Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary: Serving Micronesia and the Pacific Rim

I have been back from Guam for a couple of weeks now—and my body has still pretty much readjusted to Pacific Time. This semester I am teaching the second class in the Theology sequence. I had two weeks of “face to face” instruction with them. The rest of the semester is conducted long-distance via Skype conferences. My class was diverse, to say the least. It included students from Papua, Chuuk as well from the US Mainland. Diverse backgrounds makes for very interesting interaction. I also had an opportunity to lead the Sunday service for a newly formed church that meets in a hotel, as well as speaking in the in chapel at PIU.

I just counted up the number of trips I have made to Guam during the past seven years. If I counted right (and I think I did) I have just returned from my 13^th trip—that totals up to more than 150,000 miles winging it over the Pacific. The old saying is: “familiarity breeds contempt.” While with reference to air travel the feeling is not contempt rather there is no longer a feeling of excited anticipation. I know the drill. Kay & I have put together a detailed punchlist that allows me to pack in about two hours (assuming I don’t have to run to the store to pick up anything that I need to take with me.) The advent of the iPad now allows me to take my own entertainment with me on the plane, rather than putting up with the usually inane film that the airline chooses.

Over the years I have stayed at a number of different locations — with different faculty members — while “on island.” In recent years I have stayed with Dave and Joyce Owen. Dave is President of PIU (Pacific Islands University). He and Joyce have been in Micronesia since the early 1980’s and has been president of the college/university for almost 20 years. Though I did not meet Dave until my second trip to Guam, since he was on a trip to the States during my first Guam trip, it turns out that both Dave and I are graduates of Biola and DTS and have many friends in common. Throughout our careers we have continued to grow on parallel paths that have taken us down similar roads. During my times staying with them Dave and I have become close friends.

Dave and Joyce have been in Micronesia since the early 1980s, with time back in the states for seminary and then PhD work. He has been at Pacific Islands Bible College in Guam since about the time that the school moved to Guam in the early 1990s (it started in Chuuk in the mid-1970s). His vision has been the driving force behind the school’s growth and expansion. In the latter half of 1990s the school received accreditation through a nationally recognized accrediting agency. Shortly thereafter it expanded into a University with three schools, Pacific Islands Bible College, Pacific Islands Christian College, and Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary. As such it is the only Christian college/university west of Hawaii that has accreditation from an American accrediting agency. This allows undergraduate students to be eligible for U.S. Government grant money to attend college.

Despite the availability of an accredited college education on the B.A. level there was still a gap in preparing men and women specifically for ministry in Micronesia—those going into pastoral ministry needed more specialized training that was not available anywhere west of California. The need was for a seminary in the western Pacific area that would be both geographically and economically accessible. The Micronesian communities are poor. Students who want further biblical and theological training beyond a college degree were forced to travel to the US mainland to find an accredited seminary, between the expense of travel, the high cost of tuition, food and housing, a graduate theological education was simply out of reach for those who desired it. Additionally there was a demand from the larger western Pacific Rim. PIU a mission school whose faculty and staff are largely missionaries supported through donors, enables PIES to offer an accredited graduate education at less than half the cost of what seminaries on the US mainland cost.

In 2008 Pacific Islands Bible College opened a seminary – Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary, with Eric Sorensen (one of my former students) as the founding Dean, architect of the program and professor of church history. At that time he tapped me to be the professor of theology.

After shepherding the seminary during its start-up, Eric and his wife Karyn (who was professor of counseling at PIBC) returned to California for their daughters’ high school years. At that time my role at PIES doubled as I took on teaching not only the theology component but also the church history—this was something I was happy to do since I am a historical theologian, which means I have 1 foot in each of the those worlds. It also meant going out to Guam twice a year, instead of two times every other year.

The outreach of PIES is nothing short of phenomenal. During the past six years I have had students from mainland China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Papua (New Guinea), Palau, Chuuk, Pohnpei (these are Pacific Island Nations which span nearly 1500 miles east to west and lie roughly in a line 800 miles south of Guam), as well as Chamorro students (the native people on Guam) and several students from the US mainland and Hawaii. The Seminary has been around long enough to have several graduates, some have returned to their homelands, one is a Chaplin in the Army serving on Guam, others minister on Guam to the local Chuukese and other Micronesian communities.

“The goal of Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary is to produce biblically-formed servant leaders equipped to serve the churches and communities of the Pacific.”