CLI Leadership Course Impact
I am Joy Lady from Berea, Kentucky, in the USA, and I finished the CLI Leadership course. My mission is to know God, and the Christian Leaders Institute courses are enriching that mission. Through the sanctification that comes by fellowship with the Holy Spirit, I lovingly submit every part of myself and opportunity gifted me to the glory of God. I serve wholeheartedly until the time I am united with Him for eternity.
My Upbringing
My mother suffered severe depression, and my father was unabashedly arrogant, misogynistic, abusive, and alcoholic. As the only daughter and middle of five children, I heard that I was “broken” and “inferior” because I was “just a girl.” Furthermore, there were belittling reminders of my disastrous failure of my family’s ridiculously high expectations. Anything less than perfection in any regard was “a lack of effort.”
Once, my father, berating me in a drunken rage of which he has no recollection, challenged me to name one thing in my life, I had touched without messing up. I was in tears, struggling to think of words to prove I had any worth or purpose. God stilled my heart and led me to say, “I love.” For me, that was all that mattered.
Challenges
My father chose sobriety a short time later. “I love” became my mantra, and I was thrilled to learn that he began regularly attending a church. I was eager to plug-in and be active in ministry, as I had recently been forced to relocate away from my home church and ministry. However, when I spoke of my desire, I found that the church’s opinion of women in ministry strongly mirrored that of my father. They told me to remain silent. They sat me down if I attempted or offered to serve in any capacity outside of washing dishes or singing on occasion.
It discouraged my spirit, but God told me to stay, long after my father left. For five years, I tried to find a different congregation. One that would disciple me, encourage me, and allow me to serve in the ways the Holy Spirit and the Father of all creation gifted me. However, God kept leading me back to the tiny little country church in Berea, Kentucky.
For those five years, I felt like God led me into the desert to walk in circles and starve. But then, in 2012, my church leaders appointed me, a woman, as the head of the Worship Ministry. Thank God, His timing is perfect! I’ve been in this position for eight years now. Women in my church are seen and heard for the first time in its 200 year history.
CLI Leadership Course Impacted Me
I feel an undeniable calling to encourage and equip individuals. Each one is unique, a “fearfully & wonderfully made” part of one body. They can discover and embrace their identity and purpose in Christ.
The CLI Leadership course taught me valuable lessons. It showed me how to combat tradition, fear, and complacency while simultaneously respecting the culture and working to change it to bring glory to God further. It has provided me with insight regarding the inevitable and necessary conflicts I will encounter. The CLI Leadership course challenged me to grow as a leader and an individual.
I dream that all churches will value people and the contributions those people make to the kingdom of God. Judging no one according to their gender or their weaknesses, but by the gifting and calling God places on them.
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Quality Ministry Training Free at CLI
My name is Samuel Black, and I am receiving quality ministry training free at CLI. I’m 27 years old. For the better portion of my life, I’ve been dodging the call of God and not letting Him fully take over in my life. I am yielding to serve the Lord and pursue that call. May He guide me to do His will in whatever capacity He sees fit.
Christian Upbringing
I was born in La Crosse, WI, and reared by two of the most loving, devoutly Christian people I know. My father (pictured to the left) and I are very close. We love spending time talking about the Bible and Christian doctrine. He possesses a deep understanding of the Bible and has always been my mentor. My mother is supportive and is one that can recite most of the Proverbs from memory.
Having grown up in a Christian family, I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have, as it was all I ever knew. I had never known a life without Christian influence, and it was just commonplace. The last few years have been very trying times, but with prayer and the strength of the Holy Spirit, things are looking up.
Currently, I work at a sporting goods store. There I’m blessed with having Christian owners and a manager who is also the president of his church committee. Having management that aligns with Christian beliefs significantly improves the workplace environment. It allows me to speak about my faith freely and openly, without fear of persecution.
God’s Calling and Quality Ministry Training Free at CLI
Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans He has for me. I have faith in that promise. Trust that He will reveal to me those plans in due time. Over the years, I’ve picked up a little knowledge here, and a little knowledge there, but not a well-trained understanding. That’s why quality ministry training and instruction for free is so necessary. Christian Leaders Institute fills this need for me! I hope to use this training as a way to enter the ministry and allow God to use me wherever He may lead.
I am a helpless sinner, incapable of righteousness, so I pray that the Holy Spirit comes upon me and guides me and works through me.
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
My Journey into Ministry
My name is Stacie Hutchens, and here is my journey into ministry. I am a forty-year-old mother of two, a daughter almost fourteen and a son nearly twelve. My husband and I met at work and have been married for seventeen years. However, we have been together for nineteen years. We live in southern West Virginia, where we enjoy spending time outdoors in this beautiful world God has created. We also spend a great deal of time volunteering with sports teams our children are a part of and working in our local church. I am also an elementary school teacher serving children before, during, and after school.
My Early Years
I grew up in a Christian home that centered around ministry. My grandfather planted a church, and there, my Christian roots and foundation began. Within the walls of his church, my grandparents pastored me, my father and uncle ministered to me, my mother and aunts taught me. The family led every branch of the ministry within this church. We lived in a small southern town that fostered the idea of strong family ties. Those ties intertwined in faith and ministry. I knew my whole life that ministry would be where I found my calling and place with the Lord. However, it took me a little bit of time to truly understand just what God was calling me too.
Struggles and Back to My Faith
As a teenager, I found myself pulling away from what I thought were strict parental rules. Also, I pulled away from God’s direction and guidance in my life. I sometimes gave in to peer pressure and went out into the world to “figure it out for myself.” I found that I could not run from what God had placed upon my life.
In my early twenties, I found my way back to my faith. I rediscovered the foundation and roots established years prior, and God, who never left my side. I returned to the church I grew up in ready for wherever God leads on my journey into ministry.
My Journey into Ministry
After having children, God stirred a desire within me to work with the children’s classes at our church. Therefore, I began helping my mother in the nursery. From there, God grew me into a children’s teacher, a girl’s club leader, and VBS director.
While God stirred in me and moved me to step into places of growth, He also did the same within my husband. God began using my husband to minister to children through the boy’s club, the youth, and the children but also adults. As he stepped into ministering, my grandfather became sick, which led to us stepping into leading our church more than we previously had. We found ourselves drawn into pastoring in some facet, and yet we were unsure how God would do this within and through us.
My Journey to Ministry Schooling at CLI
Fast-forward a few years, and currently, we are children’s pastors within our church working toward pastoring in a fuller facet. We are branching into family pastorship and potentially associate pastoring soon. We are open and ready for wherever God leads.
Looking for ministry school classes to learn more about God, His Word, and ministry, I found the Christian Leaders Institute. I desire to come to know God on deeper levels every day and to allow Him to know me deeply and in all areas of my life. I want to do all that I can to help others come to know Him and to help His kingdom grow.
Learn about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.