About the Degree

With the continuing decline of Western Christianity and the expansion of the gospel around the world, church planting can play a vital role in the evangelization of people in the post-Christian cultural milieu as well as in the majority world. This Master of Arts degree is designed to equip those who sense God’s leading into the challenging ministry of starting new churches. The 48-credit hour degree focuses on biblical, theological, and missiological competencies to effectively launch, ground, lead, multiply, and sustain healthy, reproducing churches.

  • Effectively exegete culture with a view to presenting a culturally relevant gospel message.

  • Disciple new believers who will have the DNA to multiply more disciples.

  • Strategically identify how God is working in a community and design an indigenous gathering of new believers.

  • Equip a team with the five-fold ministry Jesus left for the church.

  • Reproduce mature Christ-followers, New Testament leaders, and healthy congregations of disciples.

Our Educational Philosophy

This is your education and our focus is on you not simply as a student, but as a fellow learner on a journey to develop a proficiency in theological and missiological content, vocational skills that will lead to success, and character motivated by your identity in Christ.

  • Character Development

    ✔️Deepen your faith as you follow Jesus.

    ✔️Participate in a journey of discipleship and formation that invites you to embody the way of Jesus as co-laborer on God’s mission.

    ✔️Learn to integrate your faith and your vocation so that what you do is shaped by who you are as a follower of Jesus.

  • Vocational Excellence

    ✔️Develop skills across a wide array of disciplines (e.g. Bible, theology, missiology, leadership, spirituality, and more).

    ✔️Learn to communicate effectively in your culture and in the world around you.

    ✔️Be equipped for a life-time of service of church planting and training church planters.

  • Proficiency Learning

    ✔️Develop patterns of thinking that reflect biblical, theological, historical, contextual, and vocational realities.

    ✔️Demonstrate your learning through a portfolio of learning that provides evidence of who you are, what you can do, and where you thrive.

    ✔️Learn in the context of real-life situations rather than fabricated classroom experiences.

In partnership with Kairos University

Affordable. Accessible. Relevant. Faithful.

Kairos University is a global system of theological education that provides opportunities for students to build entirely customized educational journeys that are affordable, accessible, relevant, and faithful. The University has a campus in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with offices throughout the United States and Canada, partnerships with organizations around the world, and students from nearly every continent.

The university is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools and The Higher Learning Commission. Learn more by clicking the button below.
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Learning Experiences Focused on Church Planting

You'll build key competencies in church planting, theology, church history, biblical literacy, and spirituality.

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A typical student

Participants in the MA degree are not simply students enrolled in a self-paced course. They join a learning community of like-minded experts and other explorers. We would love to welcome you into a creative and innovative global community.

Our typical student is . . .

  • A church or lay leader desiring to fulfill their passion to start new churches

  • A prospective missionary preparing to go to the field

  • A deployed missionary looking to sharpen cross-cultural effectiveness to successfully plant indigenous churches

  • A co-vocational pastor focused on equipping others to multiplying disciples

  • A lead pastor preparing his church for reproducing healthy churches

Tuition and Fees

Our unique subscription plan gives you financial options for your seminary education!

$350 gets you started with the application fee and first month's tuition. Then, $300 per month keeps you enrolled in the degree.
The MA/CP degree is a total of 48 credit hours and can be completed in as little as 16 months. The more diligently you progress through the program the less you pay in tuition. We do this to incentivize your hard work and help you steward the financial resources God has given you. If life gets in the way, simply cancel your subscription and re-subscribe when your calendar permits.
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Degree Benefits

  • Affordable

    Get high quality, and academically rigorous seminary classes for a fraction of the cost.

  • Master of Arts

    Graduate in 16 months or less with a degree that positions you with the skills to plant new churches.

  • Dynamic

    Dynamic video lectures with practical demonstrations and supplemental resources.

  • Engaging

    Engaging interaction connected to a global network of learners doing theology and ministry collaboratively.

  • 24/7 Access

    All day and all night access from wherever in the world you are doing ministry. You do not have to move to a seminary campus.

  • Accredited

    Kairos University is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools.

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We do not just simply fill your heads, but your hearts so that your hands are motivated and equipped to lead movements.

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Our Church Planting Faculty

Our faculty bring decades of global church planting experience to the learning experience.

Founder, Movement Leaders Collective Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch is the founding director of Forge Mission Training Network, 100Movements, The 5Q Collective, and Future Travelers. All these are focussed on developing missional leadership and movemental organization. Known for his innovative approach to mission, Alan is considered to be a thought-leader and key mission strategist for churches across the Western world. Hirsch is the author of The Forgotten Ways; 5Q; The Shaping of Things to Come, ReJesus, and The Faith of Leap (with Michael Frost); Untamed (with Debra Hirsch); Right Here, Right Now (with Lance Ford), and On the Verge (with Dave Ferguson).

