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European Nazarene College (EuNC) is a vocational college of theology and ministry in the Wesleyan-Arminian theological tradition, with the mission of Enabling Christlike Disciples for Ministry.

History

EuNC was established by the Church of the Nazarene as a training centre for its ministers in continental Europe. It started, in 1965, as a residential school in Büsingen, Germany and transitioned in 2011 to a fully decentralised school with Learning Centres established in more than 17 countries in Eurasia. Though its delivery methods have changed some over the years, EuNC continues to prepare leaders and ministers for Christian service as it has done since the beginning. Although primarily serving the needs of the Church of the Nazarene, EuNC welcomes people from all the traditions of the Christian Faith as long as there’s agreement regarding the basic statement of beliefs of the school.

makING a difference through education

Through the various programmes offered by EuNC, we propose to make a difference through education as we join the church in fulling its God given Mission to reach out to the world with the Good News of the gospel. Our efforts aim to bring transformation to the life of our students, in ways that are contextual to the student’s reality. Despite being a decentralised school, EuNC offers the same programme at each location with relevant content and practical contextualizations to each location in order to meet the specific needs of ministry.

Theological Education

We currently offer three programmes that are accredited by the European Council for Theological Education (formerly the European Evangelical Accrediting Association):

Certificate in Spiritual Formation (60 ECTS, corresponding to a Short-Cycle, partial, qualification in the QF-EHEA)
Diploma in Christian Ministry (120 ECTS, QF-EHEA Short Cycle)
Advanced Diploma in Applied Theology (180 ECTS, QF-EHEA First Cycle).

These programmes are delivered in various formats, depending on the learning centre and language group including: on-site classes, fully online classes, and courses that utilize video conferencing. You can read more about us in our Academic Catalogue.

Our Diploma in Christian Ministry programme has been validated by the Church of the Nazarene as meeting the minimum academic requirements for the ordained ministry in the denomination for the Eurasia Region.

Statement of Belief

European Nazarene College is an institution of the Church of the Nazarene and reflects its core values: we are a Christian people; we are a holiness people; we are a missional people. As such, its curriculum, teaching and standards of conduct are guided by the agreed Statement of Belief of the Church of the Nazarene. EuNC welcomes students from other Christian persuasions who feel that they can benefit from the nature and quality of the education provided by EuNC.

We believe:

In one God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That the Old and New Testament Scriptures, given by plenary inspiration, contain all truth necessary to faith and Christian living.
That man is born with a fallen nature, and is, therefore, inclined to evil, and that continually.
That the finally impenitent are hopelessly and eternally lost.
That the atonement through Jesus Christ is for the whole human race; and that whosoever repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is justified and regenerated and saved from the dominion of sin.
That believers are to be sanctified wholly, subsequent to regeneration, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That the Holy Spirit bears witness to the new birth, and also to the entire sanctification of believers.
That our Lord will return, the dead will be raised, and the final judgment will take place.

Quick Facts about EuNC

Mission: Enabling Christlike Disciples for Ministry

Vision: The ‘EuNC Strategic Plan - 2030 Growing Together’ outlines our vision and overarching strategic objective: “European Nazarene College will become a more significant part of a growing church in the Kingdom of God in Eurasia, collaborating with local churches, districts, the region, and other church and ministry entities in fulfilling the mission of God – making Christlike disciples in the nations.” (p. 7)

The college began as a vision in 1963 in the minds and hearts of Jerald Johnson, serving in Germany, and Bob Cerrato, of Italy. The vision was to serve continental Europe by training persons for ministry. A building was found in a little German village surrounded by Switzerland, the village of Büsingen. The mandate of the college was to be international in scope, with English as the medium of instruction, and to prepare persons for ordination and Christian service. The school was called European Nazarene Bible College (ENBC) and was established in 1965 with Rev. John B. Nielson as its first rector; classes began on 10 January 1966.

Throughout its existence, the college has stayed focused on fulfilling its original purpose. In 1977, the school affiliated itself with MidAmerica Nazarene University (MNU), through which it was able to offer a fully accredited Bachelor of Arts degree. In the early 1990’s, as an immediate result of the fall of Communism and the lifting of the Iron Curtain, the school started theological education by extension and, through this, expanded its mission to include many students from various countries who were not able to study at the campus in Büsingen and/or study in the English language. In 2001, the name was changed to European Nazarene College (EuNC). This change had been several years in coming, and it was accepted in the hope that the new name would reflect the institution’s educational profile more accurately.

