Video Transcript: Recognizing Ministers with Existing Credentials

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah, a lot of growth in the early church, right, tremendous growth right at Pentecost and trying to fellowship together, they ate together, and they took care of one another.

President Henry Reyenga: You know, it's interesting, too, that that word, Deacon or Deacons came out of here, and that word is Diakonas, which means minister, so but, ministers were born. meaning needs, very specific. And this was, again, a new type of ministry from not only apostle disciple, it's now the ministers are born 

Professor Brian Decook: A new category of minister. 

President Henry Reyenga: So let's look at that once. Acts 6:5  says “ the proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and Holy Spirit, also Philip, procuress, Nicanor, Tim on power Menez, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them”. So this is a commissioning of ministers. Look at that credentials, they prayed and laid their hands on them. 

Now, these men here are credential wise, they were with Jesus. I do know studying some of them in church history, some of them could have been from the 7D that Jesus sent forward. So they were with us, usually, in this case. They were still they were trained. They're also then commissioned, ordained. And so in a sense, this was the homegrown group, right? Yes. 

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah. Yes, they were. And they were used by the Lord to do much more than just take care of that task of distributing food to the people.

President Henry Reyenga: Oh, okay. That's their credentials, like look at. Stephen, right.

Professor Brian Decook: Yes, Stephen and Philip, we have accounts in the book of Acts about their ministry that was clearly beyond the scope of just taking care of feeding widows.

President Henry Reyenga: But this is the home grown group. 

Professor Brian Decook: It is 

President Henry Reyenga: So so I'm gonna apply this to Christian leaders Alliance at Christian Alliance. Now, we have 1000s of home grown ministers that have taken ministry training, that have got recommendations that have now been mobilized in a whole variety of roles. A roles of officiant commended minister, licensed minister, ordained minister and coaching ministers. So we have this whole group that has been established. And like we mentioned in the last welcome video, when we first started off all we had were really ministers of the word transferring from other organizations. Then we circled over to homegrown Minister roles.

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah, yeah, the Lord gave us a vision for equipping people who had little or no opportunity to receive ministry training,

President Henry Reyenga: A very grassroots style.

Professor Brian Decook: Much so

President Henry Reyenga: And now hundreds of hours of credits we offer in training, and a whole program for grassroots. Now, it's been interesting, before we move on to the next slide, many of those we reached have tried to say, Can my pastor who doesn't really have an organization he has a bachelor's degree or he has a master's degree, can he come into the alliance and so far we've always said well, he's got to just do all the studies that everybody else has done

Professor Brian Decook:  to become homegrown.

President Henry Reyenga: It’s has become homegrown even though he's already or she is already out there serving so so what this is nothing, Okay, how do we now include on servers that have ministry credentials, and include them in. And it's to me this next piece of the book of Acts is fascinating that the same thing happened in the early church. This is interesting to me.

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah, this is fantastic the book of Acts 6:7 “says, so the Word of God spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly. And a large number of priests became obedient to the faith”,

President Henry Reyenga:  A large number of priests, 

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah 

President Henry Reyenga: These are people not in the network that even potentially we're not with Jesus, not in the homegrown network. 

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah. 

President Henry Reyenga: And hits here. At the time of starting out in the new types of ministers, the deacons or ministers,  that this, this is a fascinating piece. So the word of God spread. So what does that mean to you?

Professor Brian Decook: In 2, Thessalonians 3:1 it says “finally, brothers pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored just as it was with you”.

President Henry Reyenga: Okay. So the Holy Spirit, His word, the message of forgiveness, and resurrection, and new life and new hope. And it just really ministry at large

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah it is what the Lord is doing, through Christian Leaders Alliance is equipping and bringing together a group of men and women who love Him who are on fire in their relationship with him, and that they are praying for revival in the earth. And we, that message is spreading, and the opportunities are in the world right now to serve the Lord are so amazing and expanding, and we just want to invite and make a path really, what we're doing in this class is just making a path for others who aren't homegrown, 

President Henry Reyenga: Right? 

Professor Brian Decook: To jump in. 

