Video Transcript: Renew, Restore and Revive

I don't know your story. But I know that you are here for a reason. Maybe in your  background, you're one who knew the Lord early in life and then fell away. And now the Holy Spirit has brought you back. Maybe you have been a justice individual, someone  who has gone through hard times and made some serious mistakes. And now you're  called to study and give certificate, get this faith based education. Maybe you're called to a ministry, you are called to take that next step in being raised up as a revival leader in  your community. Maybe you're here because you're already a pastor. And as a pastor,  you need more formal training. And you checked, Christian Leaders Institute out, and  you're here to get that next step training for you. Maybe you're at Christian Leaders  Institute, because you see that we have an ordination option that is indigenous that's  right for you for your community, and you want to join over 1000 other ordained  leaders, and be on the international directory for credibility in your community. I don't  know why you're here, but I'm happy you're on this journey. And you're in this class, the  scholarship class to find out what this is all about. Today, we're gonna talk about  renewal, restoration revival. Those are the verbs at Christian Leaders Institute. Why do  we need these renewal restoration revival words? Well, it's because our first spiritual  parents, the real Adam and Eve, in Genesis, chapter three, those parents experienced a  garden where God met with them and walked with them and talked with them. Where  God gave them the choice between good and evil. There are two trees in that garden, this perfect garden, there is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. And there is the tree  of life. And the tempter came there in Genesis chapter three, we read and tempted Adam  and Eve to choose the knowledge of good and evil to, you know, have enlightenment to  be able to be like God, there's a story goes Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the  Knowledge of Good and Evil, they did not eat of the tree of life. And when they partook  of a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they brought a curse upon themselves.  Separation from God, death and eternal death. In all of creation fell that day. All creation has fallen, continues to fall. Things are broken, things continue to be broken. All we  have to do is just look at our world. Look at your life, look at my life, to know that we  need a savior. So they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve  chose to turn their backs on God they separate themselves from God and God gave them over to their choice and remove them from eating from the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve  died to God. God promised he would make all things new and bring humans back to  God's even as Adam and Eve heard about the consequences of their sin Genesis three,  you know, the promise was the serpent's head would be crushed. God promised that the  human race would be revived, restored, renewed back to God, that God would make  away. So, what does renewal mean? Now, I was thinking about renewal. You know, I  think about some of our lives, your life. What in your life, what in your community  needs renewal? Renew means to make all things new to restore freshness, vigor, or  move toward perfection. We believe a key part of renewal has a spiritual aspect, a faith  based aspect. Christian Leaders Institute a Christian, biblical based aspect. God made  this beautiful creation and yes created humans to bring creation back to a more beautiful  place. Christians are agents of renewal. We want all God's creatures cared for in their 

physical and spiritual needs, as great as the fall affected all creation. So great is the  grace, that grace is in Jesus Christ. We're going to talk about the fullness of time when  Jesus appeared on this earth, that He brought new creation. But so great, then is the  grace in the power of God to make all things new. Isaiah 42 verse seven says that God  acts to open the eyes that are blind to free the captives from prison, to release from the  dungeon, those who sit in darkness. So renewal, renew, to be able to be agents of  renewal. At Christian Leaders Institute, we will give you training, advanced formal  training, college level training, so that you will be prepared to bring renewal to your  community. Restoration. Restore means to give back to return. It means to bring back  into existence. When Adam and Eve rebelled from God, they broke the connection with  God that brought life to humanity. Jesus Christ came to restore a new and lasting  connection to God, and bring us back to the Tree of Life. I Peter 5:10, says, The God of  all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little  while, will himself restore you, and make you strong, firm and steadfast. Jesus Christ,  the power of the Holy Spirit will restore you. Now some of you say, my life is a  complete mess. But you're here, because there's a seed. There's a calling in this class,  we're gonna talk about calling. There's a reason you're here, you are going to bring  restoration. Now part of ministry, learning to serve. calling to serve is to restore things in your personal life. So that's my challenge for you this week, is make a list of the  relationships, you may need to restore where you where you may need to send a letter  where you may need to make a phone call. If throughout this training, you're going to  learn how to bring peace, to all your relationships, in Peacesmart training, you're going  to learn people's smart training in some of the classes. If you get this scholarship, you're  going to learn skills for bringing restoration back to your community. So restore and  revive. I just love that word revive. To me, the word revive is that is so spiritual, so to  the heart. So to your life breath, who you are with God. It's the dead, being raised. It's  the power of the resurrection, that we too, are made alive again. We're reviving breathe  again. Revival is a spiritual reconnecting with God in a pronounced way. Recall that new creation. Individual revival is the restoring of a personal person's spiritual life. Corporate revival in your community, is when groups together experience individual revival to  God. So just get this we have groups and individuals in them. Those groups are alive and to God in shared reproduce in their families, to their neighbors. After a time of  Pentecost, this type of revival is very evangelistic in the Holy Spirit is poured out  powerfully. So at the time of Pentecost, and after Pentecost, we just saw revival back to  God sweep the earth and thus began the early church. So historically, I love that word  revival. I'm just gonna drill down in revival now and show you based upon scripture,  what God has done throughout history to bring revival. There were revival leaders like  Enoch. In Genesis we read a very early here is a person when others were starting to fall  away from God. Enoch walked with God, so closely, his heart was so revived, that he  even did not experience death. He just walked right to heaven. You can read that story,  or Noah, it says that Noah preached righteousness. When you listen, he was a preacher  of righteousness, in Hebrews 11 we hear about that, God, restarted humanity through 

