Christian Leaders Institute

Hello,
My name's Joshua and I'm a 25 y/o husband, father and aspiring bible college student. Having gotten a late start in contrast to the conventional college student, I aspire to as expeditious a process as possible. For the past year, I've been studying at the associates level at Brookes Bible College in St. Louis, MO (an ABHE candidate institution). I was recently accepted into the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies program at Criswell College (Dallas, TX/regionally accredited). However; I am concerned with how much, if any financial aid I'll be qualified for. Thus, I've been considering lower cost options in the interest of incurring as little debt as possible. I've given a great deal of consideration to Nations University (nationally/DETC accredited, $970/year tuition), but recently stumbled across Christian Leadership Institute which is unaccredited with a total tuition of only $1800 for their bachelor's program and claim to have articulation agreements with such ATS accredited seminaries as Calvin, Western, and Northern. I was just wondering if anyone had any feedback regarding CLI, their curriculum or the legitimacy of their articulation agreements?

 

I don't necessarily know... When I initially started Bible College I was asked what my long term plans were, when I'd responded "to become an exec. Pastor" I was asked if that was what God was calling me to do, so I suppose I'm still waiting to discern the call.

 

Granted, I am well aware that this is a Baptist forum. However; in the interest of full transparency, I do not consider myself strictly a Baptist, as the bulk of my Christian walk has been served within non-denominational Christian Churches. In fact, It wasn't until I began attending my current school "Brookes Bible College" a year ago that I was brought privy to Baptist history and distinctive's. Brookes was originally founded by Presbyterians but is now staffed predominately by Baptist and Bible Church professors and/or pastors. I've since realized that most of the relatively successful (gainfully employed) professors and/or pastors that I know, either at some point attended or graduated from one of the "big 6 SBC seminaries," the ones that didn't graduate from an SBC school graduated from somewhere like DTS, Master's, Grace or Calvary. Though with the biggest and perhaps only distinction between the Christian Church and Church of Christ being the debate over "acapella worship vs. instrumental worship," In my personal/unique situation, I could theoretically stand to benefit greatly from the NationsU program. What I've found especially encouraging in pursuing the pastorate within the Christian Church as a "disadvantaged/unconventional student" is, that I've seen everything from lead pastors who went to law school & executive pastors who hold a BA in children's ministry, to the network of Church planting Churches that I'm currently visiting, where little, if any of the pastorate has been to seminary, though the institution does have seminarians on staff to "keep the ship true." Which isn't to say an SBC school wouldn't still play into my plans in the long term, in fact if I were to pursue the BRS at NU, one of the local Churches here offers a 2-year residency/internship program, where one gains an MTS from Midwestern, which I would then intend to commute to the DEdMin program at Midwestern.

 

"between the Christian Church and Church of Christ"

 

I meant, I wasn't comparing the Church of Christ denomination to Baptists. I was comparing it to the non-denominational Christian Churches I grew up serving in. Having worked closely with "Christian Family Services" an organization compiled of and endorsed by mainly Church of Christ congregations, it was my experience/observation that aside from strictly acapella worship, their Churches differed very little from ours.

 

Perhaps I was incapable of articulating my point well. Allow me to re-iterate; I came up in "New Heights Christian Church," which deemed itself non-denominational. Our former executive pastor served on the board for "Christian Family Services," essentially as an ambassador for "Christian Churches," being that "Christian Family Services" was seemingly compiled predominately of "Church of Christ" congregations. It was communicated to me by aforementioned exec. pastor that the main difference was instrumental vs. a Capella worship. I was otherwise unaware of any of the above, as I've never experienced such things neither within my home church, nor at either of the congregations I've visited since having left.