Local Ministry Online Training
Join today and receive a scholarship towards pursuing local ministry online training and becoming a leader in Christian ministry. Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) offers free high-quality online ministry training. CLI accepts any individual anywhere in their life to learn about Christianity. Read a student’s testimony below who found CLI and is using the scholarship for pursuing local ministry online training to spread the word of God.
My name is Vince Stapleton. I live in Indiana in the United States of America. I have lived in this area since I first started school. I currently work as a subcontractor doing construction & carpentry work. I used to run an automotive repair business in the town my family lives in, but it was not sustainable for a multitude of reasons. So, now I am happy doing carpentry work and only do the automotive repair as a hobby mostly.
As a small child, I can remember going to church with my mom, dad, and brothers. My mother and maternal Grandma taught me about Lord over the years. They are faithful, and loving women and I thank God for their presence in my life. Unfortunately, there were some gaps in church attendance at a few times in my family’s history, and this tempted me. I started to back-slide during these times.
I had a bad motor vehicle accident at the age of 20. Jesus allowed me to stay and raise my daughter and blessed me with a son and one more daughter. I completed Collision Repair & Refinishing through Lincoln Tech in 2006 and worked in this field for 10 years. As a believer, I professed my love for Christ to those I love and spent time with over the years. Though I am not perfect, His grace abounds.
My common law wife passed away at a young age, and I had a couple failed attempts at new love. I had many struggles, raising my children over the years. We stayed a family and I made sure we attended church. I was grateful to receive help from family. They had been my motivation for years, and still are to a degree, but I had somehow taken my eye off the cross. Facing my own demons and repenting I have been filled with the Holy Spirit again! I have re-devoted myself to spreading the gospel of Christ per God’s gentle nudging. We often have an empty feeling inside, which I believe can only be filled with the love of Christ. Keeping God in the center of our universe is key to happiness! I know that God only tests me to strengthen me, and for that I am thankful. Though it may not seem like it at times, He does not give us anything we can’t handle.
I am grateful to have found CLI. I had been ordained already but felt I needed more quality training. Then I found this God sent “freemium” style training through CLI! Without it, I would still be untrained. However, I am now developing ministry skills which I feel are most needed to minister effectively to society.
I only wish to boast of Christ and hope to minister to people in the area. CLI provides an excellent program for local ministry online training. I live in a more effective way using the skills I developed through CLI. My dream is to prove God’s existence through the scientific method, which in my opinion has been done in many ways! So basically theology, archeology, & real-science are major interests and hobbies of mine. I hope to utilize these in glorifying the Kingdom of God.
This program is great for testing your dedication and developing your ministry skills. I recommend anyone seeking guidance on how to better minister to God’s children to join CLI and hopefully complete your courses gracefully!
Thanks to everyone at CLI!
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My name is Marlisse Hardamon and I live in the U.S.A. I spent much of my childhood through my early adulthood living a nightmare. The majority of my early life has been filled with every kind of abuse imaginable, which the evil of man’s heart could perpetrate on another individual. I had been beaten, sexually abused, had rags stuffed in my mouth, and verbally assaulted. Yet none of these acts compare to the internal scars that left in my life to imprison me.
My self-inflicted prison, caused me to participate in extremely at risk behaviors. I took drugs that should have killed me or at the very less left me addicted. I participated in activities that should have got me place behind bars or even ended my life. I even keep company with people, whose life style was based on,”living by the sword, die by the sword.”
It is crazy to believe that this is the life that I lived because I was born in the church. My mother has been an active minister all my life. My godfather was a well respected Bishop. I preached my first unofficial sermon at the age of 7. So, I have been saturated with the Truth of God and His protection of all my life.
Today, I am a licensed minister, serving a congregation of about 300 people. I am the Servant Leader of the New Convert’s Ministry and Community Outreach Ministry where I attend. I am a wife to a wonderful man of God. I have 5 God fearing children. I am a History teacher in the public schools. Like David stated in Psalms 119: 71 (NIV),”It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
My ministry goal comes from my pain. I desire most is to share the love and mercy of God with those that have been defined as unlovable, unworthy, and undeserving by American standards The child, that because of his/her family situation does not feel like they belong. The women, that is struggling with an issue of blood. The man that is spiritually blind. I want to lead these people to the cross, where they can find connectedness, healing, and sight. But, most of all they can find salvation for their sin sick souls.
I have learned that the culture of America has seeped into many of God’s local churches and infected it with a disease called, “It About Me.” that has decreased its effectiveness to manifest God’s transformative power.
I am seeking training at CLI, so that I develop a walk with God that is reproducible and Biblical based. The training at CLI will help me ensure that what I am sharing with other is rooted and grounded in Biblical truth, not just experience.
Finally, I ask that you join me in prayer, as I ask the Lord to strengthen me for the journey ahead.
Heather Watts
United States of America
My name is Heather and I am currently living in the United States of America. I just recently moved back here after spending several years living in Oxford, England.
