This is why I give to your school,” Marlene Ostrom told me. “You have the anointing here!”

More than 60 years ago, her husband, Don, graduated from Northwest Bible College (now Northwest University) in Kirkland, Washington. Soon afterward, the Ostroms went to the Philippines as missionaries.

After a few years on the field, the Ostroms returned home to take over the family business following the deaths of Marlene’s parents. That business grew to become a multimillion-dollar enterprise, allowing the Ostroms to contribute generously to Assemblies of God higher education.

Even today, Marlene Ostrom regularly attends Pursuit — a student-led praise and prayer meeting at Northwest University — where she worships alongside hundreds of young Pentecostals as they sing, intercede, and operate in the gifts of the Spirit.

At this weekly gathering, students lay hands on one another for healing, prophesy, speak words of revelation to one another, and receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Some students and visitors receive Christ as Savior for the first time, after discovering that being a Christian involves more than simply associating with a church or growing up in a Christian family.

Across the United States and around the world, students at Assemblies of God universities, Bible colleges, Bible institutes, and church-based study centers are encountering the Holy Spirit. The Assemblies of God has more postsecondary Bible training schools than any other denomination in the world, including the massive Roman Catholic Church.

Formal training has always played a role in the missional activity of the Assemblies of God. In fact, the modern Pentecostal movement began in 1901 with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, during a meeting that probably looked similar to Pursuit. To this day, wherever the Pentecostal anointing arrives, schools quickly spring up to add biblical knowledge to spiritual experience.

The anointing. That’s what truly distinguishes Assemblies of God learning communities. That’s why donors give millions of dollars each year. That’s what draws the thousands of students who choose our schools.

The opportunity to prepare for God’s calling to careers across the spectrum of human need, in an atmosphere of Spirit-filled peers, pays dividends that far surpass the cost of attendance.

Practical

While students primarily choose Assemblies of God schools for their spiritual climate, many other distinctive benefits and characteristics make our colleges attractive. One is the practical focus of our educational programs.

Except for Evangel University, all AG schools began as Bible institutes. The Bible institute movement began during the 1880s when pioneers like A.B. Simpson and D.L. Moody concluded that the burgeoning evangelical revival in America needed a way to train ministers more quickly and practically. (At the time, the traditional path of pursuing a liberal arts education and a seminary degree took seven years.) So, they founded schools to train ministers in just three years, emphasizing the development of both Bible knowledge and practical skills for church ministry.

Students benefit
from the guidance of trusted Assemblies
of God scholars who bring intelligence, advanced knowledge
of their field, ministry experience, and spiritual vitality to their calling.

The founders of the fledgling AG Fellowship largely came out of the early Pentecostal Bible institutes, and they founded their own regional schools during the 1920s and ‘30s. Over the years, those early regional schools developed to become regional universities, but they never lost their commitment to Pentecostal practicality.

The Assemblies of God has always focused on reaching the lost, planting churches, making disciples, and showing compassion for the needs of the most vulnerable people in society. Even in our one school that began as a liberal arts college, the priority of action has remained at the center.

Today, Assemblies of God universities offer highly relevant degree programs that prepare their students for successful careers in a wide variety of professional fields. AG Bible colleges largely limit their degree offerings to church ministry, but they retain the same practical focus that has always characterized our schools.

None of our universities formally identify as liberal arts schools; rather, they are universities with a professional focus. We remain committed to the mission of God. We train all our students for effective ministry in their churches and workplaces.

Excellent

Academic quality is a second consistent benefit of AG higher education. Each of our General Council endorsed universities has an appropriate level of national accreditation from accreditors approved by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

While many substandard Christian schools claim approval from a confusing assortment of self-described accrediting associations, endorsed Assemblies of God schools never claim ersatz credentials. Rather, they prefer to do the hard work of proving their academic quality to legitimate associations.

A degree from an endorsed Assemblies of God Bible institute or college guarantees a level of training for church ministry upon which students can base a lifetime of learning. Assemblies of God university degrees provide solid training for a wide variety of secular careers, along with a strong foundation of Bible and theology understanding that prepares students for leadership in their churches.

Graduates of Assemblies of God universities also find ready acceptance to graduate and professional schools. Many have gone on to earn graduate degrees from top universities around the world. I have always believed that the education I received at Evangel University offered the best intellectual formation I ever experienced as a student, despite finishing graduate degrees at Princeton Theological Seminary and Columbia University.

Biblical

Assemblies of God colleges also offer consistent fidelity to biblical doctrine, Christian orthodoxy, and Pentecostal distinctiveness. All AG schools require our Bible, theology, and ministry faculty to hold Assemblies of God ministerial credentials, through which they annually attest to their doctrinal integrity.

Our colleges expose students to the theological issues and societal questions facing the Church. They also require students to think for themselves and come to their own sense of sincere conviction about biblical faith. On this journey, however, students benefit from the guidance of trusted Assemblies of God scholars who bring intelligence, advanced knowledge of their field, ministry experience, and spiritual vitality to their calling in an atmosphere of commitment to our cherished Pentecostal truths.

Lasting

The Ostroms represent a composite of outcomes AG colleges seek to produce: a faith that endures, a lifetime of concern for the lost, hunger for God’s presence and anointing, a successful professional career, a fruitful life of ministry, and children and grandchildren who continue in the faith handed down to them over the generations.

Perhaps few students who graduate from an Assemblies of God school will inherit a lucrative business or see the level of financial success the Ostroms experienced, but the education they receive will equip them with the same ingredients for faithful service and Kingdom impact.

This article appears in the Winter 2022 edition of Influence magazine.