Philippines Bi-vocational Education
Join today and receive free training for Philippines bi-vocational education. 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 free Philippines bi-vocational education to answer his call from God.
My name is Antonio Manaytay and I am from Ipil, Philippines where I do ministry and make home with my wife and children.
The town where I live and do ministry is one of the places in Southern Philippines considered by the government security officials as a “place of concern” where kidnappings, extortions, and piracy of the sea by Islamic extremists are rampant. It has a long history of conflict between Christians and Muslims in the past, the most recent of which was in 1995 when it was razed to the ground and ransacked by suspected Abu Sayyaf group leaving more than 50 policemen and civilians dead, and the town commercial district including several banks razed to the ground.
Doing ministry as a pastor of a Christian church in one of Ipil’s predominantly Muslim village is challenging: Fulfilling the mandate to preach the Gospel to all nations and reaching out to other beliefs in an atmosphere of respect and love is like walking on a rope. The small congregation I and my wife shepherded for the last eight years is a testimony to the amazing work of the Lord in my life and that of my family – my wife has been an able partner in this ministry entrusted by God to us, and my children who supported us on this journey. One of my sons has become a pastor after he finished his Ministerial Studies and is now the associate pastor of the church.
My Personal Journey, And Call To The Ministry:
My personal journey and the eventual call to the ministry was not without bumps and detours.
When I finished my high school studies at the local school run by Jesuits in our town, I was about to enter the seminary to become a Claretian missionary but the plan did not materialize. I ended up taking a science course in Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Philippines where I met my wife. After college, we decided to get married in 1990, which union is blessed with four boys and a girl.
The life-changing decision to commit myself to a loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, after series of Bible studies and guidance by an evangelical pastor, culminated when I was baptized by water on January 17, 1992. That decision, however, was not without its share of trials.
Testing came and I was lost from the way of the Lord. For almost 10 years, that is 2000 until 2009, I was at the darkest hours of my faith. It was the darkest period of my life spending most of it in the valley.
The Lord Is True To His Word
The Lord nevertheless is true to His word, praise Him forever: “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day.” John 6: 39 (NKJV). I was restored by the Lord after years of journey in the wilderness in the most amazing way.
The moment of restoration came to me and the whole household when my wife gave birth to our fifth child, a girl, on the evening of July 31, 2009. God used the circumstances surrounding the birth of the child as a moment for me to decide whom I will finally serve. By His grace, I was able to choose Life over Death on that evening. It was sweet and sheer bliss to have my Lord found me again.
The following year, 2010, was when the Lord called me into ministry through a vision. I refused at first because I do not deserve to be His servant but at the end I gave in to His call to “Rise, Go, and Preach.” In the same year, the church was established where my heart resonates with the tasks of a pastor, evangelist, and church planter.
The Lord Uses CLI
The Lord equipped me where I was weak – the lack of formal training in the ministry. I tried to connect with several online institutions for alternative education and training in the ministry. And I am thankful of those which the Lord had used to equip me. CLI has provided Philippines bi-vocational education.
But the longing for deeper and quality studies never left me. I do not have the luxury of time to enroll in a formal seminary for lack of time as a bi-vocational pastor. So I continue to pray and search until God led me to the door of Christian Leaders Institute.
The lessons I learned in CLI are very relevant and a blessing to me. With CLI and the Philippines bi-vocational education, I am able to find the compass of the ministry. It helped to strengthen my walk with God more than anything else as it opens to me, at the same time, the opportunity to earn a degree and accreditation which I am in want of present
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Pastoral Training
Join today and receive free training for Pastoral 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 free training for pastoral ministry to answer his call from God.
Hi, Fellow Brothers and Sisters. Jesus Loves you and we love you too. I am Carlos Perez from Belize and I currently live in Belize City. Ministry work is very pleasing and can be challenging as there is a great need in this Third World Lesser Developed Country and a lack of resources. I am the Youth Pastor at a local Church Ministry in the little village of Duck Run III of the Spanish Lookout Mennonite Community. We are “Faro A las Naciones” or Lighthouse Ministry.
I had my encounter with our Lord God when I was a grown Man who was taught that I knew everything and needed no one, even God. I was successful in business greatly because I would lie about everything and steal opportunities from fellow businesses. There came the moment when the lies caught up with me and I was on the verge of facing Jail time. When no one came to help me, not even my family members, I felt the cold and harsh reality of the world and realized how cold I was myself. I lost it all, and the one person who came to my rescue was my wife who was a devoted Christian.
