Recently, I introduced you to Charisma’s Best Christian Universities, Colleges and Schools. But, I didn’t really explain how we chose what schools we included.
For many years, Charisma has served not only the Pentecostal/charismatic community, but also the wider evangelical community. We know the two communities overlap; yet when we created Charisma’s Best Christian Universities, Colleges and Schools, we were primarily aiming to serve the Pentecostal/charismatic institutions of higher learning because they have few other avenues to reach potential students.
We believe sending young people to a Christian institution of higher learning is vital today, partly because as the American culture becomes more and more ungodly, we need strong Christian leaders—which is what these institutions produce.
We also know that secular schools can often challenge a student’s faith to the extent that students fall away from their Christian faith. This motivates parents and grandparents to get their college-bound students in Christian schools, where their faith is developed rather than destroyed.
Because of this, Charisma’s Best Christian Universities, Colleges and Schools is more than just an advertising vehicle; it’s our attempt to serve this community with a guide that is informative, authoritative, and helps parents, grandparents and students make a wise decision—including looking at colleges they may not know exist.
We started with a list of 311 Christian schools and narrowed it down to the 266 currently included. Though the listings are free, many colleges paid for an enhanced listing or bought display advertising so they could tell their own story in their own way. To help you focus on which schools are either Pentecostal/charismatic or are open to Pentecostal/charismatic theology, we added an icon that is a Holy Spirit dove next to these schools. These are the ones we call “Charisma’s Best.”
We also eliminated any colleges we knew were anti-Pentecostal. In fact, a couple of schools we contacted even asked us to take them off our lists, which we did. However, many Protestant and evangelical colleges with solid reputations are open to Pentecostal/charismatic students.
Though we’ve done due diligence, we can’t vouch for every school. We believe our information is correct and that the schools we’re endorsing merit this; however, we want this to be interactive, so if we’ve made a mistake, please contact us so that we can make changes in the future. Likewise, if we haven’t included a university, college or Bible school that should be listed, send us contact information for that school so that we can research it more and make a qualified decision. More than anything, we hope this listing serves as an invaluable guide during the key process of selecting a school.
