On October 29, 2005 at 6 p.m., MB Biblical Seminary will celebrate its first fifty years of ministry with a celebration dinner in Fresno, California. The event, hosted at the Sunnyside Racquet Club, is open to all alumni, supporters, and other friends of the Seminary.
MB Biblical Seminary was born in Fresno, California in 1955, as a place to train Mennonite Brethren pastors. It came to life through the passion of volunteers, church leaders, faculty members and students who invested their time, their finances and their lives into this place. Volunteers from across the United States and Canada renovated the dilapidated house, and later built the classrooms, lounge and faculty offices that make up the Fresno campus today. The Seminary was founded by the U.S. Mennonite Brethren Conference of Churches, and the Canadian Mennonite Brethren Conference became a partner in 1975.
In the past ten years, the Seminary has grown from a single campus in Fresno to include two more campuses: a full degree program as part of the ACTS seminary consortium in Langley, British Columbia, and a two-year program in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
According to Seminary president Jim Holm, the needs of the church have changed during the past decade. "While the seminary continues to train pastors, counselors and missionaries, as it has done in the past," he says, "it is increasingly equipping lay leaders to minister more effectively in their home churches."
While the Seminary remains a ministry of and for Mennonite Brethren churches, each campus reflects the Seminary's membership in Christ's global church. While still Anabaptist / Evangelical in its theology, the school partners with Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Evangelical Free, and people from a host of other denominations.
According to Holm, the various developments over the last fifty years have not changed the school's core mission. He says, "The Seminary remains, as it began fifty years ago, a place to inspire and equip men and women to serve and lead in the church and the world."
Tickets to the October 29th celebration dinner are available for $35 from Nancy Williams at 1-800-251-6227 or by email at nwilliams@mbseminary.edu.