Youth Leader Education
My name is Julie Amshey and I am receiving youth leader education at Christian Leaders Institute. I currently live in Marne, Michigan located in the United States of America. Living in West Michigan, I feel blessed to be surrounded by so many churches and fellow believers. However, I also know that there are so many people in the area that have not committed their lives to Christ by choice or because they haven’t heard the Gospel.
I was blessed to be born into a Christian family and to attend a Christian school from kindergarten through senior year of high school. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know who God was. It is easy, however, to remember the first time I called him my Lord and Savior. After having my first son, I felt I had a glimpse of how much God loves his children. It made me realize that I wanted to grow in my personal relationship with Him and that I was the one holding out on the connection with God.
My ministry dream is to lead students to Christ. When I see the loneliness and solitude that so many children, teens, and young adults are living in, it breaks my heart. I want them to know the love of Jesus Christ, and how a relationship with Him will fill the emptiness inside themselves. I want them to look to Him to feel complete instead of turning to social media, technology, drugs or alcohol and so many other harmful things that continue to leave a person empty.
The ‘Getting Started’ class at Christian Leaders Institute has only reaffirmed my belief that God is a relational God. The class spoke about the need for community within the church and the responsibilities we have as Christians. I am encouraged to know that the classes taught will be guided with these teachings in line. I am excited to learn, and I know that it will push me further into understanding our God.
For the word I identify with most, I would choose ‘Youth Leader’. Being a part of student ministry is remarkable and very raw. I enjoy being able to lead a lesson and use life experiences as an example from God’s word. I am grateful that I don’t have to be perfect or pretend to be around the students. Being a part of student ministry really means meeting them where they are at, and I find that amazing. I love the energy of the youth and since I began volunteering in the ministry, I have felt God’s calling to grow in it. Moments in youth group where I am able to see a student have a “lightbulb moment” where they realize Christ died for them makes my heart skip a beat.
When considering how connecting to the Bible has transformed my life, I feel like it has made all the difference. While I was in school I was taught the Bible, but since becoming an adult I feel like I have found the meaning of scripture. I know that scripture is God-breathed so to be able to read the Bible is to hear from God. Again, and again, His words remain relevant to our world. Paul’s letters to the early church are able to guide new Christians in their spiritual journey. Jesus’ words continue to teach lessons on how we should treat one another and what forgiveness means. And each time I sit down to read scripture, God has something to say to me.
My church has continued to support the Student Ministry and those who lead it. I have had the privilege to be an administrative assistant for the Middle School Youth Group for the past two years. I also have been able to volunteer alongside some amazing leaders in both High School and Middle School Youth Group. It has also been great having my two sons in the youth groups. I have my oldest son in High School and my middle son in Middle School youth group. I also look forward to having my daughter involved someday. I am blessed to have a supportive husband that knows how much this ministry and my youth leader education means to me.
Going back to school has never been in our budget, however, so receiving a scholarship to attend CLI is very important in being able to achieve my dream. When I heard about CLI, I felt like God was opening a door to a possibility I didn’t think would be a reality. The flexibility of attending online is also important because it makes it possible to continue working during the day and be available to support my kids and be there when they need me. Again, this opportunity for youth leader education goes beyond anything I could have imagined.
I have asked my family to pray for me to stay focused on my youth leader education and continue completing the assignments when they are due. I also pray that I can prioritize and not allow distractions to interfere with this education. If I could ask for you to pray for me as a mother, a wife and now a student. I know that if this is God’s plan for my life, then it will be completed. I ask you to pray for me to hear the voice of God and to follow his promptings in the future.
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Revival Ministry Training
My name is Kyle Johnson and this is my story about my journey into revival and revival ministry training. It begins with the story of my birth and journey to following Jesus Christ. I was never a planned child, and like many others in the world today, I have had a pretty rough childhood. Although our almighty God did plan for me to come into this world and, as I later came to know, God also has a plan for my life.
My mom and dad met while they were both in high school. They were very young when I was born. Mom was seventeen and Dad was eighteen. I was nine when I was told and when I met my dad for the first time because my mom was involved in a bad situation. It had gotten to where the state of Connecticut had no choice but to find my dad and put me with him. Boy, was I scared! I was a nine-year-old little kid being told he would not be able to see his mother for a long time and must get on a plane and fly 1300 miles to see my dad for the first time. The flight turned out to be the worst part only because I have a fear of heights, but even as a young kid I knew God was with me always.
As I was raised by many different people, like my grandmother and my aunt and uncles, I had been to many different churches and had met many different people. I was able to slowly learn through my many experiences and bad behavior. I finally was able to find God again and follow Jesus Christ in the spring of 2016. Now I have a family. I have three wonderful daughters. My wife and I have been married for 7 years and she has been by my side, even when I didn’t deserve it.
