India

Pastoral Training Seminary

MEMBER SCHOOL

               Number of Graduates: 120 | Churches Impacted: 40               

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MISSION

Training the next generation of Indian expositors and church planters.

KEY DETAILS ON PASTORAL TRAINING SEMINARY

About

  • We exist to train Indian nationals to be equipped in handling God's word accurately, so that they may plant and shepherd churches and train other faithful men across this nation.

    • Train and equip Indian men to be church planters and expositors

    • Conduct regional expository modules to equip existing pastors

    • Conduct an annual Bible conference to spur national churches in expositional ministry

    • Encourage our graduate pastors and come alongside them in the work of the ministry

    • Weekly classes with two semesters, that run as a three-year program

    • Classes are taught in person with printed notes and materials

    • Our training includes eight preaching labs, one-year church internships, and elder ordination exams

Training

    • Preachers Academy: A two-year program taught in quarterly one week modules focusing on training pastors and lay leaders in preaching. Taught in English

    • Certificate in Preaching: A two-year program taught in quarterly three-day seminars, focusing on training existing pastors in preaching. This is taught in local languages, in three different states of our country.

    • Center for Biblical Studies: a two year quarterly program run for lay people from all over India.  The focus of this program is to teach Bible Study Methods, Practical Ministry and Counseling.  Training is in English.

  • The Pastoral Training Seminary was founded in July 2002. We began with a team of 3 families, all grads of The Master’s Seminary. Towards 2007 we began to see the necessity of developing national faculty, for the longevity of our ministry. In light of this and greater scope for ministry we moved in 2009 to western India. After using various rental buildings, we have finally been able in 2021 to buy our own facilities. We are training 15 men in our Mdiv and 40 men in our modular programs.

  • We have the goal of establishing our training through our regional hubs, hosted by our graduate pastors, in four states and languages. We are also working on translating the MacArthur Study Bible as a resource in three different languages. We seek to have the English training running at our main center, supporting the regional language training and developing a base of at least 30 churches that can become Biblical equipping centers for the country.

Context

  • Population: 1,409,128,296 (2024 est.) 

    Ethnic Groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, and other 3% (2000) 

    Languages: Hindi 43.6%, Bengali 8%, Marathi 6.9%, Telugu 6.7%, Tamil 5.7%, Gujarati 4.6%, Urdu 4.2%, Kannada 3.6%, Odia 3.1%, Malayalam 2.9%, Punjabi 2.7%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.1%, other 5.6%;  English is the subsidiary official language but is the most important one for national, political, and commercial communication (2011 est.) 

    Note 1:  There are 22 other recognized languages—Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu.

    Note 2:  Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language.

    Religions: Hindu 79.8%, Muslim 14.2%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.7%, other and unspecified 2% (2011 est.) 

    Languages: Hindi, English, and 16 other official languages.

    Stats from CIA.gov and State.gov

  • Indian culture had its beginnings in the Indus Valley civilization, one of the world’s oldest dating back to the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. A large portion of South Asia was united under the Maurya Empire (4th – 3rd centuries B.C.) and India reached its golden age of culture, art, and science during the Gupta Dynasty (4th-6th centuries A.D.). Islam spread across the continent over a 700-year period. It was during the 16th century that European footholds began to be established in India. By the 19th century, Great Britain had taken control of India as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the empire. In both World Wars, British Indian forces played a key part. Indian independence was gained in 1947 after years of nonviolent resistance. In the last several decades, India’s economic reforms, along with other factors, have brought it recognition as a regional and global power. Christianity has very small foothold in India, Hinduism being the primary religion. 

    Compiled from CIA.gov, Operation World, and Joshua Project

  • “It’s hard to describe what a treasure it is to see the depth and riches of God’s word through my Hebrew and preaching classes.”

    U.T., Student at PTS

  • “We do not need more than Christ; we need the higher, deeper, wider, exalted, glorified view of Christ who is sufficient for all aspects of our lives and church as well.”

    Student at PTS

  • “I am really privileged to learn and study about Jesus Christ, and by taking this class, I am becoming more joyful, happy, and worshipful to whom I have never seen with my eyes and upon whom my hope is fixed that one day I will see Him face-to-face.”

    Student at PTS

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