article-SeptOct-ellerslieschoolofhonor

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Seventeen years ago, when my love story with Eric was unfolding, God began to stir a specific vision within our hearts. We dreamed about a set-apart place where eager young Christians could come for a season of intensive training in the Gospel life. We envisioned training and discipling Christians in a way that would forever change their lives and give them the foundation to impact the world for eternity. We longed to be a part of “hero training” for the next generation. We desired to awaken eager Christians to historical, Biblical Christianity and equip them to build the Kingdom of God – to reach the orphan, the widow, the outcast and the lost with a life-changing message of hope and power; to fall in love with the Word of God; and to live a heroic, radical, Christ-centered existence.

The vision for Ellerslie Training was born long before we ever thought of writing a book or speaking around the country. As time passed, no matter how many books we wrote or how many times we spoke to large crowds, our hunger to train and disciple serious-minded Christians in the deeper life continued to grow. Several years ago, we began to receive hundreds of requests to launch some kind of discipleship training school – but the door never opened for the training center dream to become a reality…until now.

Three years ago, we heard about a Bible college campus that was vacant and for sale, just a few minutes down the road from our home in Windsor, Colorado. It was a beautiful, peaceful place – situated on a quiet lake and overlooking the Rocky Mountains. After visiting the property, we began to feel strongly that God wanted us to pray for this facility. We’d seen lots of other facilities around the country, but for some reason this campus tugged at our hearts in a different way. We wondered if this might be the location that the training program would finally be launched. Our ministry didn’t have the money to purchase the campus. But as we read amazing stories of Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, and Rees Howells experiencing God’s supernatural provision, we were challenged to trust Him to bring this property into our hands in a miraculous way.

If any of you have read our newest book Wrestling Prayer, you’ll know what I mean when I say that we truly have wrestled in prayer for this campus for the past three years. There were many times when it seemed we were extremely close to getting access to this property – only to have it fall through at the last minute. But like the persistent Cannonite woman crying after Jesus and Jacob wrestling with God until the breaking of day – we felt compelled to continue praying.

Now, after seventeen years of praying for the school of honor, and three years of wrestling in prayer for this specific Bible college campus – God has opened the door and made this dream into a reality. This process has reminded me of Martin Luther statement, “Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have always received more than I asked for. God may delay, but He always comes.”

God has answered our prayers, and the Ellerslie Campus has officially become a reality.

The vision has matured and deepened throughout the past seventeen years – but the core dream has remained the same. . . to shape everyday men and women into spiritual heroes for Christ. In the summer of 2010, our Ellerslie 10-Week Training Programs will launch in Windsor, Colorado. It will be two and a half months of intensive discipleship, training in the Christ-life, and practical preparation for Christian hero work around the world. Eric and I are more passionate about this vision than any ministry work we’ve ever done. This is a dream that’s been seventeen years in the making – and I believe it will be very much worth the wait!

If you are ready to be launched into a bravehearted existence for Jesus Christ, to be trained at the deepest level of Christian honor, to fall in love with Scripture like never before and to be catapulted into a radical, poured-out life for the Kingdom of God, I encourage you to prayerfully consider applying for this training program. As God continues to shape the specific direction of this vision, I can honestly say it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen or heard of in our modern Christian world. I believe it can change your life for eternity. *

To learn more about the Ellerslie Training – please visit www.ellerslie.com.