Evangelist Ministry Path
My name is Meredith Brooke Pittman. I was born February 14, 1996, in a small town in the state of South Carolina. I am blessed to call the United States my home. As a child, I grew up in a church learning about God, but never getting the concept of what He is all about. I have some memories of going to children’s church and watching people act out plays and coloring pages of a man on a cross. At the age of eight, my parents got a divorce. In that moment of my life, I lost all things that were real to me. Sadly, God was the last thing on my mind. My family ran from God. At the age of eight, I stood on my hill in my yard as they took my mother away to a hospital for attempting suicide. I walked into what I thought was my home and saw pills all over the kitchen counters and floor. I didn’t know it then, but God laid his hand upon me that day knowing He had an evangelist ministry path for my life.
I grew up without a father and most of my childhood my mother was absent. In and out of hospitals attempting to kill herself. I surrounded myself with guys trying to fill the emptiness I felt inside all the time. At the age of fourteen, I began to be sexual and at sixteen I lost my virginity. I knew and believed in God, but I didn’t really know him the way I thought I did. I cried myself to sleep for many years praying to God asking Him to take me out of this world. It was not until I was seventeen years old that I met Jesus Christ personally. I was sitting in church for Easter and all at once I lost control of myself. I stood up in front of hundreds of people and gave my life to Jesus Christ. Realizing that He died for me and loved me unconditionally changed my whole point of view on life. That summer, I made the choice to be baptized in the ocean in Daytona.
I would like to say from then on it was easy, but then I would be lying. I got caught up again in the world. In the sex and alcohol and parties. I was still trying to find something that only Jesus could provide. I was running away from all the pain of rape, sexual sin, and hatred of myself. I looked at myself and felt nothing but disgust. It was not until I had an affair with a married man that I realized I no longer knew who I was or who I was meant to be. So I got down on my knees and I gave it all up to Him. I no longer wanted to be in the driver’s seat. I picked up my Bible and I never looked back.
It is easy to type down words of the things I have done in my life. It is simple to recall those times of being lost. But to go through them at the time, was not easy at all. My ministry dream is to reach women, ALL women on my evangelist ministry path. I want them to know that there is another way. JESUS. I want to be a person that doesn’t turn away from the lost and confused, but one who shows them the love of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be an evangelist. Taking this class at Christian Leaders Institute has shown me so many ways to connect to my Father God and my Savior. I have learned how to stay in sound doctrine daily, even when the world and Satan try to test and tempt me.
There are so many reasons why I want to go into ministry: rape, suicide, porn addiction. I am twenty-one years old, and I want to know everything there is to know about the Bible, about Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. I want to lead others to Christ because I did not deserve His love. I was dirty and a sinner, but He washed me clean. So I want to pick up my cross and serve the Lord. Connecting to the Bible brings me grow closer to God. I am learning how He wants me to live and how to pursue my dreams in ministry. I know I still have much to learn. That is why the CLI scholarship is so important to me. I want to be able to share the gospel and have the knowledge to teach correctly. I have connected through my church and I am taking a Bible class once a week there. I am connecting with fellow Christians who are helping me with my walk with Christ and my evangelist ministry path dream. Pray that I do not falter, and even when I have to make hard choices, that I make the right choices for God.
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Spiritual Dream
As a young innocent child, I always felt close to God. It was instilled in me throughout my elementary school years of attending Catholic Catechism classes held on Saturday mornings. I dreamed of being a nun, devoting my entire life to serving God and others. Unfortunately, the scripture that reads “The devil roams around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” proved to be a force in my life and on my spiritual dream. Around the age of 10, I believe the enemy whispered to my soul a destructive lie that even if I was the last person on earth, not even God would love me!
As I grew up I behaved as if that lie were the truth and I spent many years in a state of depression… because of it, my original dream faded. My heart was broken at the thought that I was undesirable, especially to God. Soon in my early teens, I began to search for anybody’s love and acceptance. But that only brought more heartache, to the point of suffering physical abuse along with rejection by young men. Eventually, I became an unwed mother at the age of 17.
It was this event that ultimately led me back to my Father. I felt that my only friends were my child and my family Bible. I was secluded in my bedroom feeling shame over my behavior, and I was driven to repentance and so devoted myself to reading the Bible.
