Video Transcript: History of Christian Leaders

History of Christian Leaders

I'm Henry Reyenga, president of Christian Leaders Ministries. So, the history. On September 11, 2001, I was in Manhattan, New York, on an assignment for the Bible League. That day, the World Trade Center was attacked. While in Manhattan, New York, seeing the buildings burn and the loss of human life, the Lord laid on my heart that we need more pastors, more ministers. So, Christian Leaders Ministries was born. Actually, the first name - and we still use this name - is Christian Leaders was born.

In 2006, Christian Leaders Institute was added - a place where ministers could get free high-quality ministry training. And as classes were added in 2014, the institute added a degree program where you could get a college degree (an associate's or a bachelor's degree). Also, in 2014, the Christian Leaders Alliance was added, where people could get minister credentials of ordination and then, a few years later, licensing. And now commended minister status. 

The commended minister status is for those who are not interested in being ordained or licensed but are called to do specific ministry in their local churches or communities. Then in 2019, Christian Leaders College was added. Christian Leaders College sought to provide accredited programs. So, we applied for accreditation with the ABHE, which accredits the U.S. Department of Education accreditation for colleges. We're excited to report that our application has been received, and we are on the road, we believe, to full accreditation in the future.

But right now, many graduate programs already will take our Christian Leaders College bachelor's graduates. Like, Ohio Christian University or Calvin Seminary or Western Seminary or Northern Baptist, or the Kairos Project, including a seminary called Sioux Falls Seminary. We're also excited to report that our graduates have done very well with full-time ministry opportunities. 

So, the history. We want to be part of your future. So, when you look back at your history of how you became a confident and competent and incredible Christian Leader, we want to be mentioned someday that, "Yeah. And then, I enrolled at Christian Leaders Institute and found out about the free classes. And I found out about the programs at the Alliance or at the College." We want to be part of your history. But most importantly, we want to be a part of the history of the church, reaching more people, proclaiming Christ, raising up more Christian leaders, you being one of them.