Tag Archives: ministerial training program

How do I discover my function within the kingdom of God?

 

Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. 1st. timothy 4:14

There are people to whom God discovers what their ministry is, and what their function in life is. They didn’t have to do much more to find out.

Most of the men and women of God who stand out in the Bible were chosen, and the ministry and service they would perform while they existed were revealed directly to them.

This is not the case for many of us who today try to develop the service that we understand God has entrusted to us. Some, even, do not know that they have a call from God to the ministry. What are we, or what can we become? Pastors, evangelists, teachers, apostles, prophets, or some other ministry? How can we discover it?

In times past, when a person understood that he or she had a call from God to ministry, he or she was immediately sent to a biblical institute, seminary, theological faculty, as he or she saw fit, and according to the projection of ministerial work that he or she had, and thus began his or her service to God, training himself or herself according to the biblical-theological disciplines of the institution in which he or she had enrolled.

However, almost everyone came to occupy a pulpit of a church, and the idea was generated that God’s call to ministry is equal to the pastorate. For those who did not occupy a church pulpit, this idea became a sense of ministerial failure.
Is having a call from God to ministry becoming a pastor? Are there other ministry options? How can one who has a call from God to ministry know clearly what his real ministry is?

The other days I experienced for the second time in a matter of five years a situation of fraud that led me to understand the means that God uses to reveal to us what our function is within the kingdom.

Recently I was looking for a part-time job to supplement some of the income I needed to cover my budget; looking at job offers I came across an ad requesting a driver to drive an older woman’s car on her personal outings, it was her son who requested this service, and who would pay week after week for the services rendered. He offered to pay well. I wrote by e-mail, as required in the ad, and a couple of days later I received the response.

It was one George Buchanan, who never called me personally, but through e-mail he assured me that he was an engineer at a Texas refinery, that his mother lived in Florida, and he needed a reliable person to take her on her medical visits and so on; He explained that his mother had no vehicle of her own, that he would send me by certified mail a check with the advance salary of my first week of service, and a surplus that I had to send by Money Gram to a person in Las Vegas, for delivery of the car I would use to transport his mother, and for my personal use, while working for him.

It was a fraud scheme, a certified check apparently in order, but with no funds; since it was a check from another state, it took longer than usual to release the funds, allowing time for the swindled person to send the surplus of his own money to the site indicated in the instructions. As it is a fraud scheme, the bank never releases the funds and the person has sent his own money to a fake person of whom nobody knows anything.

I didn’t fall into the deception, thank God, because a couple of years ago I had also gone through a very similar experience which I realized just in time. I was selling a video camera for classified ads from a local newspaper, and it turned out to be a person interested in buying it, but under the same concept of fraud. He sent a check with a larger amount, mistakenly according to him, and required me to send the rest via Western Union to a person in England. I went to the police station to report the scheme and thought I was helping to uncover this type of scam, but whoever attended me at the police station explained to me that they could do nothing because since I had not sent money, and had not been scammed, there was no crime.

However, having been exposed to a situation of fraud and almost being cheated, led me to think about the reason for certain experiences one goes through and the spiritual value of its teaching. Why I was again exposed to a scheme of fraud? Why again are they trying to deceive me, and swindle me? The questions I asked led me to understand how God discovers the function we perform within the Kingdom of God, but for lack of discernment, we do not understand God’s messages.

God explained to me that we are each trained in the area where we will develop our ministry. For example, the prophet needs to exercise discernment in order to be able to differentiate when it is God who speaks, and when the voice does not come from God, so his training consists in eating butter and honey so that he knows how to discard evil and choose good.[1]

The teacher of the word needs to entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others as well,[2] so it is necessary that he himself go through a process of personal purification so that his teaching may be according to the spirit of the word and not according to his personal appreciations. Paul assured, in his case, that in his cleansing process to find the eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to find the best way to commission faithful men, he had to make the decision to consider the things that for him were gain for manure.[3]

Thus, one’s own experiences are the basis of learning to understand and develop the vision of the ministry to which God leads us. Esther, in order to face a mighty Haman and bring liberation to her people, first had to go through the painful experience of losing her parents due to the invasion of Chaldean armies into Jerusalem, and face bitterness and exile, so that under that situation she would learn to value the suffering of persecution and abandonment, an experience without which she would not have been able to face Haman. A life of personal comfort cannot see needs in others nor can it be moved to mercy in favor of others.

