Towamencin's Calvary Baptist Seminary Closing After Four Decades

After 38 years of ministry education, Calvary Baptist Seminary on Valley Forge Road in Towamencin is closing due to, primarily, declining enrollment.
Sam Harbin, president of Calvary Baptist Seminary, wrote in a message at www.cbs.edu that this year of gospel training ministry will be the very last for Calvary Baptist Seminary.
The Board of Trustees recently authorized the administration to begin preparing for the final year of operations.
"The dreams and hopes for gospel ministry residing in the hearts of our students are burning brighter than ever--they inspire me every day. The need for visionary leaders to plant gospel-preaching churches here in the Northeast and around the world has never been more pressing--that need burdens me every day," wrote Harbin.
Harbin said low enrollment "produces a disproportionate reliance on contributed revenue for our general operations budget."
"We can point to any number of factors for the decline: rising student college debt, the multiplication of other good seminaries, the fact that we do not offer a fully online degree," he wrote. "All our best efforts to reverse the decline have met with disappointing results."
By doing a "teach out" process, the seminary can end operations "in a manner that upholds the testimony of Jesus Christ, does right by our students, and fulfills our financial and regulatory obligations honorably," he said.
Harbin alluded that another year of operations would bode worse for the seminary.
Calvary Baptist Seminary was founded more than 40 years ago by E. Robert Jordan.
In its history, the seminary graduated 517 students.