Of course - Just type "Blender Cycles Lighting" in google and you'll probably find lots of tutorials. Otherwise you can find basic information in this tutorial on step 4 http://www.mecabricks.com/en/forum/topic/165

Sure. I tried setting my own lighting up with the template and got some pink surfaces. Perhaps I forgot to use one of the textures or something.

You need to deactivate the environment lighting. You see this pink tint (default error colour) because blender tries to use an unknown file to perform the lighting of the scene on the top of your other lights.

Thanks.