My name is Kurnelius Hansda, and I live in Katihar, Bihar, INDIA. I was born into a Christian family. I came to know the Lord through my family, school and church when I was about 8 years old. I attended church services religiously and finally accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior in 1993. After completing a college education in science, I joined the Child Development Ministry. After completing various Bible Correspondence courses, I came to know about Christian Leaders Institute. Here I learned more about leadership, calling, mentoring, seven connections, daily spiritual habits and basic Bible doctrine. This course has completely changed my thinking and concepts about leadership. Really, the CLI courses have proved very beneficial for me for today’s ministry demands.
My future dream is to train and mentor future leaders in our community through a mentor center, hub. Kindly pray for me and for my future ministry.
Thank you CLI.
My name is Philip Pirtle, and I am a middle aged professional in northwest Houston, TX. My beautiful wife and two wonderful daughters are the light of my life. We feel wonderfully blessed to live in a place where we can freely study the Word of God and worship openly and freely.
My walk with God has been a long and varied journey, beginning with my parents, who were devoted, faithful Christians. My parents raised me not only ‘in the church’, but in the light of their lives, truly lived in the spirit of scripture, giving me a strong foundation to build my faith on. Unfortunately, in my youthful immaturity, I had very little real understanding of what I thought I ‘knew’.
During my years in college and educational endeavors, I drifted from the church and from faith. While at some level, I believed in God, I had very little relationship with Him. For almost 20 years, I did not attend church or spend time in prayer or in developing a relationship with Him.
Even after I was married in my early 30’s, my wife and I did not attend church regularly, nor spend much time in relationship with God. We had our first child, and made sure she went to daycare at a Church affiliated center, but even then did not attend church.
Our second daughter arrived at a time when we had moved to a new town, and in our search for a place for our children to attend preschool, my wife found a school attached to a local church. She enrolled them there. We decided that, if our children were to attend school there, we should at least attend services there to get to know the people and the theology of the church and it’s leaders.
The pastor of that church is a very knowledgable, brilliant man, with an incredible gift for sharing the word in an inspiring and understandable way. I began to understand many of the things I had heard as a youth in a new and uplifting way. I came to understand that attendance at church once a week and saying a blessing by rote prior to meals was not what constituted a real relationship with God, and began to grow in my faith and love for the Lord.
After a few months, my wife informed me one evening that she had signed us up for the praise team at the church. My response was, “what’s a praise team?” Having been raised in a small town Presbyterian church in North Texas, I had never heard any music in a church but traditional hymns. The contemporary Christian music I heard and sang there was like nothing I had ever heard before. It lit my soul on fire, and brought me to great heights. I often tell people that my wife brought me back to church, our pastor brought me back to God, but the music brought me back to joy.
Music has always played a large role in my life. I sang in choir in school, played in the band, and learned to play guitar (though not well) at a fairly young age. I was a singer for a rock and roll band for a while in younger days, and would strum the guitar from time to time, though not with much intensity. Once I heard the message in the music of praise, I was awakened to a new joy I hadn’t felt before. I sang with the praise team with delight, and began to play guitar frequently. I took lessons so that I could play more skillfully in praise of our Lord (as we are instructed to do in the Psalms). I began to play with the praise band in our church, then to play for the children at Sunday school, then to play with and lead the Youth band in their worship. A band was needed for a men’s retreat a few years ago, and I recruited some fellow musicians and started a band for the weekend. We now play yearly at the men’s retreat and several times through the year at other church functions or at worship. I still play guitar with the worship band as well, which is composed primarily of professional musicians. I work with the youth band as well, and sometimes play and sing by myself leading worship.
My wife and I lead a small group in our home, and she is now the director of adult discipleship at the church. She has completed several courses at a seminary, receiving a post graduate certificate of Christian studies.
The opportunity to study at the Christian Leaders Institute is an incredible opportunity for me to expand my knowledge and understanding of God, scripture, and faith, so that my worship of God and leading others in worship can be more effective in bringing the message of His love to others.
I am BOLUTIFE Adeoluwa Kehinde (formerly OGUNDEYI Adeoluwa Kehinde). I was born on the 31st of March, 1981, in the city of Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, South Western Nigeria in the great continent of Africa. I am the last born in a family of 9. I have six siblings who are all married. I am single. I hold a B. Tech. in Computer Science from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, south western part of Nigeria. I began my walk with Christ around the age of 16, after a saving encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ during one of our weekly Bible studies at Deeper Life Bible Church. Thereafter I was baptized in water by immersion and immediately enrolled for follow-up classes-a training class for new converts. And since then, I have been following and growing in the faith of the Son of God.
After my conversion experience, I suddenly discovered a strange passion within me to get all men saved! I often questioned myself, “Why should anybody be lost when Christ had died?” I also had an unusual passion to see the sick get healed, and miracles take place, whenever I came across people in such needs. As I grew in faith I discovered that God had called me to be an evangelist. So right from my high school days on, I have been involved in preaching the gospel, especially in villages where the people are mostly idolaters. Although the part of the country where I live has much of the gospel presence as a result of missionary labour and church revival, many villages are still neck-deep in idolatrous practices. My ministry dream is to proclaim the gospel in places where it is needed, to gather souls into the Kingdom of Christ with great signs and wonders. I want God to use me as He used Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke and Pastor W.F Kumuyi, in the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.
After my first degree, I signed up for the work of the gospel as I was convinced God would have me do. So I wrote a letter to my church for acceptance into full time ministry, but the leadership said there was no money for my financial support. But I told them that it is primarily not for money, but the fulfillment of the call of God on my life. Some family members and friends saw my decision as a strange one and tried to talk me out of it. However, a few friends and family members believed in me and promised to support me in their little way. So I have been involved in gospel works, doing the work of an evangelist both by personal involvement and in partnership with the body of Christ, to take the gospel to the villages. I also do this through Christian publications. And I hope one day I will take the gospel to the nations of the world, like Reinhard Bonnke, especially in nations where the gospel is presently being resisted.
My passion to obtain Christian training beyond church training has led me to apply for foreign Christian scholarship since I left the university. But all of my efforts have proved abortive! But now I thank my Lord Jesus for bringing me across CLI in my search for ministry training! What a wonderful experience going through the Christian Leaders Basics Certificate at no cost! May the Lord Bless this institution for this great offer! It is not common!
By the grace of God I believe this ministry training will be instrumental in making me an effective minister of Christ and an agent of revival in the Body of Christ and the world at large. The training will also help me in training others for the work of the ministry. Having a scholarship at Christian Leaders Institute will afford me the great privilege of having sound ministry training under seasoned Christian leaders at no cost! This I believe will transform me into an effective and more productive minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the face of growing philosophical arguments against the Bible. Do pray for me that God will continually fill me with His Holy Spirit and raise sponsors for me to spread the gospel.