Ordained Minister Journey

May peace be multiplied to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. I am on an ordained minister journey. I am currently living in Jamaica, a country that has been blessed with a rich church legacy. It is even said that Jamaica has the most churches per square mile, yet it is not without its challenges. On the one hand, the average Jamaican has had some form of religious exposure or heard the message preached at some point in their lifetime. Many turn away from Christianity in their late teens and early twenties mainly due to the legalistic approach to Christianity, to the distance between what is preached and what is practiced causing hurt by their church experience, or the pull of a secular lifestyle. This has made evangelism and ministry difficult by hardening many hearts toward the gospel and quenching the interest in God. On the other hand, lack of unity among the churches is a challenge that churches are trying to address. The lack of unity is growing from the varying emphasis on the practice of the faith to include charismatic, Sabbath worship, evangelical, Pentecostalism, etc. These sometimes result in a conflicting message even in evangelism. Further, there is a growing indifference towards Christianity among persons under 25 years of age. Notwithstanding all this, you can sense the call of God on Jamaica as a nation to make a significant contribution to missions and evangelism of unreached people groups.

With the strong Christian emphasis in Jamaica, I grew up in the church and at the age of ten accepted Christ. I publicly declared my faith and was baptized. Since then, I have felt a call to be a Christian leader. I sense a call to equip the saints for service and raise up Christian leaders to affect the nation both locally and overseas on my ordained minister journey. I dream of seeing true revival come to Jamaica that will spread to the entire Caribbean and impact many unreached people groups all over the world through missions.

There are three components of ministry that I want to be involved in 1) The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 2) discipleship and raising up leaders, and 3) caring for people through humanitarian efforts. My heart burns with a passion to see the message of the kingdom of God transforming people groups in both Jamaica and elsewhere. At the beginning of my ordained minister journey with Christian Leaders Institute, I identified with being a pastor. Now, I sense a strong Apostolic call on my life. While I recall no specific experience that prompted me to pursue ministry, I have been given opportunities to serve as both youth leader and student Christian movement leader that ignited the passion in my heart for ministry. I have also served in varying leadership positions in my local church and realize that this is what I really want to do.

It is costly to do ministry here as the expenses of ministry are at times overwhelming. This is partially managed by being bi-vocational and as a result, it is difficult to balance family, work, and ministry. I now oversee two churches in Jamaica. I also provide a spiritual covering to several individual ministries being carried out by members of the congregation. Further, I am helping several more to be developed and established. Mentorship and accountability are provided by both local and overseas-based spiritual fathers. My primary spiritual father is located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA.

Praise God who has blessed me with a wonderful wife who shares my ministry calling and provides tremendous support in my current ministry engagements. While being involved at varying levels of ministry and leadership, before CLI, I did not formally attend seminary. I bless God for the ministry training and the structured knowledge at CLI. This gave me confidence and helped me to evaluate my current activities against biblical standards and trusted Christian leadership outside my local church. I further enlisted in the Christian Leaders Alliance Directory as another element of accountability and credibility on my ordained minister journey. These experiences have helped me understand how to reproduce leaders. Pray that God will give me wisdom on how to carry out ministry and boldly say like Apostle Paul, follow me as I follow Christ.

Author: Henry Reyenga

Henry Reyenga is president of Christian Leaders Institute and Christian Leaders Alliance.