I came to know the Lord in my early twenties through a friend of my family, a missionary with a huge heart who sought to impact the lives of everyone he met with Jesus. I grew up in a Catholic family believing fully in God but completely disconnected and without relationship just religion. Our friend’s passion for sharing the gospel with my husband and I as young parents lead us to Christ and Salvation and has now changed the course of our family forever.
Since the very early days of my salvation, I had a strong desire to walk closely with the Lord and serve Him. I immediately jumped into the world of church ministry eager to serve and share the gospel. I can remember the exact moment that I knew this was a calling on my life. I had just been asked to refresh a ministry for a Baptist Church that previously had a Children’s Ministry but it had literally fallen into neglect and ruin. The rooms were filled with dusty curriculum, broken toys and mouse poop everywhere. I came in and cleaned, painted, set up the lessons, found some teachers and got ready to launch. I remember Church that day when we were ready to start the ministry again. Our Church was electric everyone was so excited, including me. The kids entered the room that day I knew right from the start something was just a little off. This church was set in a low-income area, and it came to my attention quickly that I had 4 kids who were literally starving. There was no way possible these kids would be able to do anything until they got some food in them. Which we did right away. I even changed the whole way that ministry ran for that church on Sundays. We started each Sunday sharing breakfast first. I learned so many valuable things that day messages straight from God. But more than anything it stirred in me such a deep compassion and love for children. That would today still fuel the passion I currently serve with. That’s what I call a calling. When you know in the depths of your being that God has marked you for something specific. And I see that every day as it plays out over time just in the longevity of it.
I have participated in Children’s Ministry for the last 20 years. I have served in various roles from writing curriculum, starting a children’s ministry in a church that did not have one, refreshing a ministry that is not functioning well, new church plant, teaching children, VBS, Children’s Director, Children’s Pastor, Pastoral Care for Families, Communications, Creative Team and the list could go on probably for a long time. I have worn many hats over the years. I am currently part of a local church in New Jersey that is a global church which is the same branch of the one that I attended when I was in Oxford, England. My heart and dreams are to continue to be part of this church, to continue to lead and teach and be part of the kid’s program here where children learn about Jesus and Impact the world for Him. To continue to be effective for the Gods Kingdom, loving people and sharing the gospel.
The challenges we face in the area I am currently living in are poverty, humanism, and spiritual apathy. The community in this area has some great divides in it with race and income. Any church in this area to be effective with the Gospel will need to be a church with Jesus as the cornerstone that welcomes everyone and is active within the community. It will need to be a church that is intentional, relational, and compassionate (grace filled). People are desperate now more than ever to find where they belong in this world, to know their life has a purpose and value. The gospel will need to be communicated clearly not in a way that is confusing or hard to understand. I believe the Church I attend does just that it.
My current church has a played a huge part in helping to continue to develop me as a leader as well as support and encourage me as I seek to grow and lead within my community so that I am effective in sharing the gospel and in ministering to others. I have also learned that part of the journey of becoming a revival leader is not just leaving it up to the church to make sure you are trained but taking responsibility and being accountable for your own growth and walk with Christ. So that you are effective in the areas you lead, which will ultimately make a difference for those that you are serving and for sharing the gospel. Which means being effective for the Kingdom. Being active with our faith.
I am also passionate about believers spending ample time in the Word as they seek to walk closely with God and lead in this by example. I love to encourage others to seek God out in the Word. I think it is fundamental. You can’t know who you are if you don’t know God and how much He loves you and the plans and purposes He has for your life.
As I mentioned earlier the choice my husband and I made to follow Jesus has made eternal changes within the course of our family. My husband and I are the first Christ followers in both of our families. This has altered our genealogy forever. We have had the blessing of raising our children in a Christian home covered in prayer and grace. We have homeschooled all 3 children. I am still homeschooling my 3rd child who has 2 more years of school left. Our other 2 children actively serve and lead in ministries in their Universities and their Churches. They have the same passion that’s within us to follow Christ, to love God and Others.
This Scholarship is so important to my ministry dream because it enables me to continue to run with my passion and calling but in a way that is effective to those God places in my path. I recently had been feeling like more training was needed for the areas I have been going into as I have taken on more pastoral responsibilities. But I thought maybe my time for that had passed that it would not be an option for me to do that now. I have been actively looking for ways to get training and had not found any until I discovered CLI. CLI has made it possible for me to continue to learn and grow as a Christ follower and leader in my community and still be able to be a wife and mom. To be able to still homeschool and serve within my church. And to not go into an exhaustive amount of debt that would strain my family. And that I think is so exciting. It has opened up some amazing possibilities for me. Every good and perfect gift comes from above.
I could use prayer that God would continue to give me strength and courage to stay the path. To continue to have endless amounts of energy and compassion for my community and the people God places on my path and to never grow weary of what He has called me to do.