Video Transcript: Ecuministry Ordination

So, today we're gonna talk about the topic of Ecuministry ordination. And some of you may be saying, what I'm not interested in ordination. I'm just here. Because I'm interested in  enterprise, or I'm interested in the restorative justice program, or I'm interested in philosophy  or economics, or I am in ministry, and I'm already ordained is this ordination require? No, this  is totally an optional thing. You might be already ordained. And here are Christian leaders for  formal ministry training, you may not need or want to be ordained. But we know this is an  interest. And we also know it would be good for you to look at this, consider this, maybe  someone you know might be interested in this program. It also it's good for you to understand  the nature of certification. Christian leaders Institute, for instance, is accredited by peers, not  just ourselves, we actually have leaders who have come in and analyzed our curriculum,  other professors and other intellectuals who look at what we're doing and accredit, in a sense, they ordain us to bring credibility to the community to the world in what we're doing. Many  people need this Doctors need certifications. So this is a great, great topic free to look at  anyway, and just be informed on how that works. And if you are interested in down the road,  you always know you can go back to it. So we're gonna talk about ordination. ordination  brought reproducibility to new leader cultivation structure plays a big line there. What we're  really talking about here is in the early church, within 100 years of the resurrection, leaders  were recognized as ordained. This recognition answered the question, How are future  Christian leaders of the church going to be notice from other christians who are not called into service? How will the community know those who are set apart into ministry? Most people  expect some marker that's I talked about before that doctors you know, we expect doctors to  have certification that tells us that someone is prepared and qualified to act as a leader. This  question came up in the book of Timothy, when the Apostle Paul talked about reproducible  qualifications of the Office of Elder and Deacon, the apostle Paul saw the saw ordination as  office bearer as a good thing. In other words, it's good to want to be certified to be ordained. I  Timothy 3:1 says this, the trustworthy saying this, the trust is the same as trustworthy. If  anyone aspires to the Office of overseer, he desires undoable tasks. Now, it's interesting that  right now in the world, over 20 million people have been ordained through the Universal Life  Church, and even more through various online, downloadable, you buy a package you have  very little to do in terms of training or local accountability, but someone can actually buy a  legal ordination. These types of ordinations are usually legal in most places in the USA.  These ordinations, however, are considered shallow in most circles. And here's why. There is  no independent verification that the ordination candidate walks with God or possesses the  internal calling and external calling that we've talked about previously. There is no community  of Christians or Christian leaders who commend these leaders. The apostle Paul commended Phoebe as a deacon, Phoebe Denat commend herself Romans 16:1 , three, there is no  biblical training system that prepares Christian leaders. There is no one way to independently  verify that someone actually did prepare for ministry. And four since these ordinations are  mere transactions, a small percentage of those ordained of those ordinations rather have  occurred in local churches, by existing ordained leaders. Now, the fact is, is that that's one  end of the spectrum, one end being that These legal ordinations really do not mean very  much at all. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, there is the many many, many hoops to  ordination. On the other side of the coin. Most denominations have long and complicated  pastor ordination that stopped the ordination of many called Christian leaders. I was ordained  in the Christian Reformed Church in 1998. As a minister of the word to qualify as a candidate  for ordination. In this denomination, I had to get my bachelor degree from the US Department  of Education College. Then with good grades, I can be accepted into Calvin seminary, I  received my Master of Divinity at Calvin. After graduating from Calvin seminary, I was still not  ordained. I went through preaching tests, psychological test, church examinations at regional 

gatherings called classes meeting. Somehow I had to get a calling from a local Christian  Reformed church that was willing to provide me a paid position. If I did not get a calling, I then still was not ordained. In other words, I cannot just be ordained as a leader unless a church  actually called me to this ordination. Now, on the other end of the scale, again in many  churches, is an ordination on the spot. Many independent or charismatic churches do not  have a consistent pattern for ordaining leaders. Many churches require no formal ministry  training. Now the strength of this model is that more Christian leaders are able to be ordained  in the ministry. The weakness is that without some important process in place, many ordained leaders are ordained before the due process. The apostle Paul warns, do not be hasty in the  laying on of hands and do not share in the sin of others. keep yourself pure. So what we have here is, you know, a wide open, you know, there's a phrase in the United States, the Wild  West, we have a wild west of ordination and certification of ministry leaders, we have the  universal church and eyeline legal, ordinations. We have mainline denominations ancient  denominations, where the ordinations as long process that you actually get through, we also  have ordinations on the spot, which then you know, create a another set of problems.  