down too. We were in Ministerial courses at Lee University at that time and realized that God was calling us into a Lead Pastor role. After what we would describe as wandering in the wilderness for almost 2 years, God led us to a 6-person church that was one week away from closing its doors.
Called to Lead Pastor Position
In May of 2016, my husband and I laid a fleece before the Lord as to whether or not this non-denominational church was what He was leading us to. God confirmed it, and we accepted the Lead Pastor role at what is now called Christpoint Church. After almost 8 years, Christpoint has two campuses with a third in the planning stages. To serve at Christpoint Church is a blessing! We have a great vision and excitement for what God has in store.
Ministry and Ordination Training at CLI
My husband is an Ordained Bishop in the church of God. I took many of the courses with my husband but did not go through the ordination program at that time. We are so very thankful to have found the Christian Leaders Institute. As a 501C3, Christpoint Church will require our ministers to enroll in the CLI ministry and ordination training courses in order to be ordained ministers within the Christpoint body.
One of our Campus Pastors already went through CLI’s deacon ordination training courses. He received ordination in our local assembly. We have another Campus Pastor currently taking the deacon ordination courses as well, whom we also plan to ordain at Christpoint.
Currently, I am also enrolled in the deacon ordination courses and plan to be ordained as well. Furthermore, I plan to continue forward with the Life Coach courses.
Serving Where God Leads Us
My husband and I are 57 years of age, with two children and seven grandchildren. We are truly blessed, humbled, and honored to have been called. The journey has been challenging at times, but our God never fails us. Our prayer is to remain useful vessels to the glory of God.
Thank you, Christian Leaders Institute, for the amazing ministry and ordination training resources you offer. Because of your vision and this accessibility, we feel we can now fulfill our vision to adequately equip and set forth ministers and servant leaders in our church.
I am Paul Nichols from the USA. As a man called by God, I am receiving free ministry training and equipping at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here).
My Spiritual Journey
And there it was, staring at it for some time gave no leeway whatsoever. It was simple, straightforward, and brutal in its pure truth. I am speaking of Luke 6:46, “Why do ye call me Lord, Lord, but do not the things I say?” This scripture put me on the first of many paths. However, it was not the beginning. No, I first believed at the age of 8. Then, I received a calling to ministry at 14.
So, what took me so long to realize it? As chief amongst the Christians who got things wrong, I was a poster boy for everything wrong in a Christian walk. I fooled myself into thinking I could maintain a true walk with God while being of the flesh. I played professional heavy metal, destroyed my marriage, and hurt those around me with selfishness. My eyes couldn’t see it, and my emotions were so deep and dark I didn’t allow myself to feel. So much pride and puffed-up personality, and so easily angered, those who loved me were too afraid to tell me what I was doing wrong. And, of course, I had no ability to hear them.
Turning Point
Don’t ask me why, but God still used me through it. My calling was real, the gifts for it were real, but the servant wasn’t. So I learned, “Be authentic, not something you are not.” I needed to be the person I pretended to be. I knew so much about Jesus. That was what I thought was important for eternal life, and it is. However, it is only halfway. It was much more important that Jesus knows who I am, as Matthew 7:22 says. I am a guy who believed, zealous even. I knew him, but he knew me not. My fruit was rotten from a flesh-like walk. My testimony was the testimony of a Nicolaitan, full of sinful compromise.
While reading Psalms 5, I realized I was doing evil. I was telling what I thought were white lies even and especially to myself. Exhibiting haughty behavior, thinking God loved me despite my iniquities, so it was okay. It’s a terrible heresy.
I didn’t realize how good God is. His justice from the fact of his goodness. I only believed in his love, his grace, but not his majestic goodness. God is so good that he hates “all who do evil.” Yet, there is John 3:16! God loves us so much. I weighed in on these two scriptures like an apologetics teacher in Ratio Christi. In my conclusion, both are the infallible word of God, so both are true. I pictured God holding back his wrath from my evil with his hand full of grace while beckoning me to him with the other.
At CLI for Ministry Training and Equipping
Next was a big question, how can I repent and stay there? I had so many habitual sins. The answer was impossible without God. I literally had to give myself over, not just my belief, not just all my gifts. I had to give all the bad things I kept secret, thinking I hid them from an omniscient, omnipotent God.
Finally, I gave everything over to God until I found myself face down on the floor. I asked a simple question with a fervent heart, “What will you have me do, Lord?” (I could finally honestly say, Lord) The Lord’s reply was scripture as always. Distinctly, I heard like thunder in my spirit, “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And then quietly and with calm assurance, “Equip yourself.”
Those words brought me to the Christian Leaders Institute for ministry training and equipping. I am on God’s mission, 40 years after being called. I have learned to wait on him so God won’t ever need to wait on me again!