Realizing that the rapidly changing environment in the countries that EuNC serves demanded a drastic review of the way it provided theological education for ministry, the school started a 7-year self-change project in autumn 2004. In January 2006, the Board of Trustees accepted the new strategy Moving Forward that emerged out of this project. The strategy reaffirmed the mission and vision statement of EuNC and outlined the organizational priorities for the future of being “one multicultural and multinational school with one campus and administrative centre and many teaching locations in various European and CIS countries" and aiming at “a high mobility of faculty and students between the campus and the various locations, with the goal of exposing them to the best of residential and extension education."

In the following years EuNC implemented the Moving Forward strategy. The college adapted its academic and administrative structures to better support a multi-site school with one overall faculty and student network, living and studying in different countries, and one curriculum with room for contextualization within the various cultures in Eurasia. In 2007-08 a new contextualized outcomes-based curriculum was launched. That same year, the college also adopted the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

During the final years of the timeline of the strategic plan, in 2010-11, the college found itself in a different position than anticipated, even though all objectives had been realized. EuNC was confronted with unforeseen developments such as a significant drop of student enrolment at the campus, challenges in accrediting all learning centres through the existing affiliate relationship with MNU and decreased financial and personnel resources. In response to these challenges, EuNC decided to close the residential programme in the summer of 2011 and fully concentrate on the learning centres of the college. The sale of the campus property was completed in 2015. EuNC has fully become one school in many nations with learning centres in different countries and a general administration to fulfil the mission of the college. The Vision 2020 strategic plan was developed in response to this emphasis.
In addition to these changes, in November 2012, the college received its initial accreditation from the European Council for Theological Education (ECTE) for the Certificate in Spiritual Formation (60 ECTS) and the Diploma in Christian Ministry (120 ECTS). The accreditation for the Advanced Diploma in Applied Theology (180 ECTS), comparable to a Vocational Bachelor of Theology, was received in April 2020.

The newest strategic plan, ‘EuNC Strategic Plan - 2030 Growing Together’, was developed in 2019. Both the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts delayed but also changed and strengthened some directions of the plan to make stronger initiatives moving forward. This plan was adopted in January 2023 by the EuNC Board of Trustees.(from p 8)

The ‘EuNC Strategic Plan - 2030 Growing Together’ outlines our vision and overarching strategic objective: “European Nazarene College will become a more significant part of a growing church in the Kingdom of God in Eurasia, collaborating with local churches, districts, the region, and other church and ministry entities in fulfilling the mission of God – making Christlike disciples in the nations.” (from p 4)

Books about the College

EuNC is one of the 51 IBOE (International Board of Education) schools of the Church of the Nazarene with a validated Curriculum for Ordained Ministry. The Diploma in Christian Ministry of European Nazarene College has been approved by the International Course of Study Advisory Committee (ICOSAC) of the Church of the Nazarene as the programme that fulfils the minimum academic requirements for ordained ministry within the districts of the Church of the Nazarene. Each district has clearly defined ordination academic requirements that either follow the minimum requirements or exceed these established by ICOSAC. Some districts require the ADAT programme or have additional coursework to complete the minimum academic requirements for ordination.

European Nazarene College obtained its institutional accreditation from the European Council for Theological Education (ECTE) as an alternative provider of higher education in 2012. Three programmes have been accredited by ECTE:

Certificate in Spiritual Formation [60 ECTS] (accredited since 2012) - EQF¹ Level 5 (partial)
Diploma in Christian Ministry [120 ECTS] (accredited since 2012): EQF¹ Level 5 – this is our base ordination track.
Advanced Diploma in Applied Theology [180 ECTS] (accredited since 2020): EQF¹ Level 6

¹ EQF = European Quality Framework

ECTE accreditation of alternative providers of higher education indicates that the learning opportunities offered by European Nazarene College are compliant with the European Standards and Guidelines for higher education and attests to the level of the learning opportunities according to the European Quality Framework. While this accreditation provides affirmation of the level and quality of the programmes, ECTE does not grant degrees and so these are not officially recognized degrees of the German educational system.

1 ECTS = 30 learning hours.

EuNC is fully decentralized, multinational, and multicultural, with a common general administration and many different learning centres. It is an educational network composed of faculty members and administrators who live and minister in many different countries, and students who study part-time in one of the learning centres. EuNC is one school with a core curriculum, one faculty, and one student body, with both distance and on-site learning delivery modes. We embrace the fact that we are multinational which is reflected in the organizational structure, the governance, and the administration of the college. We serve primarily the churches where we have established learning centres. EuNC offers its programmes in the languages of the countries. The curriculum is adjusted to each cultural context where the college is at work.