Something else that's interesting, too, is that in general, in the population, the default setting  is that people want those who are ordained clergy, to have more of a due process. And that's  just true. And there is perceived to be different ranks. And because of this, it appears that  those with a seminary, Bible school education, and ordination have a higher ranking as clergy. Now, in a lot of ways this feels as I read this, sort of like, is that true? That rank matters. And  what I mean by rank here is that in people's mind, they perceive that someone who's gone  through some hoops, if you're going to entrust your soul with them, that the one who has  gone through some hoops, the credibility is there, as a clergy member, that'd be like saying to a doctor, you know, you mean, you had no examinations. You had no training. You know, we  we would rank a doc medical doctor who is hadn't much training higher than let's say  someone who's read a few books, studied a few things and then calls themselves a doctor.  This clergy ordination seems to garnish more respect. A large number in every society believe this way for a number of reasons. Those that have done formal ministry training are perceived to know more about the Bible, and Ministry of related topics, two most want to put the care of  their souls in the hands of training qualified people. Three, many people have met people who are deemed online who had no training, the lack of training is noticed and the ordination is not trusted. And four people intuitively want their leaders To study the subject of their leadership.  On top of this is even other characteristics of current clergy ordinations, these are the ones  that provide more hoops. One is this completed training in the area of leadership. In other  words, it's a completed and verified leadership training two that training was highly regarded  with quality professors and teachers. Three, the individual was in connection with existing  church leadership for accountability four a process of recommendations from others  confirmed the ordained candidate, candidates internal link, and external calling five, some  directory includes this person's name, and what they have accomplished in terms of their  preparation for ministry. And six, they have been ordained at a local church with the laying on  of hands. So you can see that in in many ways, people will trust the clergy the ordained  clergy, who have gone through a whole process, because like we trust the doctor with  certification, the care of our souls, we intuitively know that people who are in the ministry or in  any specialization should have some form of independent certification, ordination, there  should be a process in place. And this is very, very important. And it's understandable why it  is. Christian leaders Institute includes all these elements. All these processes are present as  you as you study at Christian leaders Institute, you begin your studies examining your calling  for ministry, in on this whole point too is, is remember how we define ministry it's to learn to  serve. So we believe if you're here for ministry, training in the Christian leaders, church circle, 

wonderful. Even if you're here for enterprise, or you're here for philosophy or economics, or in the restorative justice program, we actually believe that calling is for all people. So in a lot of  ways, we like the fact that you're examining who you are, you learn who you are, and what  God has called you to do. You find a local mentor, a local mentor community to help you, you  plug in or you are plugged in to a local church. When you are ordained, you are ordained in a  local setting, as a deacon minister. And we're going to talk more about what we mean by  Deacon minister. Since CLI is free and generosity supported, one does not feel one does not  need to go into debt, to be fully trained, and duly ordained. So that's what we're excited about  here. We're excited about this opportunity for you to, you know, be able to thrive. So in from a  clergy perspective, Christian leaders Institute delivers, we bring accredited professors, we  ourselves have an independent accreditation. In the future, we will look at even US  Department of Education Accreditation, because we're interested in bringing you even though this is a generosity supported free training opportunity, we take seriously elements that bring  you credibility. We also understand this is a dual ordination. And what does that mean? That  means let's say you're already ordained in another system. We welcome you to be ordained  in our system, as well as a wonderful exercise. Or maybe you want to be ordained here first,  and then later on to be ordained in another system. We work with partners, church planting  partners and others that want a leader to be ordained here first, and then that gives credibility  when they go into their local denomination situation. Whatever that is, this is a credible clergy  opportunity that would be that will be highly respected. Now, will it be highly respected in  every circle? Well, we're in the process of that and let me tell you why. You know, in a lot of  ways Christian leaders Institute is very disruptive. A new a new ordained leader who has a  Christian leaders Alliance ordination at first. What is this organization, oh online, all online  ordinations don't mean anything. And really they don't understand we're not fully online. We  have an online component, you must get a local community. You have local ordained leaders,  there is a process in place, but because this is online, you know, people right away, you think, Oh, this must be the Universal Life Church, when in fact, it is not at all. It is a process with  many hoops. And I congratulate you as you step through those hoops. Your ordination means  something is grounded in study, grounded at a local level. There's internal external callings to  deal with. All of these things are there, it's just the day where the internet allows us to beam  high quality training into local relationships, which allow things like ordination. So understand  that. Now, I want to shift gears here in the second part of this presentation, to talk about a  wonderful opportunity