We have heard it said that a free Bible School must have poor quality training. Some people have profiled Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) as second rate because it is a free Bible school. The perception that a free Bible school offers poor quality training was not something Jesus or Paul thought. Jesus gave his disciples free ministry training. Paul gave Timothy and Titus free pastor training.
Free Bible school is needed!
We at Christian Leaders Institute are compelled to raise up revival leaders and lots of them. We are called to do whatever we can to bring the very best ministry training to every country on earth. Most of the earth is poor. Many on the earth are called to proclaim Christ. A free Bible school is their only option. We believe this free Bible school should be as good as or better than one that is costly.
Let us introduce you to one of our students – Hjum Bdap. She was born in Vietnam and has been living in the United States since she was 7 years old. Her father was a Christian pastor and ministered in a few churches in North Carolina until his death in 2007. Hjum now has God’s calling in her heart to be trained for ministry at Christian Leaders Institute.
Hjum is deeply grateful for the scholarship she is receiving from CLI. She writes, “Right now the only person working in my family is my husband and he encouraged me to take bible school classes. He’s supporting me and the children with just a $10 an hour salary. But God will always provide for us so we are not worried about that.” When I told her that it was a blessing that she could get a scholarship to CLI to be trained for ministry, she responded, “Amen to that!”
Hjum has already been involved in ministry. When she felt God’s hand on her to teach the Word to others, she writes, “About three years ago I started a Bible study group with my little brother and his friends in high school. They were good kids but their families were not Christian. Ever since that study they now go to the Elevation Church, are walking in Christ with me, and they are hungry for Christ. Two or three of them got baptized at that church after a year of our Bible study. We would always meet every Saturday. I’m so amazed at how awesome God works in my life and theirs. Now I want to see more of that happen for more people.”
That is the sort of students we have coming to join us here at CLI. They need a free Bible school and we want to serve these future revival leaders with excellent ministry training. Right now Hjum is taking church history in her classes. She is enjoying learning about the heroes of the Christian faith like John Wycliffe. As she puts it, “I love to see how people have helped to shape Christianity.”
I asked her, Are you able to share your discoveries with your family and the youth you are ministering to? Hjum replied, “Yeah I have.” I said, “That is wonderful!” Hjum answered, “Indeed it is, and I thank God for CLI!” Her classroom discoveries are becoming the material for her to minister with in her immediate circle of family and friends.
At Christian Leaders Institute, we are eager to help anyone like Hjum get the free Bible school they need to bring revival to their circle of influence. She began with her little brother and his high school friends. As she tells us, they are hungry for Christ. God is working in the hearts of people all around us. He is eager to have us join him in his great work of turning hearts back to God.
God wants to have a deep relationship with his people. He is calling, “Who will speak for me?”
It could be that you are called to reach your family, your little brother’s circle of friends, and your community. There are people who need to hear from God. “And how will they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14) Ministry training at CLI will enable YOU to be equipped to fulfill the calling of God in your life to be a preacher in your spheres of influence. There are spiritually hungry people all over the face of the earth. Since CLI will give you high quality free Bible school training, what are you waiting for?
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I am hearing that young people are leaving the church in large numbers. Google this one, and many have an opinion on why they are leaving. I have my opinions of why “the ship is sinking” too. Parents and pastors are very aware that we need youth revival and we need it now. How we are going to spark youth revival is a good question.
Youth Revival from Youth Leaders
Why are the youth leaving church and God?
Polling expert George Barna gives us his six latest reasons.
Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
Reason #2 – Teens’ and twenty-somethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to sci-ence.
Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.
I have been a pastor and church planter for thirty years. There are more reason I have heard beyond those mentioned by Barna.
Reason #7 – Colleges expose young people to secular ideas.
Reason #8 – Too busy working Sunday jobs.
Reason #9 – Parents are hypocritical.
Reason #10 – Christian pastors and programs are irrelevant.
Reason #11 – Christianity is no fun.
Reason #12 – Christianity is too controlling.
Many church leaders have come up with plans. I have tried many approaches too. Here are the common solutions I have either seen or tried myself.
Solution #1 – More youth programs. More youth leaders less parent involvement.
Solution #2 – Forget youth programs. More parent involvement and control. Home school.
Solution #3 – Christian education and colleges.
Solution #4 – Mission Projects. Send them to Calcutta or Haiti and help them get gratitude.
Solution #5 – More rigorous home discipleship. Memorize more Bible passages.
#Solution #6 – Liberalize the Christian message to make it accommodating to youth values. One pastor encouraged me to proclaim the gospel of the liberal God to young people who are leaving Biblical truth. I do not agree with this pastor. The God of the Bible is how is he is revealed to be.
Solution #7 – Don’t worry about it. They will be back.
Looking for reasons and the discovering of solutions makes for valuable discussion as church leaders seek to do everything possible to pass the faith on to the next generation. Many of the causes and the solutions will be controversial as we struggle with why many of our children have left the faith. So we pray that God brings the youth revival.