Noah and revived faith on the earth. So you know, actually, that was not in Hebrews that was in II Peter, here. Noah is a preacher of righteousness. They don't like about Noah  here, too, is that Noah is just a a carpenter who builds a boat. In his family. He's the first  really interesting example of a bi-vocational spiritual leader, Noah. And then there's  Abraham, after the flood, civilization was leaving God again. Abraham walked with God and revival was brought back to the earth and a new nation was formed. And here we  have a guy named Abraham, who was called out of, or the Chaldeans of Samaritan  culture. And he is brought to Palestine to Israel. And he's the father of this nation. And  here to another Bible case, a leader, who's a community leader. He's a nation, forum  leader, he formed a nation. There's Moses who wants to deal with Moses. Moses was a  criminal. He had murdered in Egyptian. He was on the run. He was on the run for over  40 years. So at the age of 80, a man who did not want to show his face to Egypt where  he was raised in Pharaoh's court. God shows Himself to Moses, one of the most unlikely revival leaders ever to be born. In God, grants him forgiveness the consequences of what happened there were profound, but the opportunities of what was going to happen were  beyond profound for Moses, they would be profound for the entire people of Israel as  Moses comes back, and leads the people out of captivity, into the promised land. So  powerful. Then there's David, he's a king. And David is a revival leader, his Psalms,  Psalm 23, is still the one of the most memorized scriptures of all time. He's a man after  God's own heart. Is he a perfect person? No. Some of his sins are legendary, like the sin  with Bathsheba. Not only are there's adultery there, there's murder there. There all of  these things. And it's sometimes we say, like, whoa, God will raise up broken people like Moses, like David. Yes. And then there's a story of Daniel. Daniel, is on the whole  opposite side of the continuum. This is a good kid, who serves the Lord at the very  beginning of his life, does not waver as we read about is thrown into the lions den.  Daniel lives his life at the king's court, and does not waver from God. So what am I  saying? These revival leaders are like Enoch, who always walked with God. Noah, then  there's Abraham, and then there's Moses and he sort of bad boy. And so is David doesn't  have his life totally all together. And then there's Daniel. You know what I love. I love  all that diversity in the body of Christ. And I know this As Christ is, everyone's only  hope for the good boys and the bad boys, in their background is Christ who brings  renewal, restoration and revival. I want to talk now about Christ, about Jesus Christ. In  the fullness of time, God sends His own Son to bring humanity back to God. The  entirety of the life that Jesus lived His death, His resurrection, and ascension, brought to  the attention back to the father. So he ascends back on high is the seed for every  renewal, restoration, revival, until the world ends. After Jesus ascended into heaven, He  sent the Holy Spirit to bring revival to God, to us, not just a nation, but to all people.  And then we see the church. The early church is the revival company. This is a place  where the promises of God are sent everywhere. Jesus had trained leaders for revival  whom he called disciples. They were ordinary fishermen. I learned that God often chose  chooses unexpected, lowly leaders for a great revival. Or he brings the high low once,  God makes them low. He uses them. Jesus met Saul on route to persecuting Christians. 

