About

The vision of Caribbean Ministries Association is to empower the churches of the Caribbean by providing an interdenominational Bible training ministry, establishing and equipping God’s people in God’s Word.

The Caribbean is home to over 40 million people, many of whom have heard the Gospel but have only nominal spiritual growth. Churches are numerous, yet skilled teaching and training for the people is limited. Most churches are pastored by lay ministers who have had little opportunity to receive formal Bible training. Equipping these leaders will impact their congregations and generations to come through the Word of God.

For most of these lay pastors and church leaders to leave their homes and churches to attend seminary abroad is not only cost prohibitive, but would leave their churches without a pastor for an extended period of time. These leaders need equipping opportunities in the Caribbean that will allow them to continue their ministry while receiving the training that they need.

History

What is known today as Caribbean Ministries Association began in the late 1980's as a series of short-term mission trips from Woodland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Lighthouse Baptist Church in the settlement of James Cistern in Eleuthera, Bahamas. After experiencing first hand some of the struggles of Lighthouse Baptist believers, the church elders began to ask for additional help.

Over the course of the next decade, the concept behind Eleuthera Bible Training Center (EBTC) took shape, culminating with a grand opening in the spring of 2001. In 2004, EBTC graduated its first class of pastors: 10 bi-vocational men from the island who persevered through 500 hours of coursework in biblical studies. Each one testifies of how much better equipped he is to shepherd the people of God in Eleuthera.

Today CMA has expanded to many islands and countries throughout the Caribbean, and continues to look toward the future of providing accessible and affordable theological training.

Beliefs

In one God, eternally existing in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (the Lord Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, equal in power, glory and essence;
In the person of Jesus Christ, God’s unique Son who was God manifested in the flesh, and gave Himself as the supreme sacrifice for man’s sin, satisfying God’s justice against sinners, and is alone the only way of salvation;
In the Holy Spirit, who reveals Christ, convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment; who regenerates, sanctifies and seals forever those born again through faith in Christ;
In the Bible, God’s written word – inspired, wholly true and without error in the original manuscripts;
In sin as the state of all humanity, inherited from Adam, causing the consequence of death, and from which man cannot save himself;
In salvation as the free gift of God by grace through faith in the substitutionary death of Christ, and His subsequent resurrection from the dead.