I am committing to do three things to help right now. I am going to pray more for youth revival and I am going to proclaim the gospel more to bring the best kind of youth revival. And I am going to seek to train every young person who wants ministry training.
I am praying for youth revival
Lord, please bring a youth revival on our earth. Bring a youth revival in America, Europe and Australia, where young people are the vibrant leaders of Christianity and bring God’s salvation to jaded and affluent counries. Inspire a youth revival in Africa, where they young people there rise up propelled by the gospel to build a continent of hope. Lord God, please inspire youth revival in Asia, in places like India and Pakistan where vibrant Christianity will be attractive to hopeless wanderers. Help the youth leaders of the world be identified and mobilized.
I am proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ for Youth Revival
Jesus is the bringer of youth revival and hope. Two weeks ago I proclaimed the gospel to Erin, a friend of my daughter, Ann.
I am noticing that others are doing the same. I am finding people like Brett Davis who are being invited to hear the gospel by young people who have a youth revival in their hearts already. His story helps me realize that God will bring youth revival. When I hear his story, I see that the young people are having an effective stage by which to proclaim Christ to their friends and family.
Brett tells his story about an “amazing girl” who dared to introduce him to Christ. He writes,
From an early age I was told about Christianity but never went to church or was really taught the bible. I fell into idol worship and was a pagan. When I was 17, I went to a technical school for computers and met an amazing girl named Danielle. She told me, “You could come to church if you wanted to, but you do not have to.” I started to go “for her”… to flirt of course, but slowly I stopped flirting and started getting distracted by what the pastor was saying, and soon I was hooked! I became born again.
I am inviting young Christian leaders to receive free ministry training for youth revival and more!
When young Christian leaders are “born again”, when the Spirit of God activates young hearts to action and calling, I want to do everything I can to deepen those passions. Brett shares his passion “to spread the gospel to everyone, for some, many just seem so dead. I want them to get excited about God, to just go crazy for him because he provides everything.”
“God has been calling me to be a youth leader I want to start a revolution of praise for God in the world of youth. I want God to work through me.” Brett is called to bring youth revival and he is putting himself out there.
Brett has received a scholarship from Christian Leaders Institute. He says, “I can learn what I never could early in life and after my training I can go help more people and be confident I am telling them the truth from the Bible.”
Brett and others are forming an army of youth revival leaders at Christian Leaders Institute. Read about Stacie from New York who is bringing revival there.
I feel strongly that the youth revival will come from a variety of solutions, but to me, it will come best from the youth themselves. These youth revival leaders are being saved and trained and mobilized to reach their generation for Christ.
Christian Renewal – Our past does not define who we are in Christ. Only our present and our future in Jesus define our lives today. This is what Christian renewal is all about!
Christi, a student at CLI, found herself in a very difficult situation because of the path she had chosen in her life. As she says, “I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I didn’t want to be bad, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. And while I sat in someone else’s car about to steal it….I cried and begged him to pull me out of this. This was not who he created me to be. I begged him to take my pain. I wanted him to take my life. But he wouldn’t. All my life, I have begged him to take my pain. I thought the only answer was death.”
Now Christi knows that she has died to sin and is alive in Christ Jesus. She knows that her Christian renewal has changed her life. She writes, “As women we are so distracted by society, we do not want to walk with God to know the truth about our heart’s desires. God has given us this desire to want a marriage union, but we (for the most part) don’t understand how to do it correctly because we’re distracted from God’s word.” She is now studying God’s Word at Christian Leaders Institute in training to be a woman of God who can bring Christian renewal to others as she leads them to the path of truth.
Too often, the enemy will use our past to haunt us and make us believe that God does not want us to be His chosen instruments of truth in our society. Our hearts are filled with the despair of not knowing how to get out of the terrible situation in which we find ourselves. The enemy (Satan) taunts us with the idea that the only way out is to die. Christi found the real truth, however, when she picked up a Bible to read why it was that God did not end her life. There she discovered that the enemy had been feeding her lies to convince her that her past defined her future.
Christian Renewal Through the Word of God
God’s Word set her free from those lies. She now is learning more and more about this God who saved her in Jesus. Why? So that she in turn can bring the freedom of the Truth of God to others in the bondage of failed and destructive relationships. Christi is being raised up by God to be a revival leader in her family, among her friends, and even to people she meets on the streets of her Kansas home town. She is bringing Christian renewal everywhere.
Christi is thankful that God has prepared a place like CLI where people can be trained to be revival leaders. She writes, “Thank you Henry!! I am beyond blown away of the compassion you and your colleagues have shown by putting this school together. You have enabled God to reach his children who have him in our hearts to carry on his perfect will for us and to speak to many others whom God puts in our path.” Give thanks to God with us that He has saved Christi from her destructive path and given her a new life in his Son Jesus. To Him be the glory!