Experience for Ministry Intelligence

Senior Christian leaders are being raised up by God all over the world. These ministers have life experience. They have found the free high-quality training that Christian Leaders Institute brings.

One leaders who is launching into ministry is Susanne Pyle.

Susanne Pyle is a senior Christian leader that found Christian Leaders Institute! She just began ministry training at Christian Leaders Institute.  She is a 63-year-old woman and a wife of 43 years. She homeschooled her children and taught in the Kansas public school system. She has eight grandchildren. Susanne began actively following Jesus at about age 23,

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior-truly the most important event in my life. I was raised in a large family attending church every Sunday, and though my belief in God was very real, I never had much knowledge of the Bible or that I could have a personal relationship with my God. I did accept the Lord while attending a neighboring church with a friend in high school, but it wasn’t until after the birth of my first baby that it all became very real to me.

Being someone’s mother was a very sobering thing for me. I remember one evening in particular when several of our friends sat with my husband and I around our kitchen table. With alcohol and drugs strewn across the table and a new baby asleep in the next room, I remember saying a silent prayer, “God, if you are out there and if you hear me, somehow, somewhere, get this right for me.”  

God was there, and He did hear me. Within a few months we returned to the states where God placed us in an apartment next to a young couple who immediately began inviting us to church. When we went, God was right there waiting for us.  My husband and I both dedicated our lives to the Lord and have been serving him fervently ever since. 

Susanne is a senior Christian leader with a passion to reach younger women and help them find the victorious life in Christ.

Though my walk with the Lord has been the most important thing to me for the past 40 years, I was very excited to find this training opportunity from Christian Leaders Institute. I feel led in the “autumn” of my life to be obedient to Titus 2:3-5 in teaching the younger women, “That the word of God be not blasphemed.” 

Senior Christian Leaders like Susanne Pyle bring exciting intelligence and experience to their local churches and communities.

Building Toward Ministry Intelligence

Robert Sternberg talks about the types of intelligence that help humans do well. He talks about Analytic, Creative, and Practical Intelligence. Others like Daniel Goleman have written about Emotional Intelligence, which could be a form of practical intelligence. I will add one more intelligence that Sternberg missed. An intelligence that was not lost on Susanne Pyle. This intelligence is “Spiritual Intelligence.”

Many Senior Christian Leaders have spent decades learning and growing in experience and intelligence that will make a big impact for Christ!

Briefly, notice how Sternberg’s forms of intelligence connect with people who have life experience, such as Susanne. God is raising up intelligent and spiritually connected leaders to change the world!

Sternberg’s Types of Intelligence

Analytic – Includes all “mental processes that foster academic proficiency from learning, remembering and thinking. This form of abstract thinking develops verbal and logical skills.” (The Developing Person Through the Life Span. Kathleen Stassen Berger – Page 610)

When someone studies ministry training at Christian Leaders Institute, they are receiving necessary cognitive insights about the Bible, Theology, and Ministry theory and practice. This type of intelligence is vital for ministry and will fuel other forms of ministry intelligence.

Creative Intelligence – includes the ability to see complex opportunities and problems and solve them. This includes the type of learning that fosters innovation valuing unexpected or disruptive outcomes. (The Developing Person Through the Life Span. Kathleen Stassen Berger – Page 610)

When someone is doing ministry, they often find that their book knowledge is only the beginning. New problems and situations arise that take thought and imaginative solutions. I have often found that the development of ministry strategies form as I grow in this intelligence.

Practical Intelligence – includes the day to day responding to situations as they come to you. This “real-time” intelligence is especially helpful in dealing with people. This type of intelligence is not found on tests. (The Developing Person Through the Life Span. Kathleen Stassen Berger – Page 611)

Christian Leaders Institute offers the People Smart class to help people to know the issues of practical people-intelligence. Often students say that this was one of the hardest courses for them because many have struggled to apply the knowledge to their practical life.

Spiritual Intelligence – includes the issues of the “soul” in relationship to God and others. This is the intangible intelligence that makes someone hopeful and loving or evil. Often this spiritual intelligence is discounted or ignored. Everyone has a directional spiritual intelligence.

This is the knowledge of the heart and “walk” with God over time. This knowledge includes all the other three forms of intelligence but is controlled by a spiritual center. When people are at war with God, their hearts harden and they are controlled by their own lusts or by demonic forces. Their “spiritual walk” is not with their creator or redeemer.

Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:17-19  

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. ¹⁹ Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Their spiritual intelligence has been darkened and their hearts are hard to the God of the universe. All they think about is the here and now and how to please themselves.

From a Christ-follower point of view, our spiritual intelligence comes from the Bible and the Holy Spirit. As we connect to God and study His Word, our sense of calling and life of impact increases.

Senior Christian Leaders Forms of Ministry Intelligence

Seniors, those over 50 years old, have half a century of learning and experience. Some call it the school of hard knocks. As Christians and seniors, we are often more settled in our walk with God and our life. We know that we are aging and are more aware of the role of our faith and hope.

We want to give back because we know more deeply the power of grace. We have come to a point where we realize we are responsible to help others and lead them into the light of the gospel.

We understand the value of our time. Our spiritual intelligence connected to God and his Word plays a central role in our decision making.

I have noticed that many Senior Christian Leaders like Susanne Pyle are stepping up to the plate, not just retiring and playing pickleball, but are now embarking on a new journey of ministry.

Christian Leaders Institute will help people of all ages receive generosity-driven free ministry training. If you are called to pursue ministry.

This story is part of a movement where Senior Christian Leaders are rising up to serve the Lord in large numbers. Find of more, click here