The fraud attempts of which I was a victim taught me the didactic value in God of experiences, and I came to understand my function in the kingdom of God. I was exposed on two consecutive occasions to a scheme of fraud because I am called to face the deception of darkness and to denounce its stratagems.

We have the basis in Jonas’ experience of God’s demand for Nineveh,

Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: 11And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Jonas 4:10-11

God exposed me to two situations of fraud scheme so that I would understand the risk of spiritual fraud to which many people are exposed because of something that seems good, and is not, and because they do not have enough discernment to warn of it, they fall prey to the fraud that is the product of apostasy.

Now I understand God’s call for me. God leads me to fight against apostasy, against seemingly biblical Christian doctrines, which many follow because they believe them to be good and from God, but which in reality are satanic bondage that leads to eventual spiritual death.

I decided to write to the people who contacted me and tried to deceive me; I denounced their fraud scheme and condemned them because they had risen up in arrogance to deceive and take advantage of the need of innocent people who seek to supply their own needs.

Likewise, I condemn apostasy and all those by whom it is introduced, for bringing death to the regions of the earth, for deceiving whole congregations, and for establishing defilement and death upon the earth.

To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 1st. Corinthians 5:5

Of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. 1st. timothy 1:20

Well, you have discovered by reading that the circumstances of daily life have a prophetic value for one who is being directly trained by the Lord. Perhaps this is the first time you have heard of this, perhaps not, but the important thing about the lesson is that you understand that the Lord is going to use your whole environment, including people, as the “school” of unconventional ministry training to train you in that for which you have been reached by the Lord.

 

All biblical quotations are taken from the King James Version.

 

 

Pastor Pedro Montoya

WhatsApp 1 (407) 764-2699

Twitter: @pastormontoya

https://earthenwarevessels.com

[1] Isaiah 7:15

[2] 2nd. Timothy 2:2

[3] Philippians 3:8

In-Home Ministerial Training Program

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, Galatians 4:19

The past few days have been days of confrontation and demand; God has been confronting me about the operating models I have used up to this point to train others in their calling to ministry. The Lord has demanded of me the implementation of more comprehensive teaching platforms so that with what I have been teaching so far, I can instruct and train larger groups of people.

It all began when in several conversations with a pastor friend of mine, I suggested that he develop a ministerial training plan in his church to prepare his young people in the development of their respective calls; I recognize that because of the situations of our societies, not many young people have the option of enrolling in a biblical institution to prepare for ministry.

At the end of the conversations I noticed that the pastor was not convinced enough of what I was saying, and I expressed myself with certain dismay, he is not going to do it! There, at that moment I heard a voice that told me, and why don’t you do it? Time passed, but that question was kept in my mind with a lot of force.

Another day, visiting a Christian bookstore, while looking at the titles of the new books on the shelves, I came across a book whose author, in the review on the back cover, was described as the “itinerant professor” of a Christian educational institution. The expression echoed in my spirit, it was the testimony that God demanded that I develop an itinerant training program to train many people who have received a calling from God, but do not have the resource to be formed in it.

Quite a few years ago we had done something similar. Together with a fellow pastor of the same church association to which we belonged, in Guatemala, we traveled every Friday to a distant town to train workers who, moved by their calling, had begun work in those places; such training took us two full years to complete.

So, understanding what God was demanding of me, I took on the task of preparing and classifying the basic teaching that every competent minister must have in order to implement and develop his call and ministry.

But a third stage of confrontation was still missing. Last week my wife and I accompanied a young man and his mother to receive an orientation on the homeschooling program, and there the vision was completed.

The description of the program, the way in which the student learns while interacting with his/her parents and/or tutors, and above all, that the student does not need to attend a classroom to receive academic instruction, became a whole process of revelation before which I was being exposed, to show me the teaching platform to which God had referred days ago.

In-home ministerial training? Tutorial teaching at the student’s pace with no set time to complete studies? Are we ready for self-taught training? Is this the training modality of late times?

I had many questions, as you may have seen. But as I asked question after question, a single answer reached my spirit.

The problem we currently face, magisterially speaking, is not people who lack knowledge, little or much knowledge is not the reason for ineffective and weak ministries; it is the lack of subjection that most ministries decide to adopt as a personal characteristic. Not allowing oneself to be taught by others, not tolerating the authority of others unless benefits are derived from them, has so far been the major cause of many divisions in churches, and rivalry between pastors even from very small towns.

