Seeking Ordination For Ministry
Brent is seeking ordination for ministry at Christian Institutestititue. Seeking ordination at CLI means that you get your training at CLI and your local leaders sign off on your local ordination.
Who are the Leaders that are seeking ordination for ministry at CLI?
My name is Brent Wilmarth, I am 39, a husband and father of 3 and 1 stepson. I live in the Denver/Aurora area of Colorado and currently studying both Divinity and Animal Sciences, with a hope to support my church and help the local community with the knowledge I am gaining through Christian Leaders Institute and working on Ordination.
I grew up in two households both physically and spiritually, during a time when divorce was seen as “taboo” and hardly talked about. In my Mother’s household, we were raised with the freedom to view religion on our own and develop our own desire to seek out the Lord. We attended a Methodist Church in New Hampshire that was more traditional and non-denominational than anything, very relaxed for a community of less than a thousand residents and a congregation of about 100 in a small town New England church. In my Dad’s house it was slightly different, he was more of a non-believer and my stepmother was a Catholic. So Sunday’s were interesting in that household, as well as Wednesday Mass.
I lost my faith through the years along the path of life, mostly after I had joined the military in 1999. It just felt easier to lead my life as I saw fit, instead of allowing the good Lord to lead me as He is meant to. I had seen faith as a luxury that I had no time for, and that God would not listen to a sinner such as myself. My life spiraled out of control quickly, and mostly without me even noticing. It wasn’t until I was reconnected with an old friend I had known growing up many year before that my faith began to be rekindled, and it happened in the most obscure of locations and timelines in my life.
I was deployed overseas, in a country I was certain God had forgotten. One day I was tasked with supervising a detail to clean out an old tent and to take it down, another in a long line of thankless jobs I saw that was meant to just keep me out of the way. During this detail one Soldier approached me with a chain asking if it was mine, not paying attention to it I said no and asked the others if it belonged to any of them, again no one claimed it. I took a closer look at the chain and noticed it to be a a thick-chained rosary, an item not widely seen in that part of the country, and no one remotely close to us claiming it. So I stuck it in my pocket and continued with the task at hand. Late that afternoon (morning here in the U.S.) I had received a random email from an old acquaintance, someone I had not spoken with in almost 10 years. It was the girl I had loved as a young teenager, but was far too shy to ever talk to. I spent the next few months conversing with her about life and looking forward to coming home, I even told her of the rosary that was found on the same day that we started talking again (it now hangs in our house from a cross).
We wasted very little time in reconnecting, we saw life as too precious and time too short as we had already wasted most of our younger years being apart. We were engaged within months of my return, and were recently married. Through our trials and tribulations of life together, we have grown together emotionally as well as spiritually. Our faith in each other is eclipsed only by our love for God, and that is a love we hope to share with our community. I truly believe in the words “I once was lost, but now I am found”, and the Lord was the one who lit the way. I have given my life to Him to do as He wills, and hope that I can help others to see His love.
Ministering to Young Women
Ministering to young women is needed now more than ever! Who will do this mission? Kristin Perry is called to do this. Read her story and sign up for free ministry training.
My name is Kristin Perry and I live in the United States. I was born in 1993 to two loving parents. My mom and dad were Christians, but due to time restraints and the struggle of raising a family on a single income, we never attended church regularly. Growing up I was sheltered and was told what was right and what was wrong.
As I began getting older, I also began to rebel against my parents. I ended up pregnant at the age of 16. Luckily, my mother helped me raise my disabled son. Being naive, I continued to go down the same rebellious path, seeking worldly desires. I was on a path to destruction. This is when I began to see God working in my life.
I was in a really bad car accident and I saw the Lord telling me to get my life right. I had a son with autism who needed me. When I turned to God and turned my back on the harmful temptations of the world, my son started to heal and my life got significantly better. It was like I was seeing the world through another set of eyes.
His grace and mercy began shining on my life. It took a couple of years of me wandering off my path before I really understood what He wanted to do with my life. He showed me in many ways that He wants me to minister to young women and use my life as a testimony. I feel that He wants me to show women that they are so precious in His eyes and that they’re worth so much more than what they think.
My mission is to show women through God’s Word that as long as we follow Him, He will give us all the love we need. I’m both happy and blessed that I found Christian Leaders Institute. They’re equipping me with the knowledge I need to minister to these women in need. I hope to graduate through CLI and start a women’s ministry very soon. I want God’s light to shine through! Thank you Christian Leaders Institute for providing the resources us disciples need at no cost! You have truly been a blessing in my life, and I hope I can spread that blessing to others!
City of Chicago Ministry Training
There is a City of Chicago Ministry Training option available to those called into ministry. This option is free and effective in reaching people for the gospel.
Read this story!
My name is Samuel L Sprewer II, a 35 year father of five and engaged to a wonderful woman, residing in Chicago but originally from Milwaukee. The city of Chicago is truly suffering right now from the violence that plagues the city daily and is in dire need of a spiritually reawakening and a fresh wind from the Holy Spirit.
My spiritual journey began when I was very young when my grandmother use to take me church. I grew up in a baptist church where I was introduced to some foundation teaching but never really having the understanding of what salvation was or the work that Christ did on the cross. I can recall around when I was thirteen years old that my pastor approached me and told me I think it’s about time you become a member of the church. So I joined the church and was baptized. This was just the beginning of my spiritually journey and I just didn’t know it. It wasn’t until I was twenty years old and I attended a bible study with my brother that I truly felt the presence of God. It was at this time that God spoke to me and instructed me to leave the church I had been attending and begin attending my brother’s church.
It was there that I received the spiritual foundation that I had been lacking. In the year of 2002 I received the call from God to preach the gospel. My first sermon was “What Profited a Man to Gain the Whole and Lose his Soul.” Overly zealous and still young in my calling, I wanted to be the “popular preacher” that everyone received. But that was the plan God had for me. The word that God put in my mouth was the word that challenged a person where they were at with their walk with God. I then went on to get ordained as an Elder. I’ve held the positions of Youth Pastor, Assistant Pastor, and Co-Pastor. I soon found myself falling away from the faith because I had no real relationship with God anymore. I got divorced in 2014 and found myself spiraling out of control.
Although I keep God in the back of my mind, the only thing that mattered now was appeasing my flesh and fulfilling my lustful desires. Just recently, I fell under the mighty hand of God where I found myself at death’s door. I had a sever asthma attack and found myself under heavy sedation and on a breathing machine with my life hanging in the balance. No one knew whether or not if I was going to live or die. But the people constantly prayed for me. It was on a Monday, and my breathing tube became clogged, I woke up out of my sedation because I could not breath. Had the doctors waited until Tuesday when the tube was suppose to come out, I don’t believe I’ll be here today. I ended up extubating myself. While in the hospital God spoke to me and said, ” If you continue down the path you are on you’re going to die.” It was at this moment that I choose life and rededicated myself back to God.
My ministry dream is to have a nation wide revival, calling those that are lost and those who left God to turn back to Him. This nation that I currently stay in, the United States of America, is a godless nation with no reverence for a holy God and every damnable thing is accepted as right. I believe God called me to be an end time prophet to warn the people of the impeding doom that the nation is facing if they don’t turn their faces back to God.
A scholarship at CLI will help me in pursuit to have a rooted foundation so I can as it is stated in II Timothy 2:15- Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.