What Makes City Vision College Unique

City Vision College: Rescuing Ministry Out of Boredom

by Dr. Fletcher Tink

City Vision College is like no educational program elsewhere. We have no campus, our staff is minimal, and our costs are surprisingly inexpensive. And yet we are one of the best kept secrets out there for accredited, undergraduate education in ministries of service. Our students earn bachelor's degrees and certificates, and are almost always guaranteed credible positions of ministry on graduation.

What makes us unique? Here are ten reasons:

1. Accessible Courses: All of our training is online, packaged into nine or ten week courses that move in sequence throughout the year in five sessions. This means that anyone who has access to the Internet and high school graduation or GED credits is eligible to study with us.

2. Qualified Instructors: All of our professors are not only fully qualified with a minimum of Masters' degrees, but have outstanding practical involvements in their field of teaching.  We have no full time professors, but select professors whose specialty is precisely in the area that they are monitoring and teaching.

3. Scrutinized Curriculum: All of our courses have been designed in great detail utilizing the best materials available including many presentations by leaders in the field, especially those who have presented workshops at Association of Gospel Rescue Missions (AGRM) Conventions.  Therefore students will know a wide variety of those whose materials are "state of the art."   The courses then are presented in minute detail to our accrediting agency the DETC (www.detc.org), the Distance Education and Training Council which goes over them with a fine-toothed comb and offers commentary and critique.  Only when the courses have passed the highest scrutiny do we present them.   The teachers assigned to the courses may have been involved in their development, and so may offer even further competency to the materials.

4. Practical Instruction:  The materials are webbed to practical service in ministry, requiring hands-on mentoring either at a Rescue Mission or some other accountable and credentialized ministry supervisor.  The projects required are intended to enhance existing ministries through interviews, evaluations, research and project presentations.

5. Relevant Themes:  Ministry to the urban environment and to human need, be it homelessness, spiritual discipleship, counseling, food services, addiction, financial management, fundraising, are hot button issues for not only rescue missions but also for a wide array of contemporary ministries that deal with expressing God's activity in the midst of real needs, offering the good news of the Gospel in a wide variety of holistic ways.

6. Ecumenical Approaches:  We do not represent a single dogmatic theological position other than Christ died for us that we may be saved to serve others.  A wide variety of readings and resources are used, but with the understanding that the Biblical message of redemption is central to all that we do.  However, our faculty and materials represent a wide variety of evangelical voices brought together by their desire to see Christ working in and through his servants.

7. Creative Options:  Our coursework can be taken for up to 60 units for a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Ministry degree, pending the completion of general courses at other institutions.  Our major in Urban Ministry requires a minimum of ten courses that follow two tracks:  one in management of non-profits; one in ministry.  Within the year, a third track will be introduced, allowing for a major in addiction counseling.

8. Reasonable Costs:  At this point our tuition costs undercut most other programs of this type.  For those unable to pay, sponsoring missions often see the value of subsidizing these costs.  There are also scholarship funds available under certain criteria.  City Vision College qualifies for Veterans Benefits and federal financing is in the works.  The add-on of a "materials cost" is cheaper than most textbooks required in other institutions given the fact that much of the material is made available on-line.  

9. Interaction and Relationships:  Our courses require the development of on-line communities where "conversations" take place and genuine partnership occurs between students and teachers who share their papers, their issues, their creativity one with another.   Our graduation ceremonies take place at the annual AGRM Convention in May of each year, with nearly 1,000 people in attendance, bestowing honors and regalia to our graduates. At this time, our "on-line" communities get a chance for face-to-face meeting.

10. Fair Dealings:  We are not a diploma mill!  The work is intensive, perhaps even more than an on-campus program as academic production is expected, untempered by personality or persuasion.  Not all of our students are successful.  However, we guarantee appropriate business practices and ethics of the highest standards in dealing professionally with our student body in matters of fairness, confidentiality, financial issues, and conflict.   We seek to produce men and women of both character and compassion, and wish to model these ourselves.

Urban ministry engages hundreds of thousands of employees around the world. Yet the task is huge and the need for preparation, great, in a changing world.  I Chronicles 12:31 describes the sons of Isaachar, "They understood the times and knew . . .what to do."  CIty Vision College seeks to facilitate this kind of training.