Students at Illinois Central College have a new career option beginning this fall.
ICC is partnering with Lincoln Christian University to offer a “two plus two” program for students to obtain a degree in ministry. Students begin the program by completing two years of pre-ministry at ICC and transferring to LCU to complete a bachelor’s degree in Community Transformation Ministry.
Classes for the LCU portion of the degree will be offered in Peoria at the ICC North campus.
“There was some initial contact with Keith Ray, the president of Lincoln Christian University and it was just fortuitous that LCU was looking at expansion possibilities at the same time we were looking for partnering possibilities,” said ICC president John Erwin.
Ray said the program is “long overdue.”
“With graduates serving in over 160 countries and nearly every state, LCU is anxious to intensify its efforts in the strategic location of Peoria, Ill.,” he said. “It is a special bonus to partner with ICC with its long-standing reputation and wide educational coverage of downstate Illinois.”
During the first two years at ICC, students in the program will complete 64 credit hours, which includes general education requirements along with introduction-level ministry courses such as the Bible as literature, philosophy of religion and world religions.
After fulfilling the general education requirements as well as the pre-pastoral classes, students in the program would graduate with an associate of arts in pre-theology or pre-ministry.
Students then transfer to LCU, where 66 hours of course work is needed to complete the program. Here, classes are more specialized and provide advanced focus on the Bible and ministry.
According to Erwin, many of the courses are already offered at ICC, but new courses, such as those focused on the Old Testament and the New Testament, may be introduced.
“We have a few professors here who are very capable of teaching most of these classes,” Erwin said. “If we end up with an Old Testament/New Testament sequence, it’s possible we could draw on the ministerial community to come in to teach those classes.”
He added that adjunct professors could also be hired to teach the added courses.
Erwin said there are many options for students who complete the program. These options include joining a church staff as a visitation minister, a drug and alcohol counselor or minister and becoming involved in youth ministry.
“All of those are possibilities,” he added. “There are actual employment prospects with this that are very real.
Because the program is new this year, Erwin said there is no way to know “where all of the bumps in the road are going to be.” While officials at ICC are comfortable with helping students transfer to four-year colleges, a transfer program is new to LCU.