that Christian leaders Institute brings to local ordained leaders in local  churches. So you know, let me explain. So I was a pastor in a more outcome, mainline biblical denomination called the Christian Reformed Church. And in my denomination, we would  ordain local elders, and deacons. We would ordained them in we would lay our hands on  them, and they, being ordained would have the standing to minister in our local church. But  here's what I noticed. I noticed that we went through this process and there was a whole  church order that outline this process. But, but many times these ordained leaders received  no ministry training whatsoever. We did not use in a kingdom way in a servant way, these  ordained leaders to minister to the community, we all knew they had no training or little  training. A few of those leaders were activistic and really wanted to go out there and make a  difference. But it wasn't long when the other experienced ordained, local leaders would sort of say Calm down, calm down. That's the ministers work at Christian leaders Institute because  of how this is set up. This holds promise for leaders at pastors and others, existing churches  to actually have qualified trained leaders that can be ordained as vocational bi-vocational,  post vocational ordained local leaders. And they'll be ordained locally as you know, an elder  or a deacon. And they will still be on the Christian leaders Institute, international directory, so  they will have some of the best of both worlds. They'll be able to be ordained locally, not 

connected to a denomination just connected to that local church permission is not needed  from the denomination to ordain them. Because in most local ordinations, even at mainline  churches, there is no need for permission from a denomination. These are local ordained  leaders. So what if a pastor could have a local ordained leader who is trained with extensive  ministry training, their ordination was on a international directory so that in their local context,  they would have more ordained leaders to help them without having to get tangled up in the  whole denominationial ordination piece. So it's to that problem and to solve that problems. But I remember I wish that I had options from a local ordained elders and deacons to get more  training to function more effectively and be ordained locally in our church, but recognized  internationally. So it's to that that Christian leaders Institute is seeking and upgraded local  leaders ordination. Local ordinations of elders and deacons is common throughout  Christendom. And how we understand this is you begin your studies examining your calling  for ministry, you learn who you are and what God has called you to do. You find a local  mentor community to help you. You plug into a local church when you are ordained, you're  ordained in a local church setting as a minister Deacon, remember since CLI is free and  generosity supported, one does not need to go into debt to be fully trained and duly ordained.  Now I just repeated the slide in applies both to the clergy piece, and it applies to people who  are connected and upgraded in local leader ordination. So let's get deeper into this subject.  Now, because most traditions have one thing in common. Local ordained elders and deacons  are usually not expected to receive any formal ministry training, because ministry training is  lacking the public the general public, and many in the churches where they are ordained do  not take these ordinations very seriously. No credible international ordination directory will list  them the office bearers that receive formal ministry training are the pastors who go to  seminary or Bible College. The exception to this is of course, the charismatic tradition where  the pastor who planted the church and it grows is are giving great authority. Many times they  themselves realize that they need formal Ministry of Training. So most ordination systems  have local ordinations that lack one piece, that piece is high quality ministry training. Christian leaders Institute provides that one piece that works with most local ordination systems,  Christian leaders Institute can assist called Christian leaders into this ordination, where they  are ordained as local leaders and have all the ordination standing needed to be highly  respected. This means local pastors can mobilize their local leaders who will be more  effective. This also means that called Christian leaders have an effective series an effective  series of steps that give them a highly respected ordination that includes local leaders,  ministry training at Christian leaders Institute and the international recognition at Christian  leaders Alliance. Now, we call this ecuministry in many ways. It functions where we serve a  whole wide group of people with an ordination and whether it's non denominational churches  in for non denominational churches, this ecuministry may be the primary way they reproduce  clergy for denominational churches. This gives them an option to be able to ordain local  Deacon ministers or they can be upgraded to elders at a local level where they get more help  with ordination possibilities and certification for local ministry. In the Pentecostal Church, the  ecuministry allows you to have a formal training option that makes ordination more credible in  your community. For the Baptist Church, you know, that's more like a denominational church,  the congregation the same way, even in ancient churches. I know of students that are at local  Catholic churches, but that are that are ordained as let's say an officiant in the Christian  leaders Alliance so they can serve their community by doing community weddings. So there's  so many ways that this can work. How that doesn't work. Well. The local church is raising up  the next generation of Christian leaders. Revival seeking ministers are looking for those who  will join the team to proclaim Christ many times. This means recruiting believers in their  churches to use their gifts for ministry. Some of these believers may sense the call to ministry.