It wasn’t until several years later, in my early 30’s that the power of the lie was totally broken! There was a new Pentecostal Church in town and I began to hear of many whose lives were getting changed by the power of God in this place. A friend that I worked with at a local bank, Vera, mentioned to me how her life and her families lives were being affected and I could sense a joy and peace in her life. So I made a decision to attend this place called “Joshua Generation for Jesus” in Gallup, New Mexico.
At the moment I entered this store front church building, I immediately sensed a peaceful presence. Peoples hands were lifted in the air as songs of worship were being sung and I took in all of this in quiet observation. When the Sunday service was over, the pastor approached me and asked if he could pray for me. Not being familiar with this type of concern and openness, I immediately declined. However, as we spoke further I felt a strong presence urging me and I asked him to pray for me. When he laid hands on my head and began to pray, I felt the weight of sin fall off of me for the first time in my life. Then this warmth which I can only describe as a touch of the Holy Spirit ran through me.
At last, I found the love that I had so desperately sought after for years and years! I began to grow and mature in the Lord and have never looked back. After 22 years, my desire to know Him and serve Him is ever present in my life.
Christian Leaders Institute is another spiritual dream come true. I have longed for such training as I am presently receiving. I hold this opportunity in highest regards. What drives me is my longing to see my family and others lives changed as mine has been. Thank you, CLI; “for such a time as this”, I discovered you.
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Ministry Training Calling
Greetings! Thank you for the opportunity to share a bit about myself, my testimony, and the ministry training calling that our Father has on my life. My name is Sean McFarlin, and I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. As a child, I was raised in the Catholic Church, where I attended Catholic school and served as an altar boy. My father died before I was born, and his death created distance between my mother and me. She remarried and her husband beat and abused me most of my childhood.
During my high school years, I grew disenchanted with the Catholic faith and began to question some of the rituals and teachings. Needless to say, this was not well accepted in the Catholic High School I attended. Nonetheless, I still had a desire and felt a calling to attend seminary following high school. On the day I was to visit the seminary, one of the priests at my school stopped me and told me he would not allow me to take the trip. I remember feeling both disappointed and relieved. Looking back, I realize that I was feeling God’s call on my heart, but His plan was NOT for me to become a Catholic priest!
During college, I met and married, and we started a family. It seemed that I should have been happy and joyful, however, the pain of my childhood plagued me and controlled me. I began to struggle with depression, anxiety, and chemical dependency.
The ministry training calling pulled at me throughout most of my adult life, through college and Law School, through the many years of turmoil I put myself through. Three times, I applied and was accepted to Seminary, and three times I walked away, resisting His will. Eventually, my life spun out of control. I was well on my way to full-blown addiction, my marriage crumbled, and I lost my faith.
For the next several years, I stumbled from job to job, getting more and more lost, and living in a haze of drugs, sexual sin, and alcohol. I was empty and craved death as what I perceived an end to my painful life. Several times I was close to death, surviving literally only because of what I now realize was the Divine intervention of Almighty God. I was out of control, and I missed Jesus Christ desperately.
Finally, the inevitable happened: I was arrested and jailed. Sitting in a cell gave me the time to clear my head, to realize that I didn’t want to die and that my life needed direction. I made the decision to be sober. After my release I was homeless, living in a storage shed with my girlfriend. That evening I was trying to build a bed platform and left to buy some screws at the hardware store down the street. The store closed at 6 pm. The time was 6:05. I began to feel myself coming apart again.
Suddenly I remembered that the church down the street had a food pantry. I wasn’t sure what they could do for me, but I knew I needed some help. I drove the six blocks to the church and walked in the front door. The pastor looked up and said, “There you are!” Apparently, he had been praying that God would send someone in the door who needed Him. There I was, indeed!
We talked for awhile. We prayed for awhile. I cried for awhile. And I felt the Hand of God on my shoulder, holding me up, and I knew that that day was the day I would look back to for the rest of my life as the day I finally gave my heart and life to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, once and for all.
Now it is time for me to do my part. God has saved my life.He has convicted me in ways I never expected. Within a couple of weeks, I asked my girlfriend to marry me, and we were married at that very church on February 26, 2017. Together we have reconciled with my children and my ex-wife. We have committed our lives to the service of the one true God. God has told us in Jeremiah 29:11 that “I know the plans I have for you…” We are His obedient servants.
The free education provided at CLI is a tremendous blessing to us, and to our future in the Ministry. I look forward to the high-quality education and training as we study in obedience to our ministry training calling and await God’s next challenge in our lives.
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