Welcome to Faith Builders!

Faith Builders Educational Programs is a learning community located in Guys Mills, Pennsylvania.  We seek to serve our communities by offering college-level classes, mentoring, and apprenticing as well as a variety of seminars, workshops, and other services.  Faith Builders was first established to meet the growing need for teachers in conservative schools.  The vision has since expanded to include students preparing for ministry outside the classroom or for continued education.

Our first Summer Term classes were offered 25 years ago in 1987. These classes met in the years following 1987 in rented facilities in Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. During these years Faith Builders received many calls from schools seeking teachers.  In 1991 the board decided that Faith Builders could not meet the great need for teachers by offering classes only during the summer.  The decision was made to purchase a property and to develop a year-round teacher apprenticing program.  The nineteen-acre property and 85,000-square-foot building at Guys Mills, PA, was purchased in July 1992. Extensive renovation began soon afterward.

The year-round Teacher Apprenticing Program (TAP) became a reality in the fall of 1993 when a Christian school for grades 1-12 was established. The school is the backbone of the apprenticing portion of the program. A two-year program for students interested in areas of Christian service other than teaching was established in 1999. A five-week winter term was added in 2004 with an emphasis on courses of biblical, theological and practical ministry.  In 2010, Faith Builders underwent a process of course evaluation to provide a way for students to transfer course work done at Faith Builders to other colleges.  The board and administration restructured the core programs of study in 2011 to bring greater clarity and real world experience to training in Christian Ministries.  Faith Builders is now offering three tracks of study:

1. Teacher Apprenticing: Readies teachers for the classroom
2. Christian Ministries: Equips students for service in a variety of settings
3. General Studies: Prepares students for continued study elsewhere

Our Board and Advisory Council represent the variety of constituency that supports Faith Builders. The board selects board and Advisory Council members from various Mennonite churches, conferences, and fellowships. The board maintains at least five members, the council nine members.

The board meets at least twice per year at the Faith Builders facility and confers by telephone other times as needed.

The Advisory Council meets once a year at the Faith Builders facility and is consulted at other times as needed.

The Faith Builders Pastoral Council is composed of pastors from the Faith Builders constituency.  Their purpose is to provide a link between Faith Builders and the churches who send students.  They pursue this purpose by reviewing our theological positions and sentiments, by reviewing the texts that are used in classes, and by representing the concerns and interests of the constituent community to our board and administration.

Thanks for your interest in Faith Builders.  We invite you to join us for several weeks or a two-year course of study.  We also invite you to consider making it possible for others to come and grow with us.