My name is Crystal Anlage. I currently reside in the United States, where we are free to worship in any manner we choose. For that, I am forever grateful! I can openly share my faith, share the word of God, and bring others to faith, by sharing my story, and sharing God’s love.
As a small child, I was taken to church by my grandmother, but in my teen years, after some terrible experiences in my life, turned away from God. I stopped going to church, reading my bible, even doubted everything I had ever learned. I lived that way, denying God, for about 16 years. After the loss of my father to cancer, I was in a very bad place emotionally and spiritually. I can look back now, and see that even then, God was stirring something inside me, shaping my life. This year, I had an experience I can only describe as divine intervention. I was at a very low point in my life. While I had a good marriage, it wasn’t “great”. My husband and I, like most couples, got into an argument over money. It wasn’t major, and we resolved it before he went to bed. I stayed up, needing some time to myself. I felt the immediate need to pray, which was something I had not done in over 15 years. In that moment, I felt something happen inside me, something changed. I felt a presence around me, I felt warm. Once I started praying, it was like someone flipped a switch, pulled a plug. I let every hurt feeling, emotion, thought just came flooding out of me, and I wept uncontrollably. I prayed for what seemed like forever. When I finished, I felt somehow changed, different. I felt at peace, I felt totally calm. I called my brother, who is a pastor, and asked him what had happened to me. He told me that God heard my prayers.
My dreams for ministry would be to reach out to others, just like me, who were far from God. People who feel like they aren’t good enough, they are too damaged, too unloved. I know how it feels to have that kind of shame. The outcasts, the tattooed, young, old, criminals. I am not scared or ashamed to share the love and grace of God with ANYONE, near or far.
I think I identify more with the word Evangelist. It means a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching, preacher, missionary, gospeler, proselytizer, crusader. I want my life to be able to encourage others that it is never too late. God is merciful and will forgive you, no matter how far you think you have fallen. It’s never too far for God.
Before my baptism in October 2014, I was asked to speak on camera about my experience. The video was shown on baptism day. I spoke about my life before Christ, and how my life had changed since I became born again. I didn’t realize the effect that sharing my story would have on other people until after that day. To hear from others that they identified with my story, they understood what I had been through, and how far I’d come. I never knew that MY story could help others. That is what fueled my drive to become involved in ministry, and I was accepted into the ministry internship at my church.
I live in a major metropolitan city, where it seems that crime and worldly living have taken over. The emphasis on Christian living has been greatly pushed aside for money chasing, drug selling and other worldly activities.
My local church is Elevate Life Church in Jacksonville, FL. They have encouraged me from day 1. They have allowed me to lead in areas at church, volunteer, and accepted me into the internship, where I have grown in faith. Without their support, I don’t know how I could do this.
My family’s role in my ministry calling has been HUGE. My husband is my biggest supporter. He encourages me to follow my heart and do what I love. He was also baptized with me, by my brother, in October, and is also growing in his faith. My brother has been named campus pastor at our new location, as we are branching out all over our city! My mother supports us both.
The scholarship is incredibly important for my ministry dreams. Without it, it wouldn’t be possible for me to follow my heart and persue my dreams. I have a crippling amount of student loan debt, and I can’t afford to apply for more student loans. It’s great to be training for ministry in Florida where I live.
Please continue to pray for me as I persue my ministry dreams. This will not be easy, as I have to juggle a full time job and home life, as well as my internship responsibilities.
Shari Kasten
MI USA
Christian Leaders Institute
I was born dead on January 21, 1974, after coming out feet first. A Christian nurse on duty ran in the hall to beg my dad, who was waiting in the hall, to pray while she attempted to resuscitate me. Twelve to fifteen minutes later my pulse started up again and I began breathing on my own.
I don’t know if this is why I loved God from my earliest days. Maybe I met Him for a moment before I came back.
I am the fourth of five children born to a Vietnam veteran and a former elementary school teacher. From a very young age I remember contemplating God, loving Him, and praying to Him. As a child I sang my best in church and practiced at home singing like Christian contemporary singers and knew that I was always singing to the Lord and if he wanted to use me more in that area, He would do it.
My favorite class in the Christian school I attended was Bible class. My teacher in grades Kindergarten through four was very good at making it exciting while going through the history of the Bible. She had us memorize many details for the tests. Grades Kindergarten – 4 were in the Lower room while grades five through nine were in the Upper room. Even though I am only forty years old, I was taught in a two-room school house, even in the freezing cold winters of small town Minnesota.
I was baptized as a baby into a Reformed denomination (and also baptized as an adult in January of 2014 for the sake of other Christians who desired it.) My two older brothers are in ministry. One of them is a senior pastor while the other is in leadership teaching seminary classes to inmates in prisons. My oldest sister is an elementary school teacher with five children, while my younger sister is a home-maker with five children. I have been primarily a home-maker for 18 years. God has blessed me with seven children and three step-children. The last two years I have been taking classes at Grand Rapids Community College and at Christian Leaders Institute.
