Dr. Timothy Tennent: Asbury Global
I believe that Asbury Seminary is in the midst of one of the most exciting re-invention phases of theological education in our history. Three years ago, we reorganized the educational platform of the Seminary into two separate arms: Asbury Residential and Asbury Global. All students, anywhere in the world, who want to study in a residential environment will be located in Wilmore, Kentucky. We have nearly 800 students who opt for this and it remains a vital aspect of our mission. But, we also became aware that many of our students are already well situated in places of ministry or work around the country and still want an Asbury degree. So, for over a decade we have been developing sites domestically to better serve Asbury students in specific locations with partner churches or ministries around the country. We now have sites in Orlando, Tampa, Memphis, Colorado Springs and Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are also supporting students from New York who were attending Alliance Seminary, which closed their operation. We anticipate operating a New York site by the Fall of 2025.
All our alumni know that the “secret sauce” of Asbury Seminary has always been our dual commitment to theological education and spiritual formation. So, none of our sites are merely “course offerings” sites. Rather, we have a director of spiritual formation who serves all of these students and chapels, small group formation, spiritual direction, and so forth. Formation is available to all students regardless of where they are located. In short, the “Asbury experience” is available wherever an Asbury degree is offered. That is a core value of Asbury and will not change. Our alumni who have been out in ministry for over a decade might be surprised to know that we now have more Asbury students who live outside of Wilmore than inside Wilmore. Our “Asbury Residential” and our “Asbury Global” are both thriving in wonderful ways. Our student body is now 1,739 students.
The next step of our Asbury Global has been to offer degrees in strategic locations around the world. We have now been able to extend Asbury degrees to students in London, England, Bangalore, India, and Medellín, Colombia, with other sites in process. These students are taught in collaboration with existing seminaries and Bible Colleges around the world in a way which strengthens their ministries, while drawing from our world-class faculty to train and equip at the highest level in the Wesleyan tradition around the world. In a decade, it would not surprise me if we had more students outside the United States than inside the United States. These are all major advances in the global mission of Asbury Seminary.
When H. C. Morrison founded our beloved Seminary a little over 100 years ago, he established our motto as “the whole Bible for the whole world.” Even though we were founded in 1923, it was not until 1927 that we had our first graduation service with an actual class of graduating students. We had a few years with single graduates because they had transferred in with credits, but 1927 was the first class who had started and finished at Asbury. We had four graduates in that first class! They were Wan-Yu Chang from China, Ellen Francis Keller, Raymond Newton, and Kenichi Tsuchiya from Japan. Men, women, from the US and from the ends of the earth. That was the first class. You see, from the start we had a global vision: “The whole Bible for the whole world” – what an audacious founding vision!! Asbury is remaining true to that founding vision in ways scarcely thought possible a few decades ago.
This dual approach, (Wilmore) residential and (global) nonresidential, has been the direct result of Dr. Tennent’s vision, commitment, and diligence to ensure that a Wesleyan-Arminian education and experience would be the legacy of ATS. He’s not been the only leader to do so, but only the latest, and perhaps served at “such a time as this” to continue to fulfill the dreams of those upon whose shoulders he has stood. May the future leaders of ATS do likewise. Well done, my friend, colleague, and coworker in Christ. DED