On the way to Damascus, Jesus showed up Paul fell to the ground and heard a voice say  them Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? God began a new church for humans to be  revived to God. God was going to use revival leaders beginning with the disciples and  the Apostles, these revival leaders were going to be used to proclaim the gospel and  revive people's hearts back to God. So talking about what Jesus did. The essence of a  Christians understanding of faith based faith based revival is one where the renewal does not come by how good we are, by how much we have done. We are not the saviors of  the world. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. And he restores to us a connection and a relationship with the God of the universe. The Holy Spirit is poured out every person  on earth needs Jesus Christ. Traditionally, revival is a term that's used to describe the  revival of the church in a specific time or location. At Christian Leaders Institute, I will  use the word revival, about revival back to God back to the God of the Bible, the creator, the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, who died on a cross, the Holy Spirit, God, one God,  three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that a seed of religion is embedded  deeply in every human being. I believe that our goal is to raise up an army of revival,  renewal restoration leaders whose passion it is to introduce people to God, the Creator,  the Redeemer, and to keep people close to God. For those who are already Christians,  we want the spirit of revival living strongly in them. We want those Christians to lead  others to revival for those who are not Christians. We will preach the gospel and disciple them into a living relationship where their dead spirits will be revived. So here we are.  Your at Christian Leaders Institute and we're going to call this a place that reaches  people to be Bi vocational or post vocational and vocational leaders, I mean, what a  vocational leader is, is someone who maybe is going to go into ministry and out of that  ministry, they will receive a salary. Others are going to be bi vocational, that means that  they're going to have another job. And they're going to be working this job, but in their  volunteer time, they're going to impact their community to serve their community,  whether that's in planting a church, or whether that's in ministering in a women's  ministry, whether it's being a chaplain in a local community, there's so many places  where someone that can be by vocational for church planters, they might start off bi  vocational and then in time, they could become vocational. A new phenomenon I've  noticed is post vocational means they're retired or they're living on disability, they don't  have a work right now. And now what they can do is they can just give their time to  ministry. I found in studying revivals that the revival of the Reformation centered on the  shift in leadership, the existing church at that time recruited recruited church clergy,  these were only vocational leaders at that time, in a hierarchy, which usually did not  include lay leaders, that is, bi vocational leaders, the reformers, Father, the clergy, lay  separation was hurting the health of the church. So instead of the rare priests, knowing  the Bible, that is the vocational leaders, and giving leadership, everyone is included in  this calling. So the Reformation re stressed the priesthood of all believers then is a  doctrine of the Protestant Christian church. And I might say that, that teaches not just in  the Protestant church, the Catholic Church, for times, church, other ancient churches,  Episcopal have also adopted that within their thinking. But in the Reformation, it was 

the Protestant church who just really went back to the time of the St. Augustine, where  some of these doctrines were actively practice within the Catholic Church, you know, in  the fifth century, so anyway, every individual has direct access to God, without  ecclesiastical mediation. And each share the responsibility of ministering to other  members of a community of believers, essentially, the point of the Reformation was that  everyone is called to be a leader in the faith, and everyone is responsible for making a  difference in the world for Christ. The Counter Reformation, I mentioned that just before the Catholic church also stressed many of these themes. So let's talk specifically about  Christian Leaders Institute role in bringing revival renewal, restoration to all of the  Earth, Christian Leaders Institute beings, training, ministry, training, education, and  we're beaming in areas such as ministry training, specifically, if someone's interested in  church work, and enterprise, that's if you're a leader who's called to get a job or start a  business. But you're also gonna want to be have having the ability to articulate  Christianity and your we will consider your Bi vocational leader, maybe you're attending your church or volunteering at your church, but you're also working in the marketplace.  We're also fascinated by philosophy and through the teachings of CLI, we want to  prepare people who think very strategically, as leaders, so Christian Leaders Institute,  beams this training via the Internet to raise up called Christian leaders everywhere. God  created a wonderful world, that world is frustrated by the fall of humanity into sin in  Christ, there is redemption, Christians share Christ's redemption, the good news,  Christian leaders, those who is training Christian leaders armed with that narrative, and  we are happy to see that God have compelled calls people like you from every place on  earth to seek advanced ministry training and remember what we mean by ministry, we  mean by ministry is learn to serve, whatever that means for you. So for instance, let's say you start a business and you have a business in your area. And what's the point of your  business, in the end, it's to serve the Lord, and to serve your community. And the profit  motive, people talk about the profit motive, yes, businesses need to make a profit, to be  sustainable. But the very heart is to learn to serve. So in my belief, you need ministry  training, if you have the responsibility, of employees, impact in the community. This is  not just for the pastors out there, the ministry leaders out there, this is for everyone. This  is only the beginning, God is raising up revival leaders. At the beginning of the students  training, they're asked to find a local mentor to help them process their CLI training. So  our mission is to raise up revival leaders. And we're going to ask you to find an  indigenous mentor to help you. And if so, let me just flush that out a little bit in this  class, we're going to walk through that and you'll be asked to do this. But let's just walk  through this by way of introduction. So as you're starting out, you can start thinking  about what you're going to do. So let's say you sense a calling to work within a church or in a Christian ministry. Well, right now already, as you're, as you're listening to this,  think about who is already a leader, that I know that I could ask to be my mentor. Think  about now. Or let's say, You're a justice individual who has been serving on probation, in your, you know, wanting to get this training, because it's available, and it's free to you,  you're not sure if you're gonna work in a church is trying to serve the Lord in your 