Why an in-home ministerial training model? How many are able to be trained following a tutor’s instruction?

God was describing to me not only the model for training in distance, but above all, describing to me His Will to bring forth from the scarcity of our Latin American societies a well-concerted army that has learned to trust and submit to its fellow servant.

These who are thus trained will solve the problem of lack of subjection to other ministries, because they will learn from the beginning of their own ministry that their formation, growth, development, and ministerial projection were based precisely on the daily and constant consultation and instruction of their tutor. They will learn about the value of growing under spiritual cover.

We are ready; we have taken the step of faith to begin this stage of in-home ministry training.

Program Description

The in-home ministerial training program is designed to form and train men and women of God who are called to ministry, but who do not have the option of attending a biblical institution to receive ministerial training.

This program was originally constituted due to the need for ministerial training in the exercise of spiritual warfare and liberation, a doctrine that although biblical, is not part of the curriculum of studies in the ministerial formation centers of many of our Latin American cities.

The program is designed on the basis of homeschooling, which demands that the student under this mode of learning has a clear commitment to himself, and to God, that his ministerial development depends on the consistency he shows to work alone, in constant consultation with the tutors assigned.

The program does not follow the traditional curriculum of the theological institutions of most of our cities, with courses such as hermeneutics, homiletics, biblical archaeology, etc., subjects that although of recognized academic value, in no way form the character of the minister. On the other hand, not every person with a legitimate calling from God will occupy a pulpit as their final ministerial position; God is rising up men and women with non-traditional ministries with the sole function of establishing spiritual operations to prepare the way for the return of the Lord.

The program focuses on the doctrinal aspect according to the teachings established by Jesus in accordance with the Scriptures of the Law, of the prophetic writings, and of the other Sapiential Scriptures; and it remains faithful to the doctrine established by the apostles, as recorded in the first chapters of the book of Acts of the Apostles.

The student will attain his ministerial formation from his ability to understand the Scriptures, and from his willingness to live by them, understanding that they are revealed so that the man of God may be perfect, fully instructed in every good work.

The program consists of 21 study modules each with specific purposes of its own, so that the student may be formed in all integral areas of an apostolic and prophetic ministry, but with Christological emphasis of liberation as established in the teachings of Jesus. The duration of each module is determined by the student himself, according to the pace of his learning.

General Objectives

The evangelistic task of recent times is not only a proclamatory task, but a liberating task, according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit,

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 1st. Corinthians 15:25 (see also Hebrews 10:13)

Therefore, God’s calling is built upon spiritual warfare and the revelation of His Word; God’s demand has been, and continues to be, to establish His Kingdom on earth; this is not necessarily achieved by founding new churches.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

The Scriptures establish deliverance as evidence that the Kingdom has been established in the places,

But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. Luke 11:20

Specific Objectives

The program is oriented to form, train and ordain worthy ministries to the evangelistic work with an apostolic and prophetic fundament.

We understand that the Lord is rising in these end times, non-traditional ministries that will work in different places rising up congregations of faith based on biblical principles.

We understand that the Lord is rising up ministries that will make a difference between the religious and the revealed.

Modules of Study

Module 1: Understanding the ministerial calling

Module 2: Doctrine of Christ

Module 3: Doctrine of the foundation of repentance from dead works

Module 4: Doctrine of Faith in God

Module 5: Doctrine of Baptisms

Module 6: Doctrine of Laying On of Hands

Module 7: Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead and the Return of Jesus to Earth

Module 8: Doctrine of Eternal Judgments of God

Module 9: Doctrine of Perfection

Module 10: Spiritual Warfare and Liberation

Module 11: Legal Right of Darkness to Operate

Module 12: Lifting the Earth Curse

Module 13: Combating Institutional Sorcery

Module 14: Satanic Government Centers

Module 15: Apostasy

Module 16: How to Reconcile the Cursed Regions with God

Module 17: Spiritual Warfare Strategies: Denouncing Evil

Module 18: The Mystery of Iniquity

Module 20: Willing to Hear the Prophetic Voice

Module 21: Establishment of Faith Communities

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: Ephesians 4:13

All biblical quotations are taken from the King James Version.

Pastor Pedro Montoya

Twitter: @pastormontoya

https://earthenwarevessels.blog