The History of New Covenant Bible Institute

Our Theological Journey

The Church of God of Prophecy as part of the Pentecostal tradition, an off shoot of the holiness movement, had already defined its own theology by the early 1900s. Vincent Synan, the renowned Pentecostal historian alluded to the impact our movement has made in the theological arena, although not yet fully documented. This impact is as a result of our founding father A. J. Tomlinson, a Quaker and a well-travelled agent for the American Bible Society. 

Tomlinson had a reputation as a vivid student of the Bible, an ardent writer whose skills evolved into him becoming an author and a publisher. It is from his desire to study and know more about God and His plan for humanity that theological training was conceptualized by our founding father which he articulated in his 8th annual address to the thirteenth General assembly in 1917. "I have thoughts of venturing to institute a school where young people can take a course in Bible and missionary training. A six months or one year course would work wonders in the preparation for better service.”

In 1964 under the leadership of Tomlinson’s son the then General Overseer Milton A. Tomlinson a college for higher learning was brought before the Church. This was done in 1964 during the 59th Annual General Assembly of the Church of God of Prophecy. He stressed the need for trained workers in the Church and Tomlinson College was opened in 1966.

In the early 1960s theological training came to Jamaica and in 1965 The Bible Training Camp (BTC) had its first graduates. This was a resident day school where leaders were trained for two weeks each semester year. Subsequently this was up graded to Bible Training Institute (BTI) in 1978. The program continued with the three semester year offering; however this was no longer a resident day school but an evening school. This attracted a vast array of leaders from all across our church community in Jamaica. Today most of our older leaders were trained at BTI.

It was not until the early 1990s that training in our church took a paradigm shift, where the program Center for Biblical Leadership (CBL) was introduced. This time the instructors were no longer imported from our International Offices but the cadre of lecturers were our own local qualified instructors and our first local director, Minister Wantworth Heron, was appointed (1994 to 1997).

Since training was now given to the indigenes of COGOP Jamaica, the program became very fluid because of the independence and autonomy accorded the Jamaican Church. The focus for training was leadership oriented therefore the school became known as Leadership Development Institute (LDI). A committee was formed that acted as a board (The Christian Education Committee). This committee with subsequent directors continues to direct the evolution of a new structure, programs, and vision for theological training for our people.

Today BTC has been revolutionized to New Covenant Bible Institute (NCBI) offering a diploma program instead of a certificate. We are now poised to enter the accreditation process with the University Council of Jamaica. 

As we celebrate 50 years we are proud to be in partnership with the fourth largest and prestigious graduate seminary Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary from Hamilton Massachusetts in the United States. An Institution accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. We are proud that our first 7 students who earned their Master of Religion degree is either in the process or has finished the added courses that upgraded them to Master of Divinity (MDiv). All 7 candidates have been accepted in the doctor of Ministry Program.

In May of this year (2015) another cohort of 10 students were graduated with their degrees in Master of Arts in Religion.

Our theme Spirituality, Theology: Advancing God's Kingdom echoes the passion of our formation as a Pentecostal movement. We cannot dichotomize the two as we are a product of the spiritual milieu of the holiness movement. According to Gustavo Gutierrez "Our Pentecostal spirituality is our theology" this however does not weaken the rigorously scientific character of theology he argued, but it properly situate it. We therefore as the Christian Education arm of COGOP Jamaica concur that our Spirituality is defined as the integration of our beliefs and practices in the affections which are themselves evoked and expressed by our orthodoxy and our orthopathy. As the journey continues may God bless our Education Department and God bless Jamaica.