Gateway ADVANCE
ADVANCE is Gateway Seminary’s church-based pathway for ministry leaders who need theological training where they already serve. It is a non-accredited, pre-baccalaureate program: post-high school education for pastors, planters, and church leaders, offered through local ADVANCE centers rather than as a satellite campus of the seminary.
The program began in 1980 as Ethnic Leadership Development, became Contextualized Leadership Development, and was named ADVANCE in 2017. Its three commitments are the reason it fits work already underway in Central America: it is accessible, contextual, and expansive. Centers are established by cooperative agreement between Gateway Seminary and a local church, association, convention, or ministry. Students study in their own setting. Instructors adapt syllabi, textbooks, and schedules to the people in the room. The aim is not to import an institution. It is to form leaders who can preach, plant, disciple, and serve the churches that sent them.
ADVANCE offers three stacked credentials:
- Certificate (12 hours) in a specific area of ministry
- Diploma (24 hours): that certificate plus Christian studies in Bible, theology, and history
- Leadership Diploma (48 hours): ministry concentration, fuller Christian studies, and leadership
Concentrations include pastoral ministries, preaching, missions, church planting, discipleship, leadership, Christian studies, and related fields. Students must be at least eighteen and Christians for at least one year, with a church endorsement. Some ADVANCE coursework may transfer into other programs, depending on the receiving school; ADVANCE itself is not an accredited degree.
Gateway states the student objectives this way. ADVANCE exists to help students:
- Grow in obedience to and love for Jesus Christ
- Handle Scripture with faithful interpretation and application
- Live connected to a local church and its wider mission networks
- Recognize giftedness, passion, and competence for ministry
- Pursue the Great Commission locally and globally
- Relate well to people
- Form a relevant vision and plan for a particular context of service
Starting Gateway ADVANCE in Colombia and Central America
That last objective is the one that matters most for the work I am helping to start. We are working to establish ADVANCE in Colombia and Central America, in partnership with national leaders and in continuity with the pastoral training already taking shape through HTI Nicaragua. The long-term test is the same one we keep asking in Somotillo: can local leaders teach faithfully when outside instructors are no longer in the room?
ADVANCE is one tool for that task. It gives churches a recognized Gateway pathway without requiring every pastor to leave home for a campus degree. It also gives a shared curriculum and credential structure that can travel with expansion into new sites.
If you want to learn more about the official program, start here:
If you want to pray, teach, host, or help stand up a center in Colombia or Central America, use the contact page or partner with the work.