Faith Bible Seminary is a ministry of Faith Church in Lafayette, Indiana. Our classes meet on the second floor of the Northend Community Center, and every Master of Divinity student serves in a congregation while he studies. This guide explains what that arrangement means in practice, where it came from, and what it will ask of you and your family.
What "church-based" means
The phrase gets used in more than one way, so here is what it means for us. Faith Church founded the seminary and still runs it. The seminary's mission statement is short: "Faith Bible Seminary is a graduate-level training institution designed to glorify God by equipping students with a biblical education for effective Christian ministry." The church is the place where that equipping is tested.
In practice it looks like this. Classes meet in a building the church uses all week for its community center. Several of the men who teach the M.Div. are pastors on the Faith Church staff. And the internship that fills three or four days of a student's week happens in a congregation, either Faith Church or a church that has partnered with us to train one of its own men.
On most days of the week a student is at a church. That is the simplest test of the model. Paul told Timothy to entrust what he had heard to faithful men who would be able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2), and he wrote it to a man already serving a church. We have tried to build a seminary that keeps it there.
Why Faith Church started a seminary
Faith Church was founded in 1964 with a commitment to discipleship. In 2002 the church wrote a five-year strategic plan, and a seminary was in it. The seminary was legally established in 2005. It began operating in 2007, when the first M.Div. cohort started. The MABC followed in the summer of 2008. The first M.Div. class graduated in 2010, eleven men, and the first MABC class graduated in 2011, also eleven.
Two things in that history matter for a prospective student. First, the church planned the seminary as part of its own work, and that is still how it operates. Second, the counseling side was already mature. Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries has trained more than 10,000 men and women in biblical counseling over more than thirty years, and it provides over 2,000 hours of free counseling to the community every year. The MABC drew on that work from its first summer.
Accreditation came later. The Association for Biblical Higher Education Commission on Accreditation granted initial accreditation on February 20, 2019, and reaffirmed it in 2024. The seminary is also recognized for VA benefits, approved by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, and a participant in SARA. You can read more on the About page.
Four pillars of the educational philosophy
Our published educational philosophy rests on four pillars. Here they are in the order we list them, with a note on what each one looks like in the building.
Knowledge and reliance on the Bible
We hold that Scripture is inspired and sufficient, and the curriculum is weighted accordingly. Of the M.Div.'s 86 credits, 41 are in Old and New Testament, 13 in systematic theology, and 5 in biblical interpretation.
Supervised practical training
Ministry is learned under a mentor who watches you do it. For M.Div. students this is the church internship described below, and the church, in consultation with us, directs what the intern does.
Community-based outreach
The gospel is carried into a local context through meaningful relationships. Faith Church operates a 65,000-square-foot community center, offers free counseling, and provides residential treatment. Students serve inside that work.
Personal holiness
Character is evaluated, and spiritual formation is part of the program. M.Div. applicants are expected to meet the standards of 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and the MABC lists godly character among its requirements for graduation. A church sees character more clearly than a classroom can, which is one more reason the internship is where it is.
The internship: half of the education
Every M.Div. student takes part in a church internship. We describe it as half of the educational experience, and we mean the fraction. Each week a student gives one or two days to class and three or four to ministry, and that pattern runs for all three years.
There are two ways to do it. Faith Church offers several part-time internships that are partially paid. Or a student interns with a partnering church, a congregation that has a man it wants to train and that commits to him for three years. Either way the church directs the practical side, balancing three things: strengthening the student's weaknesses, putting his gifts to use, and meeting the church's own needs.
A man already in ministry may be admitted without the internship; we decide those cases one at a time. For everyone else the internship is where the seminary's expectations get tested. A student who can parse a Greek verb but cannot sit with a grieving family is not ready, and his church will see that long before a transcript does.
How the church internship works describes both tracks and what a partnering church agrees to.
