Speaking of Bible School ...it is interesting to learn of the History of the PAOC Master’s College and Seminary (Now in Peterborough, Ontario). I was browsing their website recently. My father attended it while it was located in Toronto and called Ontario Pentecostal Bible College (OPBC). Here is his class picture, (near the bottom left, second row up).
THEN...
OPBC Class of 1942
NOW ...
The following history is from their website. or here.
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HISTORY:
Sensing a great need to train Pentecostal ministers, the 1925 General Conference of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada authorized the establishment of a national Bible College. This college, which was named the Canadian Pentecostal Bible School, was located in Winnipeg and Dr. J.E. Purdie, a former Anglican minister, was the first principal. In 1930 this school was relocated to Toronto but it closed its doors in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression.
Throughout the 1930s there was a growing sense among pastors in Ontario for the establishment of a Bible College to serve Eastern Canada. During the 1938 General Conference of the PAOC, a motion was passed to create a Bible College in Toronto. A year later in the Fall of 1939, Ontario Bible College accepted its first forty-five students. These students found nearby living accommodations and used the street car to commute to their classes, which were held in the basement of Bethel Pentecostal Church (later renamed Danforth Pentecostal Church).
The first principal of the new College was James Swanson, who was also the pastor of Bethel. Under the direction of C.B. Smith, who was principal from 1940 to 1944, the College changed its name to Ontario Pentecostal Bible School and it also came under the jurisdiction of the Districts of Western Ontario and Eastern Ontario and Quebec. With increasing enrollments during the seven year tenure of the next principal, Tom Johnstone, the College moved to more spacious accommodations at Evangel Temple. When the Maritime District of the PAOC and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador began to officially support the College, it was renamed Eastern Pentecostal Bible College in 1949 to more accurately reflect the constituencies that supported it.
With continual growth and little room to expand, the Board of Directors authorized the purchase of Nicholls Hospital in Peterborough and relocated the College to Peterborough in 1951, where it became a residential college. During the next half century, the College experienced phenomenal growth with students coming, not only from eastern Canada but from many countries around the world. In the mid-1980s Eastern, as it was commonly referred to, added degree programs alongside the ministerial diploma program and it also became accredited by the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges, now known as the Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE).
In Spring 2000 the district conferences of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada in Western Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, along with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador determined that the time was right to bring Eastern Pentecostal Bible College together with Canadian Pentecostal Seminary East (which had been formed in 1996 in cooperation with Tyndale Seminary), expand training options to those whose first language was not English, create a discipleship school based on The Master’s Commission, and create a campus in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Master’s College and Seminary was selected as the new name for this institution. Then in June 2003 Master’s College and Seminary relocated from Peterborough to a new campus in Toronto at Yonge and Lawrence.
The Toronto campus served as the hub for the network of theological education and pastoral training that spanned Eastern Canada with undergraduate courses that were taught face to face, online and in local churches throughout the constituency. Seminary courses were offered primarily at Tyndale Seminary or Agincourt Pentecostal Church. In Fall 2008, Master’s made a temporary relocation to 282 Cummer Avenue. Classes, as well as chapel and an array of student activities, were held at Willowdale Pentecostal Church, which was located next to the administrative office. In the summer of 2010, Master’s property in Peterborough was sold to a group of Pentecostal businessmen on the condition that Master’s become the anchor tenant in its former buildings. When that decision was ratified by the Board of Governors, Master’s relocated to Peterborough and classes commenced in Fall 2010. A significant advantage of the move to Peterborough was the additional classroom and administrative space, along with residence for the students.
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