For some years Apostle Les D. Crause was involved in training those called to the Fivefold Ministry. These were leaders at the highest level, and he put together a comprehensive training program embracing all of the leadership ministries in the Body of Christ.
The early training courses were offered only to specific members of the Fivefold Ministry, starting with the Prophets and then afterward to the Apostles. A school for the Prophets and a school for the Apostles was set up, and over time lectures were completed for each of these schools.
The result was an intensive curriculum designed to take those who had a desire to move into these ministries and showed potential to receive teaching at a professional level leading to a degree in Prophetic or Apostolic Ministry.
Later, schools were added also for Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists. And all of these schools followed the same method of teaching. Students were given a fixed schedule of studies a year at a time, leading to a degree qualification in that school.
After training students at the higher levels, it was realized that many were lacking knowledge of the lower level ministries involved in that area of ministry. Students were being trained to move to an Office Level, but they had never learned to function first at a ministry level.
So the courses were extended to cover two years instead of just one. And the first year was at lower level and more general while the second year was more specialized and at a higher level.
In the beginning Apostles, Les and Daphne Crause were residents in Mexico, and so they could not conduct live classes. So lectures were all presented online, and students could only come periodically for a conference in Mexico for personal ministry and impartation.
After ministering online working in Mexico and reaching people around the world, the Lord brought a major change that led to a different way of offering training.
Les and Daphne were led to leave Mexico and return to their home country of South Africa. Here they were now able to set up live classes and offer training to students in person in classes held at their new ministry center.
This permitted a far better way of interacting with students and now, students who completed these courses could receive their degree certificate at an annual graduation ceremony.
This is the pattern that is followed by most universities and colleges, and in order to maintain a standard as a university that offered degrees, it seemed necessary to follow this way of training.
For a season this worked well, and many different classes were conducted at the GBM Headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. Students were offered the opportunity to be associated with Global Business Ministries, either as a GBM branch or an affiliate ministry.
The online schools also continued in order to reach students from across the globe, and Global Business Ministries International became a standard in training the members of the Fivefold Ministry.
However, it appeared over time that although many students were qualifying, not many of these students were establishing their own ministry, and some already had a ministry, so they simply received knowledge but did not make any changes to the way they ministered.
The Lord had given Apostle Les a picture of what the future church should look like, and it involved making some changes to the way churches are established and run. But the training offered in these schools was not having the desired effect.
In fact, it seemed that many who came to study simply wanted to receive a qualification to give themselves some form of status or recognition. In the end, people were being educated, but they were not being influenced practically to put into practice the things that they had learned.
Although the schools seemed to be functioning well, and they were also producing an income for the ministry team, there did not seem to be the kind of effect that was hoped by training leaders at the highest level.
The whole purpose of training them was so that they could go out and build the New Church that God wanted to establish. And they had been taught what this looked like in the courses that were offered.
So in the midst of what appeared to be a successful ministry, the Lord gave Les clear instructions one day. He said, “Close down all the schools”. This seemed a bit of an extreme action to take and Les struggled to make such a decision.
By this time other ministry team members had begun to rise up into prominent places of involvement in the schools. Amongst these was Apostle Nadine Stohler, who had lived with Les and Daphne for some years, functioning as a member of the ministry team.
And although closing the live schools became a choice that was made for them, due to the arrival of Covid19 and the pandemic, there were still many students in the online schools.
The Lord told Les to let go of all training and to turn his back on the work that he had been doing for the past 20 years. And since Nadine was now running the schools, he handed them over to her to take full control and oversee as an affiliate ministry.
The Lord then led Les on a new journey of discovery and learning, and for a season he learned to walk a new road that he had taught for many years but had never walked on practically.
This was the Social Road, and it involved many activities that seemed more secular than spiritual. A large part of the Social Road involved activities in the Arts. And for a season, the Lord led Les to embrace the arts in a new way and to develop and excel in some of the activities that involved the arts.
He launched a school to train those who wished to write and for a season ran a training course on writing. After that he devoted some time to music and singing and began to produce several albums of songs, producing the final mixed tracks himself using modern technology.
