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Child

Evangelism Fellowship® 

canada

CCMI
 

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Canadian Children's
  Ministries Institute
    A ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship of Canada

Our History

Jesse Irvin Overholtzer was raised in a church which taught that praying and religion were for grown-ups. Although as a young child he longed to be right with God, the way of salvation was never made plain to him. When the conviction of sin became too much to bear and his questions were not answered, Jesse decided that if he couldn’t get saved, he might as well sin as much as he wanted. The next eight years were filled with rebellion and darkness. Finally, at age 20, Jesse Overholtzer accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. Later, as a pastor, J. Irvin Overholtzer came to the realization that children, if properly instructed, can understand the good news of salvation. Thinking back to his own childhood and those wasted years, he was tremendously burdened for the salvation of children.

Mr. Overholtzer enlisted the help of leading evangelicals of his day, Dr. Paul W. Rood and Dr. Harry A. Ironside. In May 1937, in the state of Illinois, Child Evangelism Fellowship was incorporated.

Leadership was desperately needed in 1945. Calls began to come in for directors and missionaries to develop the CEF® program in areas that Mr. Overholtzer had visited in the USA and overseas.  In an effort to meet the challenge of training capable men and women for leadership positions in CEF, the Leadership Training Institute was begun. The charter student body numbered 30.  "You're going to see this school big some day,"  Mr. Overholtzer told the students.  "Other schools will be patterned after it around the world".  In the intervening years, graduates of the mother school set up Leadership Training Institutes in various counties around the world where CEF minister.  Today over 3,500 students have graduated from the USA Institute alone.  Hundreds more have received the specialized training in satellite Institutes which have now spread to Europe, South America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Orient.  Graduates have been found ministering to children, doing teacher training or leading a children's ministry in CEF, local churches and a variety of mission organizations overseas and in North America.

In 1992, the school became known as the Children's Ministries Institute.  Now, as always, CCMI is dedicated to providing quality, practical training for those called of God to take the Gospel message to the most forsaken mission field in the world today - the children.