President Henry Reyenga: What was interesting, even that next piece, six, verse seven B the number of disciples in Jerusalem, increased rapidly. So what we notice is God is at work, he is raising up leaders, we talked about our homegrown leaders and those in Christian Leaders and Alliances, we are seeing new leaders being mobilized every day, you know, so we see this, that called Christians with a reproducible walk, they receive ministry training, they have ministry credentials, and we're going to introduce the soul center, you have probably never heard of that. That's going to be some we're going to talk about a little in this class as well. But you we see God at work is worth spreading. And he is raising up called Christians with a reproducible walk, access to minister training, Minister credentials, but then that next piece is so interesting, a large number of priests. So what do you think about that?

Professor Brian Decook: Well, it’s who we're speaking to you, and others, like you, who are credentialed serving the Lord, or maybe you're on the sidelines, but you have your credential, and you're looking for an opportunity to serve the Lord and Lord's calling us is stirring you to align yourself and maybe your ministry, your church with a movement that is that the Lord is using, and the Lord is doing great things through. So we're we want to leverage existing ministers/

President Henry Reyenga: Such as yourself, 

Professor Brian Decook: and allow them to receive official recognition of your existing ministry credentials, not have to become homegrown here, right. Yeah. But and receive membership status with the Christian Leaders Alliance.

President Henry Reyenga: You know, this is such an exciting time, 

Professor Brian Decook: It really has

President Henry Reyenga: You know, on that foundation of home grown ministers, and then to have your experience of an existing minister. And then in fact, the fact is, like the faculty at Christian leaders Institute, is basically those Jewish priests, you know, people who are credential in because of accreditation, all those issues, we make sure these classes are done with people with master's degrees and all of that, and yet we had no official way of recognizing many of these faculty members who are not even in the Alliance at this point, because we've got no official way now. We we've had Steve Elzinga and myself and we were sort of abnormally born, you know, sort of speak abnormally, I'm thinking the Apostle Paul here, you know, we started got in here by fiat or, you know, when we started this network, and then you yourself went through the whole entire, you know, the grassroots thing. So it is fascinating,how now this is an exciting time 

Professor Brian Decook: It is, it really is.

President Henry Reyenga: A couple more details just to whet your appetite here. Before we conclude this presentation, the dual recognition's acceptable.

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah, that means that they don't have to lay down their other credentials in order to pick up ours, right. 

President Henry Reyenga: Yeah, we actually have a word called EQ ministry, meaning, you know, we love the dual opportunities. And we don't have to lay anything down, we can just kind of bolt end. 

Professor Brian Decook: Yeah!

President Henry Reyenga: And then covered by an international ministers commission, and registered bible 501C,3 religious nonprofit out of Florida explain.

Professor Brian Decook So we are a global ministry. And the Alliance is a global membership. And so we have an international ministers commission. These are leaders that most I think, on the commission or homegrown Alliance members, except for our members like President Reyenga.. But these are Christian Leaders from around the world who oversee the operations of the Alliance, and when so when we introduce new programs, or encourage new areas of ministry, we run those through the commission and get their feedback from a global perspective, not just the United States perspective, right.

President Henry Reyenga: And now we have to officially have a United States signing board and all that. 

Professor Brian Decook: Absolutely. That's the fiber 501 C3, nonprofit status. We are a United States ministry, we're registered in the state of Florida, we are a 501 C 3. And everything on that formal corporate side is structured here in the United States. But on our operations side, our international ministers commission, is kind of our advisory leadership group. 

President Henry Reyenga:Yeah, beautiful.

Professor Brian Decook: And that's how we're structured

President Henry Reyenga: And ordained minister since 2003. And we bring that in that. That's just to talk about that full circle. So we actually started with just a few ordained ministers that were received into the organization way back then then we went to the grassroots option 2014 we formally started credentialing, homegrown ministers and now here in 2022, really 20 years later, roughly, here we are coming back to full circle so that you can also consider being part of the Christian leaders Alliance. So in the next presentation, we're going to talk about details of the program. But we are so grateful that you're here watching this and checking this out to see if the Lord is asking you and calling you to join the Christian leaders Alliance.