Professor of Spiritual Formation Donald Patrick Harris

Don is, first and foremost, a Christian thinker and practitioner. But he is also a spiritual friend-director and missiologist. Don and his wife, Ellen, invested twenty-five years of their lives as missionaries—most of them in the former Czechoslovakia. While living there his primary focus was facilitative church planting, functioning as a trainer, coach and mentor with Czech church planters. He also provided spiritual friendship and direction for expatriate missionaries and other spiritual leaders. Don earned a professional doctorate from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, specializing in Spiritual Formation for Ministry Leaders. However, his highest academic credential is the Th.M. in New Testament. He continues to bring his experience and education to bear on his ministry passion: Christian ministry leaders, congregations and organizations who struggle and seek help. Don and Ellen make their home in Palm City on South Florida’s Treasure Coast.

Senior Fellow, C.S. Lewis Institute Randy Newman

Dr. Newman is the Senior Fellow for Evangelism and Apologetics at The C. S. Lewis Institute in the Washington, DC area. He has also taught at numerous theological seminaries and colleges. After serving for over 30 years with Campus Crusade for Christ, he established Connection Points, a ministry to help Christians engage people’s hearts the way Jesus did. He has written a number of books and articles about evangelism and other ways our lives intertwine with God’s creation. He is also the host of Questions That Matter, a podcast of the C. S. Lewis Institute. He and his wife Pam live in Annandale, VA and are grateful for their children and a growing number of grandchildren.

Church Planting Coach Peyton Jones

Peyton Jones has been on the front lines of ministry for over ten years. In 1999, at the age of 25, he moved to Europe, and served as the evangelist at Lloyd-Jones’s legendary Sandfields church, Aberavon. An accidental church planter, Jones planted in a Starbucks before returning to America, and planting in inner city Long Beach. To reach those nobody is reaching, Jones has worked as a firefighter, factory worker, barista, and psychiatric nurse, bringing all these experiences to the table. Jones received his MA Theology: Pastoral Studies from Wales Evangelical School of Theology, and is the Regional Catalyst for NAMB. He is also the host of the Jump School Core Team Training Series, Managing Editor of Church Planter Magazine and the co-host of the weekly Church Planter Podcast.

President and CEO, To Every Tribe Stephen Leston

Dr. Stephen Leston is the President of To Every Tribe, a mission training and sending agency. Prior to this role, Stephen served as the pastor of Kishwaukee Bible Church in DeKalb Illinois. He has been involved in ministry for over 20 years. He loves preaching, teaching, and equipping the next generation of leaders how to do the same. In addition to being the Author of The Bible in World History, He is also the author of The Illustrated Guide to Bible Battles and has contributed to several volumes of the Layman's Commentary Series. Steve's heart is to see people understand how to read, understand and apply the Christian Bible to their lives.

Senior Pastor, Round Hill EPC David D. Feiser

A graduate of Penn State, Pastor Dave earned a Master of Theological Studies at Palmer Theological Seminary outside of Philadelphia, and then to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, where he received a Ph.D. in Theological Studies with a concentration in Systematic Theology. His dissertation was a theology of proclamation, aiming to help the local church use not only preaching, but the sacraments and living out one's faith in the world as means of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Professor of New Testament Sylvie Raquel

Dr. Raquel has twenty-five years of academic experience in teaching biblical studies. She is committed to using her knowledge for building the Kingdom of God. Her heart is for missions. She is fluent in three spoken languages (English, French, and Spanish) besides the biblical languages (Koine Greek, Hebrew) and has a working knowledge of German and Latin. She also has ministerial experience. She worked in three different international churches in the area of youth ministry, discipleship ministry, prison ministry, and ESL ministry. She participated to or led missions’ trips to Kazakhstan, France, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Zambia, and India, as well as within the U.S.A. She is now looking into teaching online English, Spanish, and French theological studies.

Assistant Professor of Missiology Warrick Farah

Dr. Farah earned a DMiss from Fuller and is currently working towards a PhD from the Oxford Center of Mission Studies. He is co-editor of Margins of Islam: Ministry in Diverse Muslim Contexts (2018) and editor of Motus Dei: The Movement of God and the Discipleship of Nations (forthcoming in 2021). As a missiologist with One Collective, he currently serves in theological education in the Middle East, training Arab world leaders for ministry in the region. His research topics include Muslim Studies, Frontier Missiology, Theology of Mission, and Movements. Warrick has published in journals such as Evangelical Missions Quarterly, International Journal of Frontier Missiology, and Global Missiology.

Author and Missiologist Tom Steffen

Dr. Steffen served 20 years with New Tribes Mission, 15 of those in the Philippines. He is Professor Emeritus of Intercultural Studies in the Cook School of Intercultural Studies at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He specializes in church multiplication, orality, honor and shame, and business as mission. Some of his books include: Reconnecting God’s Story to Ministry: Cross-Cultural Storytelling at Home and Abroad, Worldview-based Storying: The Integration of Symbol, Story, and Ritual in the Orality Movement, and The Return of Oral Hermeneutic: As Good Today as It Was for the Hebrew Bible and First Century Christianity.

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