A God-Sized Dream
Denver, 2018
Tennent began as a God-sized dream of several pastors who wanted to better equip a rising generation of church planters, pastors, missionaries, and lay leaders to advance God’s kingdom around the world. In 2018, those dreams coalesced when the Calvary Family of Churches, an interdependent family of self-sustaining, self-governing, and self-replicating churches decided to officially form a new seminary.
For more information about the Calvary Family of Churches, visit thecalvary.org.
The Tennent Vision
Neshaminy, 1727
Without any options available for theological education, William Tennent, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian clergyman and father of four promising sons, took matters into his own hands, literally, and built a modest log cabin where he could teach his sons Greek and Hebrew, theology, and the Scriptures.
Although England had schools such as Oxford and Cambridge, and Massachusetts boasted Harvard, the need to equip pastors on the American frontier was great. Sending the best and brightest leaders away to be trained at such schools only exacerbated the problem. Little did anyone know at the time how many would jump at the chance to be taught locally, and soon, not only the Tennent family, but others who had been called to the ministry found their way to the cabin doorstep, asking if they too could be trained for such important work.
Those who had received clerical education at more prestigious institutions scoffed at the upstart school, nicknaming it “The Log College.” Yet history appears to vindicate Tennent’s seminary, as numerous graduates became significant leaders in the most powerful movement of God’s Spirit in the last 300 years, now known as the Great Awakening. Across the board, their ministries were characterized by “lux et calor,” both light and heat—insight and passion, glorious truth combined with burning love. In fact, they would come to be known as the “New Lights.” Moreover, the Log College would be the seedbed from which Princeton University, Princeton Seminary, and numerous other schools would grow.
The passion of the Log College was to equip and train godly workers who could then be sent into the Lord’s vineyard. The result, due in part to this training, was an awakening where countless throngs of people met Jesus. Our passion and hope is exactly the same.