family, we're gonna talk in this class about the seven connections and one of the  ministries that you and all of us have is to those in our family. In the sense we ministered to our children, we call that connection three. So, but who can help mentor you? Who is  someone that you say, you know, that person will help me grow in God grow as a person grow in the community helped me bring restoration after some of my mistakes? Who's  that mentor gonna be? Or maybe for you, you're young, you're college age, and you look at this training and you think, hey, I can get a degree here, and the maybe move on to get a master's degree at some of the places that could be an opportunity for me to wondering what to do. Get a mentor, I remember that I got a mentor. In fact, I have now asked a lot  of people to mentor me in various aspects of my life. So I just want to put this on your  radar screen right now. And we're going to talk about this in depth later on. Christian  Leaders Institute mission for the last few centuries, missionary leaders proclaiming the  gospel of rich people in various countries or regions of the world. This has created  millions of indigenous Christians everywhere. And out of these indigenous Christians,  leaders will be raised up the indigenous Christian capital is the place where Christian  mentors can provide a local context for students that enroll and CLI you know how I talk about this. Sometimes I say this. Okay, so, where is CLI? Where is it? On the internet?  Well, yeah, sorta, is that in Spring Lake, Michigan at the headquarters while it's here,  too, but philosophically, Christian Leaders Institute is in relationships of mentors, and  new mentees, pastors and people in their area community leaders, and those who would  like to be community leaders in what we do is we beam the education to you in  relationship to other indigenous capital. We call that, you know, from the missionaries  from the historic Christian faith has passed down generations of the community, because we believe God has these leaders already in place to help you. So we've beam in that  relationship, we've beam to school to those relationships. That's why it's important for  you to find a mentor. Because what you're doing is you're tying in to the indigenous  capital. And I believe that every place, even in some of the places where Christianity is  not legal, there will be agents of Christianity, who love the Lord, who can connect with  you. I mean, think about the early church. Christianity was so disruptive. And yet, the  apostle Paul named Saul at that time, found Barnabas, Barnabas, mentored him, and then Barnabas introduced him to the other leaders. And Paul, who first was ordained as a  minister, I diakonos get the diakonos I was made a diakonos first. Then slowly on, he  was trained and slowly on he was sent and he was God's truly chosen instrument for the  Gentiles. But notice he connected in Acts nine we reconnected, ultimately to other  mentors like Ananias. So this is very important. If they local mentor based training, how  does the mentor base philosophy work? The Christian movement has been spread out  throughout the globe for 2000 years in many places on earth. There are Christian  leaders, new students at Christian Leaders Institute will recruit more experienced  Christian leaders to be their mentors. And another historical example is Adonairam  Judson. Adonairam Judson, who was called was I called revival leader in Burma, which  is today Myanmar. Judson was a difference maker. And in that room, Judson was the  first American missionary there at age 25, was sent to bring people back to God and 

Burma in the early part of the 19th century, Judson spread Christianity is quite a story.  But what's neat is, after all this time, there are Christians now in Burma, Myanmar, that  trace their faith back to Adonairam Judson. So someone could be called in Myanmar,  and they will be able to find a place that's pretty hostile to Christianity, even today, they  will find people in that missionary capital that in now that are indigenous, and then we  can beam in the training to them, and we do people in Myanmar, but they can find  mentors that are already there. So our mission is to raise up revival leaders. And I  believe that you are part of this. I am happier here. And as you walk through this class,  think about who can connect to you who you can connect to, and then even start  thinking this is my last challenge to put on your radar screen. Who will you be able to  someday lead to join you as a revival leader than you can mentor others? So I want to  just ask you to take these studies seriously, and God has a plan for your life. And I look  forward to seeing what that is going to be.