After that, the Lord told Les to get into the real arts of drawing and painting. This was an area he was very weak in, and had never done before. But as he had taught, it is possible to tap into the resources of your spirit and develop any ability.
Les had done something similar many years ago in Mexico, where he had handed the entire ministry over to his daughter and son-in-law and had spent three years learning the second main road that God had told him about.
During that time he worked on, learned, and lived the Business Road. And in the process, he produced many study courses on business in the life of a believer. After three years he had completed his training and the result was a whole collection of materials that could now be offered to train those who had been called to walk the business road as part of their ministry.
At the end of those three years, the Lord told Les to return to his ministry with a now fuller emphasis. He could now work with those who were walking the Ministry Road, and also those who were walking the Business Road.
At that time, however, his daughter and son-in-law refused to relinquish control of the ministry he had founded, and it became necessary to establish a new ministry that embraced both the Ministry and Business Roads.
After spending three years learning the social road, the Lord now once again told Les to return and pick up his ministry on the other roads. He could now offer ministry to anyone who walked any of these three roads.
It was time now to put together a new curriculum of training that included not only ministry and business but also the Social Road, including the arts. But now it was not wise to try to go backward and pick up what he had left behind.
It now became necessary to offer a different kind of training that still included but was not limited to the Fivefold Ministry. There could now be schools for ministry, business, and the social road. And the training offered in these schools would now be for all believers at all levels.
This is what has led finally to this new way of training that is being offered in these schools. And it will follow a very different pattern to the way training was offered in the past.
The first school that Les attempted was the Book Writing School, where he offered lectures and training for those who wished to use writing as a tool for ministry. So based on the training methods used before, Les launched the new writing school, following a similar training method to what he had used in the past.
Students were given lectures in the form of video, audio, and text transcripts which they could access online in order to learn. They were then given projects to submit for marking as a way of training them from a distance.
And although many students applied and began to go through the courses, the rate of success hoped for was just not achieved. Just as had happened in the original Fivefold Schools, students came and submitted projects, but few really rose up and became writers.
Many lagged behind in the lessons and dragged their feet, and often personal communication and ministry needed to be added to help students break free and become the writers they hoped to be.
So the school was eventually closed down and it did not seem that the Church was ready for such a school. Les had to go back to the drawing board to see what else he could offer students.
There had been a website going for some years called Fivefold Music, where Les had hoped to offer music training to those interested. He had put together some tutorials on how to play the guitar and the keyboard and many had learned from these in the past.
In an attempt to now turn this into live training, Les began to offer free guitar lessons to local students who wished to attend a live class to learn guitar. But although it started out with huge interest, this soon waned and disappeared, until only one or two students remained.
Finally, Les attempted one more kind of training which he was sure would really take off and have a great effect on students. He established a School of the Supernatural, where he planned to teach students how to move into the supernatural power of God and carry out a powerful ministry.
This school was once again established using the teaching methods that were used in previous school training programs. Students were given lectures in the form of video, audio, and text to go through in their own time. And they then submitted projects on these lectures.
But just as before, this training method was not working, and this school was destined to fail, just like the others. But then the Lord gave Les a new concept to try and a different way of training.
He set up a WhatsApp group and added all students to that group. Then he set a time that was acceptable to all the students once a week, to have a training session in chat. No more projects were offered or required of the students.
Instead, the teaching was presented live in the chat, and students could both comment and ask questions during the lecture to make sure that they grasped what was being taught.
By having more close contact with the students, Les was able at times to minister to several of them personally during the chat. He could release the anointing while praying with them and minister to their current needs.
And now, for the first time, a new excitement began to arise in the students. Each week they left having received something fresh that had touched them, and even at times ministered to their exact needs.
It was clear that the best training method of all had been discovered. And now, not only could students be trained live from all around the world, but the materials offered in the WhatsApp chats could be captured into text documents and published as full studies.
Les knew that that time was right now for him to launch his new schools, offering this new and powerful way of training. And this is what has led to the Schools that you now see presented to you on this website.
For additional information on the running of each school, please check out the other pages on each website. And if you are a married person or plan to get married, then please read the page on Marriage And Ministry in our Ministry School.