She did not help me in any financial way at first or gave me anything at all to comfort me. She left me to struggle through the odds. All she did was lead me to have a relationship with God. I accepted under pretense and things seemed to get a little better for me. My wife was a Physical Therapist and did very well. She prayed for me every day and all the time. But, I was not in it with all my heart. I continued to lie and eventually and slowly started to make adjustments and started reading the Bible. It would make me so sad to see her struggling to take care of the household and everything else.
I loved her so much and through it all, I still treated her bad by not showing my appreciation. Slowly, I found the courage to embrace a relationship with God and changed my life. She would then tell me that everything would be “all right” and that this was just a test. I drew close to God and started to lead the Youth service at the church. Our relationship started to flourish and I reconciled and was anointed as the Youth Pastor by our General Pastor of the Ministry. That made my wife so happy and she even joined me and we became co-youth pastors.
Five weeks after things were looking up in all areas of our lives, even the business was back on track, my wife was in a traffic accident and lost her life. This was the last thing I ever expected!!! I felt my own life was not worth it anymore. In my pain and grief, I had an encounter with our Father God. It was the moment when I felt that I could not continue, but he comforted me in bringing my family together. The entire family felt a deep loss and were all touched by her. God has since blessed by life and at times I am afraid to ask him for anything else.
I thank him for the time he shared Rubi with me and the kids. My dream is to continue to serve as the Youth Pastor and develop a Bible school in Duck Run III. I have learned a lot from this CLI’s pastoral training and classes so far, especially since I have never had any formal pastoral training in ministry before. It has prepared me to see the great need for proper training and mentoring. The class has also given me strength and confidence to take on our youth service with a much more prudent approach.
The word that I associate with more is Pastor because it is the title that is given to those who serve in the ministry as Christian Leaders for the congregation or part of the congregation.
One of the key challenges in our area is dealing with the culture and traditions that all lead and depend on wizardry and witchcraft. The other challenge is the poverty and lack of resources. Since we lost Rubi, we have banded closer together as a youth group and taken on the Title “Rubi’s Squad”. The parents are slowly breaking their traditional phobias and are coming out to support our youths. Once a month we bring all the parents to the youth service and we do dramas and dances. The youths bring the parts of the service and also prepare food and snacks.
Our local church has supported me tremendously by first of all giving me the opportunity to serve and to encourage and support me through a very difficult time in my life. My family enjoys being a part of the ministry and are active members. The kids are the leaders in music, drama and dance and prayer. This year for the first time we are participants in the annual Festival of Hope that takes place on the 20, 21 and 22nd of July 2017.
A scholarship is important to me at CLI because it will allow me to achieve my goal of constructing a bible school via myself receiving the necessary education and pastoral training. Also because I am financially committed to paying college for three of our four children at the moment.
I welcome all the prayers from the CLI ministry for us here at the Lighthouse Ministry Belize. We are trusting in God for the kindness of a building which will become our future Bible School and the first of its kind in Duck Run III. There is a great need for prayers of healing for the citizens here as they have limited access to medical services. The norm is bush medicine as the hospital is far away and two, they can’t afford it. Finally, we have much need for the spiritual shield of all the citizens, and especially for our Spiritual Leaders.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for this great privilege and offer of getting an education in Ministry online via CLI. I know that my wife would have been on this journey together with me. She perished this 9th March 2017 and I honor her Life by making good on the journey to certification by your Institution.
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Training for Women’s Ministry
Join today and receive free training for Women’s 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 free training for women’s ministry to answer his call from God.
Hello! My name is Eva McCammon. I’m 21 years of age and have been married for almost 3 years. I’m currently a stay at home wife and serve my husband and 3 cats (Yes, they do require serving. If you have a cat you know what I’m talking about.) until The LORD blesses us with children. I reside in the United States.
I personally see ministry in the United States at a blessing and a curse. A blessing because our country has the freedoms and privileges to be able to worship and practice our faith free from government persecution. We can share the Gospel publicly and win souls to Christ because of our rights as Americans. The curse is while the government cannot legally restrict our abilities to minister to others, the consensus within government affiliates leaves Christians unable to live by their moral convictions laid out in Scripture and can discourage Christians in America from sharing the basic Gospel message. Of course, the positive attributes outweigh the negative by a great amount, but the negatives although small have created many quiet Christians within the United States.
