Mission

The purpose of Covenant Theological Seminary is to glorify the triune God by training his servants to walk in God's grace, minister God's Word, and equip God's people--all for God's mission.

These words summarize well what we do at Covenant Seminary: We are all about training pastors and those who serve beside them for fruitful and effective ministry to Christ’s church. And yet, good as it is, our mission statement alone cannot convey the full depth of what our mission involves. Every aspect of what we do here is governed by:

• Our understanding of the Scriptures as the Word of God.
• Our perception of God’s grace at work in our lives.
• Our deep commitment to a relational approach to ministry preparation that provides more than a merely academic education.

Our Core Values

The values we hold dear provide a strong foundation for our mission and help to keep us focused on the purpose for which we were established.

• Christ-Centered Ministry

  We believe that a seminary education is successful only if, at its end, the student knows Jesus Christ more intimately than at its beginning. Our approach to ministry training finds both its source and its goal in the person and work of Christ.

• Biblical Authority

  We believe that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore it is our only infallible rule of faith and practice. We believe in the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, and thus we affirm the inerrancy of the original manuscripts whose objective truth it is our responsibility to interpret and proclaim in accord with the principles of Scripture.

• Grace Foundation

  We believe that the foundation for all that we do must be the gospel of grace—our absolute confidence in God’s acceptance of us provided through his redemptive work in Jesus Christ as the supreme motivation and enablement for love and holiness.

• Relational Emphasis

  We believe that relationships between students and professors must take a meaningful place alongside teaching content, so that the entire character of the student—mind and heart—might be transformed for ministry.

• Pastoral Training

  We believe that our primary task is to train students for pastoral ministry—including church planting, campus ministry, chaplaincy, and missionary service—while also equipping those who will serve beside these pastors in a variety of ministry roles. To accomplish this purpose, we have gathered a faculty of pastor-scholars who are not only first-rate academically, but also experienced in every facet of ministry and church leadership.

• Church Leadership

  We believe that, as the seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), it is our responsibility to provide theological training and ministry models that are true to the Westminster Standards and the historic distinctives of Presbyterian orthodoxy, while equipping the next generation of Christian servants for more effective church leadership in a changing world. At the same time, because we recognize that a seminary alone can never fully equip students for these tasks, we seek to work in partnership with local churches (pdf, 1.54MB) to accomplish our purpose.

• Kingdom Perspective

  We believe that God’s ultimate purpose is the gathering of his people from every nation and the renewal of all things. He calls his church to active involvement with the world’s peoples and cultures for the purpose of bringing the gospel to those who do not believe and expressing Christ’s lordship in every area of life. In order to train students to make disciples of the nations, our faculty, staff, and students must increasingly reflect the ethnic and cultural richness of God’s worldwide church.

Fast Facts