About 6 months ago, I had a problem that I had been praying about and planned on asking one of the elders of my church. I wanted to minister to others and tell my testimony about my life and journey to Jesus Christ. Well, one of the elders I talked to led me to a gentleman named Demming Sennett who turns out was a truck driver once before as well. We got to talking and he told me about a school where he is currently taking his master’s degree. He was talking about Christian Leaders Institute. Then he later asked if I had any interest in youth ministry or thought I would be a good bridge between the age groups. He felt that I seemed to have what he was looking for. This was weird to me at first because the thought had begun to cross my mind, but then I realized that God was in the middle of working on his plan for my life. So, after I gave it some thought I decided to pursue youth ministry and asked Demming to be my mentor while I am pursuing this path and through my journey with CLI. So now I am on my exciting journey of revival ministry training to becoming a youth minister. One day, I might take over the position of youth minister in my church or go wherever God plans for my path to take me.
That is my revival story and journey to revival ministry training. It doesn’t stop there either! God is always there for us no matter what life throws at us and he always uses our experiences to shape us into better people worthy of him. Thank you, CLI! God Bless!
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Christian Disciple Training
My name is Heletwork Bekele and I am receiving Christian disciple training at CLI. I was born and raised in Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. I am the fourth born and I have two brothers and two sisters. I got married to my husband Adamu Mengesha on, 2015. Currently, my husband Adamu and I are living in Michigan in the USA.
I understand a ministry work as preaching the kingdom of God by delivering souls from the evil one. I have never found it easy to do ministry in the country I live or in the places I used to live. Ministry for me is the work of the Holy Spirit in me through the word of our God. For that, I need to take the time to equip myself with the right understanding of the word of God to be the minister of the Lord. God wins my heart through his word and what the Holy Spirit has done in my mother’s life.
My mother was an Orthodox but she used to suffer a lot from the influence of an evil spirit. One night, Jesus Christ came to her life in a miraculous way and delivered her from that evil spirit and her suffering ended there. After that miraculous night, my mother received Jesus as her Savior in the evangelical church and converted to be a believer. God used my mother to open my heart to him at a young age. God helped me to understand him and to understand what he has done for my mother and for me, then I converted to be a believer in Jesus Christ.
My ministry dream is for the power of the word of God and the Holy Spirit to reveal his will to me. I want to be an instrument for God to win people’s heart to him and to help them to be true disciples of Christ. This first class at Christian Leaders Institute has helped me by shaping my attitude toward God’s plan in my life. It helped me understand how God can use me as a bi-vocational leader and opened my eyes to see my spiritual dream of Christian Disciple training. It also helped me to strengthen my walk with God by helping me understand what a relationship with God is and how I can be a revived leader. I identify myself as evangelist mostly for I have a big burden in my heart to preach the kingdom of God and to help believers to be a true disciple of Christ.
I received Christ as my Savior when I was in middle school and a year after that God helped me to be one of the organizers to start a student fellowship in that school. God gave me a lot of opportunities to serve him as a student fellowship leader when I was in high school. After I went to university, God gave me a blessed student fellowship and I used to serve him as a fellowship leader and in the ministries, we had in the college. The need to pursue a ministry is something that has been growing in my heart from a young age. Connecting to the Bible helps me to understand God in many different ways and gives me the insight of what he has done for me through Christ. It also helps to strengthen my faith in God and helps me to serve him in the understanding that he is the almighty who is able to do the unthinkable in me and in my ministry path.
My husband and I attend an evangelical Ethiopian church in Michigan. God gave us both the opportunity to serve him in our congregation. My husband serves as a member of the elders and also as a sound system coordinator. I also serve as a Bible study leader and in prayer ministry. Our pastor and the whole congregation encourage both my husband and me to serve the Lord and they always support us with their prayers.
This scholarship at CLI is important to my ministry dream because I want to keep serving the Lord and his people with a better understanding of God and his word. Since the calling of the Lord has a big voice in my heart, I know I need to prepare myself with the proper Christian disciple training to be well equipped with the right knowledge of the word of God. But I am not in a position to afford education and the scholarship from Christian Leaders Institute will help me in my ministry dream. I have a big vision of helping Christ followers and myself to be the disciple Christ wants us to be and to reach many souls through Christ. The scholarship will help me to have the proper training, which will help me to reach the vision God planted in my heart.
I want to thank CLI and all their associates for your blessed heart and please keep me in your prayers for God to use me as a revival leader in this generation for his glory.
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