Negative Factors in Today’s Christian Higher Education and church environment:

• The current crisis of declining numbers of available pastoral leadership in the Northeast; about 25 churches currently without pastors!

• The smaller pool of available trained pastoral leaders today, due in part to:

  • The ongoing pattern of decline / closure of many Bible colleges & seminaries.  If these type of schools, which traditionally have been the source for training pastors, continue to decline, from where will we get our next generation of trained pastors for our churches?

  • Fewer churches are identifying / strategically multiplying next generation pastors.

  • The redefining of “ministry” resulting in a diminishing of pastoral training, i.e. no difference between any kind of “ministry” and the actual calling of men into pastoral ministry.

  • The current cultural climate of disrespect for pastoral ministry & churches.

  • The growing trend away from appropriate financial support for ministry leaders, which has caused many men to turn away from considering vocational ministry.

• Challenges / obstacles of the current pastoral ministry training model in Bible colleges & seminaries, i.e. too expensive, too theoretical and not practical, too academic, too long to finish!

• The very real and advancing agenda in politics / government entities that threaten the regional accreditation of Christian colleges & seminaries, due to our Biblical convictions on marriage, morality, and gender definition.  If these kind of schools lose their accreditation due to their non-conformity to the new legislative agenda, they will no longer qualify for government student aid and student loan programs, which will effectively end their ability to recruit students and pay for the high cost of this educational model; they will either be forced to accommodate their doctrinal positions, or face the reality of economic extinction.

• The lack of any pastoral training school in our region that holds to and teaches our Biblical convictions in the areas of dispensationalism, pre-millennialism, cessationism, complimentarianism, Baptist ecclesiology.

Positive Factors that led to the formation of NSTM:

• We have a very supportive and active church constituency base in the Northeast Fellowship.

• A great location for ministry training courses at our debt-free facility at the Big Flats campus.

• We have a large number of qualified pastors and teachers in our Northeast Fellowship network that have both the high academic training and qualifications to serve as faculty, plus the passion and desire of these men to identify and equip next generation ministry leaders – “Pastors Training Next Generation Pastors” – these men are available, willing, and eager to serve in this new ministry training model!