A week in the program
Most semesters a student is in class one full day a week; some semesters it is two. Four or five one-week modular courses are added each year. The rest of the week belongs to the church. Over three years that adds up to 86 credits with no electives, taken in the order we schedule them, because the whole cohort moves together.
The workload is 50 to 60 hours a week, year round. We say that plainly because it is the fact most likely to surprise a family. The hours are real. Reading, writing, and research still have to happen, and so does Sunday.
A cohort starts once every three years. The next one begins in 2028. Applications for a Faith Church internship are due September 1, 2027, and all other applications by July 1, 2028. The M.Div. guide walks through the degree itself; the program page has the curriculum by area.
Who teaches
The men who teach the M.Div. include pastors on the Faith Church staff: Dr. Brent Aucoin (Pastor of Seminary & Soul Care, Faith Church), Dr. Rob Green (Lead Pastor, Faith Church) and Aaron Birk (Pastor of Faith West & International Ministries). Students sit under them on class day and serve alongside some of them the rest of the week. That changes the relationship. A teacher who is also your pastor hears your preaching and sees your temper, and he can say so before a congregation of your own has to.
The full list, with degrees and roles as published, is on the faculty and staff page.
What it costs, and why
Lower Cost is the first of our three core values, and the reason is in the wording: we want to minimize student debt so that graduates remain available for ministry. The other two values are Value Time, which is the one-class-day structure, and Enable Practical Ministry Experience, which is the internship.
The figures follow from the model. A student in full-time ministry or an internship pays $2,000 a year in tuition. A student who is not pays $250 per credit hour. The intern's church contributes $1,200 a year, which is $100 a month. The application fee is $40, and local students pay a $100 technology fee each year. We do not offer direct financial aid; the ministry rate is the form our help takes.
The tuition page has every fee, and How much does seminary cost? puts the numbers in context.
The trade-offs
This model asks a good deal of a student and his family. We would rather you hear it now than in your second semester.
You will live in Lafayette. Students must be active members of a local church in the Lafayette area or willing to relocate. The internship is in person, and the Northend Community Center is where class meets.
You will not hold an outside job. Exceptions are made in special cases, and a student who does work outside the program gives up the ministry tuition rate. The week is designed so that church and seminary together fill it.
You will commit for three years. The cohort moves as one, there are no electives, and paid interns who break the three-year commitment face financial penalties. We also ask that students be relatively debt-free when they arrive and when they leave.
You will need your church behind you. The M.Div. is for young men whose local church recognizes their gifts for full-time pastoral ministry. A pastoral reference letter is part of the application, and the standards of 1 Timothy 3:1-7 apply for all three years, in class and in the internship.
Your family will adjust too. Spouses have no formal requirements, though volunteering is encouraged. Children can attend public school or Faith Christian School, or be homeschooled, and licensed childcare is available in the area. The faculty does make room for a marriage, a new baby, or a hard season, and students ask for it. Family Flourishes says more about what the three years look like at home.
The MABC, church-based another way
The Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling is church-based in a different sense: MABC students stay where they are. The 39-credit degree runs on a hybrid of eight-week online courses, fifteen-week residency courses with one week on campus, and independent studies, and the whole program requires only five weeks in Lafayette, three in June and two in January. Students complete 30 hours of supervised counseling through BC701 before they graduate.
The program equips pastors, missionaries, and lay men and women as biblical counselors, and we teach counseling from the Bible and test every theory by it. If counseling is your calling, start with What is biblical counseling? and the MABC page.
Is it for you
The M.Div. is for young men called to pastoral ministry whose church agrees, who can move to Lafayette for three years, and who are willing to give those years to the church and the classroom without a second job. If that describes you, the next step is a conversation with us, and the 2028 cohort guide is the easiest place to start it.
If you are a pastor with a man in your congregation you want to train, the partnering church page explains what your church would take on. And if you are still weighing the call itself, read How to become a pastor first, then come back here.