While taking care of children and cleaning the home I listen to Christian radio – about five sermons a day. I like to have my mind busy while doing rote work. I enjoyed listening to Chuck Swindoll as a child, since my mom listened to him. I also listen to David Jeremiah, Alistair Begg, Irwin Lutzer, Tony Evans, Ravi Zacharias, Sinclair Fergusen and many more preachers while doing housework, both local pastors and pastors throughout the U.S. After more than ten years of listening to about five sermons a day from five or more different pastors, my mind has been sharpened and I am able to make (without much effort) short sermons for the children, based on Bible texts, for devotions.
It started with my own children. He or she that is faithful in little is faithful in much. This does not mean that all of my children follow the example I have set. But before God, I did my best. The people I want to minister to the most are teenagers and women. This American culture is only getting more and more difficult to stay faithful to Christ in. I want to help everyone, but especially women and teenagers with their struggles. Especially, I want to help people get up when they fall, and lead them to restoration in Jesus Christ.
I really enjoyed studying with Christian Leaders Institute. This is not the least because I found that my many years of reading Alfred Edersheim, Matthew Henry, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, Chuck Swindoll, A.W. Pink, and other non-fiction Christian books on missionaries and theology while breast-feeding babies paid off. Many of the classes at CLI came rather naturally to me because of the decision I made about twenty years ago not to waste my time. If I was going to read a book, it was going to make a difference in my life. One book that proved to be a huge turning point in my life is, “John Newton, from Disgrace to Amazing Grace” by Jonathan Aitkins copyright 2007. It is amazing. Every Christian would greatly benefit from reading it.
The reason this ordination will help me is because I need more of the prayers of God’s people and the Holy Spirit poured on me and my family as I assist them and others by His leading.
The words that I would most identify with in this ordination would be Pastor of women and teenagers, Youth Leader, or maybe Evangelist to women in prison. I think all of these are possibilities for me.
I felt God’s calling on my life since I was very young, to serve God’s people. I didn’t understand it could be valid in any way, except by being a mother. The turning point was when I read Darius Jankiewicz’s in depth biblical article on Phebe and the early churches’ blessing on some mature women to be in places of church leadership. Women must not usurp the church authority any more than a man should, of course. Deborah the prophetess was also a “mother in Israel.”
I have always wanted to teach my children everything the Lord taught me through devotions. This forced me to learn how not to be boring. Kids will not put up with boring. I read Christian literature voraciously and listen to sermons on Christian radio while I work in the home. I believe God wants me to serve His people. He wants to give me more of a ministry outreach than only my family and children.
Some of the unique challenges in this area of Grand Rapids, MI are that there are so many denominations while there is not always great love amongst each other. There is also not enough support for the large population in Grand Rapids, MI that is divorced and remarried. There is quite a bit of denominational animosity in this city. It is not the greatest soil for new converts.
My local church has supported us by giving us food and lots of it. They have prayed over me and my family and laid hands on me for prayer at prayer meetings. My wayward son was brought back to God with the help of this church.
I have the abilities to help teenagers and women. Because of the ultra- conservative church I was a member of my whole life till I was 35, when I needed support there was no one was there to help but God alone. Older women were not available. I want to be there for women and busy mothers with young children. It is the hardest job. I want to be there for insecure teenage girls and boys. I have five sons, three daughters, and two step sons, and one step-daughter. Most of them are in their teens.
If Christian Leaders Institute wasn’t here, there would be no way of someone judging my knowledge or displaying my abilities to minister to people.
Thank God for Christian Leaders Institute! They have become my spring-board into serving God with all my talents.
Pray for me and my husband, who has a doctorate in Spiritual Counselling, to be a huge blessing to the whole Church in Grand Rapids, MI. My husband counsels male divorcees, teenage guys and parent/teen relationships, while I counsel women, mothers, teenagers and children. Together we do marital counselling. Please pray that the devil doesn’t get between God, my husband, and I, in any shape or form, ever, and that God mightily blesses us to have a faithful and fruitful ministry.
About the age of 12 I came to know Christ as the one who loved me and gave himself for me. I made a commitment publicly- making the words of this hymn my own:
“Just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee
O Lamb of God I come.”
Now at the age of retirement I am both thankful and a little sorrowful that the goals I had for my Christian life have not come to pass. I have disappointed my Saviour too many times- and at times I cry out with the Psalmist “What is man that You are mindful of him?”
Of late I have cherished my times on the computer. Seeking to learn as a disciple, I have discovered many great Christian sites where sermons and pdf files can be downloaded and pondered on. It was when I was perusing the net that I came across this course from the Christian Leaders Institute where there is Bible training for any age. While it provides a sound introduction to study habits, one of the things I was challenged by the most was the leadership qualities needed by us personally. My character still needs so much more maturing- so I am looking in expectation to further studies to hone my knowledge and my appreciation of this God who humbled himself, even unto death, that I may have a hope and a future- and that I would continue to examine myself- as exhorted in the Scriptures- and as we are reminded to do in these lessons.
Let me close with another stanza of a hymn that has been an integral part of my Christian walk.
“Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
– Geoffery Watson