These upcoming leaders need mentoring and coaching in how to serve in their local churches and communities. The Christian leaders Alliance desires to help those seeking ordination and  the church leaders who desire to support this process. The ordination program is locally  focused to help pastors to mobilize local leaders to help in their local communities. Now,  we've actually coined the phrase, local ecuministry ordination and let me talk about that. So  the Christian leaders Alliance is ecuministry focus we coined a new word, the word  Ecumenical has the following definition The adjective ecumenical refers to something  universal or something as wide in general application. In the world of Christianity, it refers to a universal ordination that has wide application. The word the word ministry is a verb, noun and  an adjective in English. These words center around the work the religious leader does in  serving the congregation or local community. Another word closely related to this we coined  as ecuminister. We define this term as referring to a local Christian leader who is ordained to  do ministry in a wide wide range of settings in Christendom. While Christian leaders Alliance  comes from a biblical perspective, week, we are careful to center on the Ministry of Training  that does not focus on the differences between the strands of Christianity instead, the  curriculum is to be beneficial for ministry leaders throughout Christiandom. so what does local Deacon Minister ordination have to do? After students finish their first two classes, they have  an opportunity to pursue this local ecuministry ordination. Students who enroll in a credit hour, students can enroll in a credit hour class one credit hour class that goes over what a deacon  Minister ordination means. And of course, I mentioned before, this could be considered as  elder Minister ordination by a local church, but that's their call to make we will do everything  around the concept of Deacon minister, because we think it's the most reproducible example  of ordination in the early church. It works like this, they are all taught ministry, they must  receive three recommendations from endorsers. This isn't that one credit class by the way,  one recommendation from their spouse if married another family member, one from their local pastor or mentor and one from a person in their community. So let's review the Christian  leaders Alliance steps for ordination as a minister here at Christian leaders Institute. First  enrollment in Ministry of Training at Christian leaders Institute two take the Getting Started  class, that's four credits, you are in that class right now. And then you will take the Christian  Basics class, which you can even opt, you can even test out of, if you already know your  basic Christian doctrines. Then three, take the deacon Minister course which is one credit,  take more ministry. And then what happens you become ordained locally as a minister as a  deacon minister. And you will get your ordination certificates in the mail if you want the official  ones there if there is a fee for the official documents. Now what you can do then is once your  Deacon minister, ordination is established, you can take more ministry training courses,  depending on a deepening role that you are preparing for. And then at that point, you're not  ordained again, but you're commissioned into a specialized ordained ministry. So you know,  these are opportunities for you at Christian leaders Institute. And what I'm excited for you is  that you have these opportunities. So again, this ecuministry means this from the word  ecumenical. That's kind of the inspiration word that is where ecumenical, it's the universal  church. So we get the ecu out of there. And then ministry is that we can work with  denominations, independent denominations in a way that can serve them in ways that  qualified leaders because we have this international directory. Now, having said all that,  whether you think of ordination more as in the traditional way the clergy way Christian  Leaders Institute provides for that. Or if you think of ordination, as you know what this can  help a local denominational church by having an ordination piece that works locally, that still  has international credibility for people who are interested to serve in their local communities,  and pastors who want to mobilize others to serve with them. And yet they're still ordained. All  of these things are opportunities for you. And I pray that God blesses you know, if you're not 

interested in ordination at all now you've listened to this presentation and you can move on to  your studies and get ready to dive into your program. Next, in this class, we're going to deal  with a few more issues. You know, the the most important is a walk with God. You know, do  you have that walk with God? What's that like? This is a faith based institution, we want you to have a walk with God, a reproducible walk with God, so that you can be more effective. We  want you to be a Christian leader. Whatever you do in this life, we ask that you will be blessed by the Lord, and that you will thrive as a Christian leader, and that you will be noticed, not  because of your own merit, but because of what Christ is doing with you. So continue on,  don't give up. You're almost halfway through this Getting Started class and you're almost  there to get your scholarship. Don't let that go. This is your opportunity to take your next step  what God is calling you to do.