Global Leadership Development

Baptist Theological Seminary

Venezuela

Brief History

The Baptist Theological Seminary of Venezuela was started in the early 1970s in an effort to train the largest number of students for Christian ministry. This coincided with the fact that as a result of the Crusade of the Americas, in which Dr. Daniel Sanchez participated as an evangelist, a significant number of Venezuelan young people responded to the call of ministry. Prior to the establishment of this seminary a few students had gone to Cali Colombia to study at the Baptist Seminary. The Venezuelan Baptist leadership came to the conclusion that many more persons could be trained for ministry and their training could be more contextualized if a national seminary were started. Dr. Roy Lyons served as the first president and was succeeded by fellow missionaries for several decades until Venezuelan Dr. Alirio Eustache was elected president. He has been succeeded by other Venezuelan presidents as the seminary has continued to train leaders for the Venezuelan Baptist Convention. At present the country of Venezuela is going through a severe political and economic crisis that is making extremely difficult for the seminary to continue operating. The current president, pastor Hector Nuñez is a man of faith who has kept the doors of the seminary open from day to day even as they struggle to find enough food to feed the students. A Champion Church could provide crucial resources that will enable the seminary to continue their excellent task of training people for ministry at a time when unprecedented numbers of Venezuelans are turning to Christ

Projects Related to Champion Church

E

Champion Churches could become fervent prayer partners with the seminary leaders

E

Champion Churches could team up with ministries that are finding ways to get food, medicine, clothing and other that can help the faculty, the students and their families.

E

While it may be extremely difficult for the pastors of Champion Churches to travel to Venezuela at this time, communications could take place through the telephone and emails.

Projects Related to the Faculty

E

Scholarships ($1,920 each) for 5 professors to enroll in the Master of
Theological Studies degree at Southwestern Seminary (which is totally online and totally in Spanish)

E

Financial resources to have an Annual Retreat to update and equip the professors

E

Financial resources to provide food for the professors and their families

Projects Related to Students

E

Scholarships ($500 each) to assist students with dire economic need to enroll in the seminary.

E

Scholarship ($1920) to enable some of the students to enroll in the online
Master of Theological Studies offered by Southwestern Seminary

Projects Related to the Campus

E

Funding to enable the seminary to acquire Wifi equipment to make online classes possible

E

Laptops, for the various classrooms

E

Data projectors for the classrooms and the extensions

E

Update the library

E

Video camera to record courses and conferences.

E

In collaboration with Southwestern Seminary, Trinity Academic can make available to this Seminary an electronic portal that will enable the seminary to offer online courses, virtual courses and an untold number of library resources to the students. A Champion Church can assist by providing the initial cost of installing this system and the very affordable cost to maintain thus saving the Seminary thousands of dollars in equipment and local personnel to maintain it.

Projects Related to the Seminary Extensions

E

Financial resources to help professors with travel and lodging costs as they go to the various extensions

E

The severe economic crisis makes it extremely difficult for students to travel to the central campus but the extensions operating in churches can make it possible to receive a theological education.

Hector Nuñez

President

Email: hdnpueblos@yahoo.com