Our students are all part-time in their studies. Most of them are actively involved in ministry in some capacity, some already as lead pastors. They are doing their studies on top of these ministries and also are often managing family responsibilities and full-time jobs. The economic system varies greatly between our learning centres and the EuNC tuition is adjusted based on the student’s ability to pay in that country.

Our faculty live and minister in many different countries, teaching for us part-time, while maintaining their skills and knowledge through various faculty development activities. Below is a sample of some of the works published by our faculty (the list is not exhaustive for our faculty or the individuals).

Cereda, Giovanni

L'opera dello Spirito Santo nella santificazione del credente. La pneumatologia di John Wesley. Edizioni Ex Libris, 2012.

Culbertson, Howard

Discovering Missions, Beacon Hill Press, 2007.
The Kingdom Strikes Back: Signs of the Messiah at Work, Nazarene Publishing House, 1990.
Alfredo and His Impossible Dream, Nazarene Publishing House, 1980.
Rookie Notebook: My First Nine Months as a Missionary, , Nazarene Publishing House, 1976.

Druzhinina, Olga

The Ecclesiology of St. Basil the Great: A Trinitarian Approach to the Life of the Church. Pickwick Publications, 2016.

Flemming, Dean

Foretaste of the Future: Reading Revelation in Light of God’s Mission. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022.
Self-giving Love: The Book of Philippians. Transformative Word. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021.
Why Mission? Nashville: Abingdon, 2015.
Recovering the Full Mission of God: A Biblical Perspective on Being, Doing and Telling. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013.
Philippians: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. New Beacon Bible Commentaries. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2009.
Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, IL/Leicester, UK: InterVarsity Press/Apollos, 2005.

Köhler, Wolfgang

Die Verstocktheit Israels im Jesajabuch : Studie eines
theologischen Motivs. Ed. by Michael Rainer. Bibelstudien 25. Münster:
Lit-Verlag, 2019

Palmer, Chris

The Emergence of Pentecostalism in Wales. Apostolos Publishing Ltd., 2016.
Essential Christian Leadership. Apostolos Publishing Ltd., 2019.
Acting Out Your Christianity: An introduction to Luke-Acts. Faithbuilders Publishing, 2020.
The Book of Better Things: A Study on Hebrews. 24 devotional studies in Hebrews. Faithbuilders Publishing, 2022.
Psalms for Life: 12 short studies in the Psalms. Wopf and Stock, 2019.

Pottenger, Andrew

Power and Rhetoric in the Ecclesiastical Correspondence of Constantine the Great. Routledge, 2022.

Ricciardi, Matteo

A ecoteologia di Jürgen Moltmann: perspectivas de diálogo. São Paulo: Fonte Editorial, 2017. [Jürgen Moltmann's ecotheology: perspectives for dialogue]
“La vita al tempo di Gesù. Lingua, abitazione, cibo e religiosità”, Il Messaggero Avventista, anno XCVIII, n. 6, p. 10-11, ISSN 0392-6346.
[Life in the Time of Jesus. Language, Housing, Food and Religiosity]

Rinaldi, Giancarlo

Sulla libera grazia sulla predestinazione. Uomini Nuovi, 2019.
Avviamento allo studio della storia del movimento pentecostale Italiano. Uomini Nuovi, 2019.
Pagine indigeste dell’Antico Testamento. Independently published, 2018.
La Sanctificazione in Wesley come tema ecumenico. Editrice Carocci, 2016.
John Wesley e le buone opere. Edizioni Carocci, 2019.

Countries being served (27+): Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosova, Lebanon, Moldova, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, * some country names withheld for security reasons.
Eurasia Fields being served (5): Western Mediterranean Field, Northern Europe Field, Central Europe Field, Eurasia North Field, Eastern Mediterranean Field
Districts being served (21): Albania-Kosova District, Armenia District, Bulgaria, Central Asia, Croatia (Pioneer Area), France District, Germany District, the Holy Land, Hungary District, Italy District, Jordan District, Lebanon District, the Netherlands District, Portugal District, Romania District, Russia North District, Russia South District, Scandinavia District, Spain District, Ukraine-Moldova District .
* some district names withheld for security reasons

Quick Facts about EuNC

Admissions

Student Testimonials

EuNC Logo Items

History

makING a difference through education

Theological Education

Statement of Belief

Quick Facts about EuNC

Quick Facts
about EuNC

Student
Testimonials

EuNC
Logo Items