An Authentic Calling: Representing Christ and His Kingdom through the Church

About Us

Many urban churches and ministries suffer with discouragement because there is little lasting fruit. Often there is no plan for leader ship development. The biggest obstacle to successfully planting churches is training indigenous leaders to be pastors, to be able to rightly divide the Word of Truth without losing their cultural distinctive. For decades the Church in America has told the urban poor, “If you want a theological education, you have to change cultures and know someone who is rich.” We have basically said, “Do not bother to apply to get Bible training.” Consequently, biblically sound, evangelical urban leadership is uncommon.

The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) overcomes four barriers that urban leaders face in their efforts to receive theological education:

1. Cost: Many urban pastors could never afford to attend a traditional seminary.

2. Academic requirements: Many of God’s chosen leaders in the inner city have little more than a high school education and would not be admitted to most seminaries. 3. Proximity: Most urban leaders have a full-time ministry, a family, and a full-time job, so uprooting their family and abandoning their ministry to go away to Bible college is out of the question. 4. Cultural relevance: Most of what is taught in traditional seminaries does not equip an urban pastor to lead a flock in the inner city, so even if he/she could afford to go to Bible school, what is taught there is not relevant to daily life. In 1995 we launched TUMI in Wichita, Kansas, and have equipped hundreds of pastors since then. In 2000 we began establishing satellite training centers in other inner cities across the country and around the world. We have satellites in partnership with denomi nations, ministries, and schools, hosted in such places as churches, missions, prisons, and seminaries, and located all over the United States with international partners in places such as Canada, Puerto Rico, Ghana, Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan, and Liberia. Check our website www.tumi.org for all of our satellite locations.

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