Founded in 1939, Master’s College & Seminary is a Peterborough, Ont.-based biblical school that hones a positive learning community for developing ministry leaders. Master’s College & Seminary equips the next generation of Pentecostal fellowship clerical leaders.

Connecting students with a foundation of faith, students develop their leadership skills and a commitment to service. Offering a variety of diploma and degree educational programs, the Master’s College & Seminary model is formational, experiential, and academically excellent.

The results speak for themselves. Described as unipurposed and unifocused, Master’s College & Seminary recognizes its chief purpose to prepare students for the ministry. Serving English churches across Eastern Canada, Master’s College & Seminary produces leadership talent for about 550 churches, serving nearly half of the Canadian fellowship.

“It produces great results. When we look at what we get in the first year and after four years with us, we stand back and are quite amazed with the progression, maturation, and value that our students are making not only in our churches, but in society as a whole,” Reverend Bill Morrow, President of Master’s College & Seminary, told The Canadian Business Journal. “We’re a strong academic institution with exceptional academic standards and expectations of our students, but we’re also about much more than that. We’re about the transformation of young lives.

“Most of the students who arrive are 18 years old, so we work really diligently with them, and the three or four years that they are with us are the growth years.

We work really hard to work with them in developing them into something that is going to make a huge contribution to society, aside from the church. We want them to grow and be transformed in who they are, what they are, and how they think about life and their values.”

Master’s College & Seminary is about strong academic programming as well as personal growth and development. The school offers a connected learning community where students are embedded in a culture of opportunities and experiences. With small class sizes and close-knit faculty, students are mentored in an interactive learning environment. Additionally, an internship component places students in ministry and community-based practical service, where these specifically designed learning opportunities allow students to implement the theory knowledge learned at Master’s College & Seminary.

Student Programming

Master’s College & Seminary is accredited by the Association of Biblical Higher Education. As part of their ongoing assessment, Master’s College & Seminary students complete a student satisfaction survey. The results reflect students’ appreciation toward the hands-on mentoring role that the faculty provide. The survey also indicated that students recognize the employment opportunities available to them upon graduation. Master’s College & Seminary provides students with the training, formation and experience to utilize their abilities and knowledge in a ministerial leadership role.

“We look at leadership preparation as one of the keys when we talk about the unipurpose of our school,” added Linda Gibson, Academic Dean with Master’s College & Seminary. “In many ways, that means turning students into reflective practitioners. To do that, we look at our holistic curriculum, formed by both the theory and the practice. We want our students to be good critical thinkers, but we also want them to be practitioners, to be able to critically reflect themselves on what they’re doing, and these elements will best prepare our students for the kind of leadership roles that we hope they’ll take.”

Master’s College & Seminary offers a range of programming options, from a one-year certificate that offers students foundational knowledge prior to entering post-secondary learning, to a two-year Bachelor of Religious Education degree, as well as a three-year diploma and four-year Pastoral Ministry and Youth Ministry degrees. Furthermore, Master’s College & Seminary also offers distance education and online learning. For students returning to the classroom, the school offers its Bachelor of Theology degree completion program. Overall, each program offers a formational and experiential foundation united with academic excellence.

Cultural Diversity

In order to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population, Master’s College & Seminary aims to connect with a more diverse student body, typically situated in urban and cultural centres. That means offering more diverse opportunities in the classroom. Looking toward the future, Master’s College & Seminary strives to develop a leadership institute which will foster continued education, alumni relations, coaching and mentoring, and ensuring that graduates are properly trained and educated in order to pursue work with the ministry.

Graduates of Master’s College & Seminary often serve in community churches or teaching roles, or pursue global humanitarian efforts, telling the story in more churches across Canada, all while building an ongoing connection and role within their communities.

“Our goal is to reconnect with our urban and cultural centres,” summarized Reverend Rich Janes, President-Elect of Master’s College & Seminary. “There is an ever-growing urban population and, for our churches, that means ensuring that their staffing and style meets the culture needs and expectations of all Canadians.”

www.mcs.edu