I was brought up in Christ as a Roman Catholic who became very devout in my ministry work within the Catholic Church around my adolescent years. I trained Altar Servers, taught Catechism and Religious Education to middle school aged children as well as assisted in Confirmation classes years I and II. While I knew modern Catholic doctrine, I wasn’t shown actual biblical doctrine within its context until early adulthood. After attending a non-denominational “verse by verse, chapter by chapter” church for a month or two, I was given a New King James Version of the Bible. It was very difficult for me to read bible passages and understand them, or even find my way through the books of the bible, not knowing if some books were in the Old or New Testaments. I spent most of my young married life (that first year) independently studying the Bible to broaden my knowledge of Biblical Christianity and general biblical knowledge to not only educate myself but to educate the people around me who, like me, did not get the biblical education in their upbringing.
I hope to acquire the knowledge and the set of skills needed to strengthen my walk with Christ so I can then accomplish my goals of working in Women’s Ministry and understanding more in-depth biblical insight and context from Genesis to Revelation. I would also like to utilize the Catholic Theology I do have and minister to current or past Catholics who want to learn more biblical knowledge, and even minister to non-Catholics who have questions about the Catholic faith to better understand church teachings, beliefs, and help them develop insight into Catholic doctrine in light of biblical teaching. I hope CLI will provide me with training for Women’s Ministry.
This class gave me a lot of vital tools I can use within my personal life and walk with Christ to better improve my devotional life and well as strengthening the relationships I have on this earth with my spouse, friends, and the other connections. Now that I have the steps I can take to better strengthen those relationships, it makes the drive to acquire the education that much more achievable.
CLI will allow me to gain the education to become a Small Group Leader within the community of Women. I have always had a drive for Women’s Ministry in helping it get back to the basic Titus 2 principles that are at the core of all Godly women. I also have a passion for educating the people like myself that didn’t get the biblical doctrines taught in their upbringing and may also be struggling with the tough transition of coming out of Catholicism. I am so thankful that CLI offers training for women’s ministry.
As I was still trying to gain knowledge and learn more in the ways of biblical doctrine, I met a lot of individuals who were still struggling in trying to read and understand the Bible like myself. This made my heart hurt because although I wanted to be able to educate them and give them that liberated freedom that the Gospel bestows upon you, I was also still trying to wrap my head around simple concepts such as salvation or even still struggling through worship services because it was nothing like I was used to or comfortable with. I spent those first two years saying, “It can’t be this easy!” because I was so accustomed to having to attend Holy Days of Obligation or attending Confession to maintain what Catholics consider to be the State of Grace. Not being in the State of Grace due to mortal sins (missing Mass willingly or committing murder) damns you to hell regardless of your belief in Christ. Growing up Catholic this is what you’re taught regarding salvation, and it’s a hard mindset to break. The small assumption that you know your salvation is assured is a sin.
Currently, I reside on a military base in South Carolina, but like anything military related it’s always subject to change. The biggest struggle, therefore, is the transient tendencies not only within our base but within ourselves in having to move after a duration of time. This can make getting rooted into a church or starting small groups within the Christian community extremely difficult.
Because I never really knew biblical doctrine, to begin with, diving in and connecting with Scripture changed my outlook on every aspect of my life. From as major as the concept of salvation to as minor is how women and wives are supposed to conduct themselves. My local church has been supporting me in encouraging me in my training and praying for whatsoever God’s wish is for me to utilize this training in being fulfilled. I’m forever so thankful that my husband and my Mentor being so supportive of my goals and dreams to complete my training for women’s ministry. I am also thankful for their biblical knowledge that has helped me along this journey.
The one thing I wanted to be sure of regarding my education is to make certain to lessen the financial burden on my husband. In my search for a biblical education, I never thought I’d find something not only free but will also allow me to get my quality degree for such an affordable price that doesn’t put our family in financial strain. This scholarship allowed me to do just that, and I’m forever grateful. All I ask is to pray that God’s will be done in how He wants to use me in utilizing this ministry training, regardless of my will.
Check out more stories about CLI students becoming leaders in women’s ministry and much more on the CLI Facebook page