by Dr. Thomas White, President of Cedarville University
Local churches across the country are asking a sobering question: Who will shepherd the next generation?
Recent research highlights a real challenge in the leadership pipeline:
- Barna reports that 71% of senior pastors agree they are concerned about the quality of future Christian leaders.
- Barna also notes there are now more full-time senior pastors over age 65 than under age 40.
- Christianity Today reports that about one in four pastors hopes to retire before 2030.
Christ has promised to build His Church, and He will remain faithful to that promise. Yet Scripture also teaches that God ordinarily works through calling, affirmation by local churches, and careful preparation for ministry.
God has already been using Cedarville to help meet the need. Since the 1953 merger with the Baptist Bible Institute, Cedarville has offered undergraduate Bible education. In 2014, we began a Master of Ministry degree, and in 2016, we launched a Master of Divinity degree. This fall, of the 390 students in the School of Biblical and Theological Studies, we had 211 students in graduate theological programs. To date, we have graduated 186 students with graduate ministry degrees and thousands with undergraduate Bible degrees.
Continuing our long-time commitment to serve the local church and enhancing our efforts to meet growing needs, we enthusiastically announce the launch of Cedarville Theological Seminary.
Our aim is simple and unapologetic: to train men and women who are mastered by the Word of God and prepared to serve Christ’s Church with conviction, humility, and joy. This is not a departure from our mission but a natural extension of what we have done for decades.
A Foundation That Shapes Every Cedarville Graduate
For decades, Cedarville’s School of Biblical and Theological Studies has anchored the University in biblical authority and theological clarity. One of the most distinctive expressions of this commitment is our Bible minor. Every undergraduate student — regardless of major — completes five Bible and theology courses, including Bible and the Gospel, Old Testament Literature, New Testament Literature, and Theology I and II.
This shared foundation shapes nurses, engineers, teachers, scientists, business leaders, and artists to be producers rather than just consumers in their local churches. We expect students to be actively involved in local congregations during their time at Cedarville, and we gather five days each week for chapel as a community shaped by worship, preaching, and Scripture. Our Student Life and Christian Ministries team brings a discipleship mindset to residence life and every aspect of a student's experience outside the classroom. These rhythms reinforce the message that Christian formation is embodied, communal, and oriented toward the church.
My expectation is that every faculty member in the School of Biblical and Theological Studies teaches at least one course in the Bible minor. Teaching thousands of undergraduate students requires more Bible scholars than most Christian universities our size, providing the breadth and depth that make the launch of a seminary both possible and responsible. The Bible minor will always remain at the core of what we do, and its quality and impact will only increase as we continue to attract and retain faithful, world-class faculty.
Many students discover a deep love for God’s Word through these courses. Some sense God’s call to vocational ministry and either transfer into the Master of Divinity program or return after graduation to pursue further theological training. A robust, passionate Bible minor serves our students, the local church, and ultimately the Kingdom of God well.
Essential to a Healthy Christian University
History teaches that Christian institutions do not remain faithful by accident. Many of America’s most prominent universities began as schools for theological training and pastoral preparation. Over time, most drifted from their founding commitments and abandoned “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). Their hallways now echo with the assumptions of liberalism and postmodernism, and their theological education often prioritizes human wisdom over the Word of God.
This drift does not happen suddenly. It occurs when institutions loosen their grip on core doctrines: the authority of Scripture, penal substitutionary atonement, and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It happens when general revelation or tradition is considered equally as authoritative as special revelation and when academic respectability is prized more highly than doctrinal fidelity. In a fallen world, institutions naturally drift left; it takes conviction, courage, and intentionality to remain anchored by the cross.
The primary human means God uses to prevent such drift is a strong and faithful Bible faculty. Approximately ten percent of Cedarville’s faculty serve in the School of Biblical and Theological Studies. These are men and women of deep piety and serious scholarship — trained in the biblical languages, attentive to theological nuance, and committed to living lives shaped by the Gospel. They serve in local churches, participate in missions, disciple students, and model postures of obedience worthy of imitating.
Beyond their teaching, our Bible faculty help the entire campus think biblically about its task. Through the Center for Biblical Integration, faculty across disciplines are equipped to reflect on how God’s Word informs their academic fields. Every tenured faculty member must articulate a biblical worldview and demonstrate how that worldview interacts with their discipline, documenting areas they must reject, redeem, or affirm based on the foundation of Scripture. Truth is not compartmentalized at Cedarville; it is applied across every field of study.
The Vision for Cedarville Theological Seminary
Cedarville Theological Seminary grows directly out of these convictions. We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We seek to train students who submit humbly and joyfully to God’s Word and who love Christ’s Church. We will train text-driven preachers and leaders who will proclaim Christ and serve His people well.
We are intentionally evangelical and firmly rooted in the historic Christian faith. We affirm the Bible as God-breathed, authoritative, and sufficient. We hold to the historical truthfulness of Genesis, including a literal six-day creation, the reality of Adam and Eve, and marriage as one man and one woman in a complementary covenant relationship. We affirm humanity’s fall into sin and our universal need for redemption.
We proclaim Christ crucified and risen: salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, grounded in His penal substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection. We confess the blessed hope of His return as King, when He will reign and make all things new. We do not apologize for God, dilute the Gospel, or seek to make Christianity more acceptable to the spirit of the age. This message is precisely what our world, our nation, and our churches need.
Looking Ahead
God’s Kingdom is vast, and Cedarville University is only one small part of it. We are grateful for faithful men and women serving Christ across denominations, institutions, and contexts. We count it a privilege to serve alongside them. Cedarville Theological Seminary represents the next faithful step in our mission to transform lives through academic excellence and intentional discipleship in submission to biblical authority. We desire to train generations of students who will stand firmly for the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ, serving His Church as faithful stewards until King Jesus returns.
