About International Theological Seminary

The Foundation of ITS

In early 1970s when the number of Korean immigrants increased in Los Angeles area, some Korean church leaders in the area commonly felt an immediate need to establish schools to train men and women for the rapidly sprouting Korean churches among the immigrants. Dr. John Eui-Whan Kim, a church historian, seminary professor, and successful pastor, was one of those church leaders. Unlike his peers, however, who went on their ways to open schools to provide theological education only for Korean-Americans using their mother tongue, Dr. Kim was inspired by the dream of world mission and decided to found a seminary for international students from Third World countries. His intense desire to launch such a unique theological seminary was motivated by the conviction that trained national church leaders would be far more effective in many tasks to which foreign missionaries were normally assigned, such as evangelism, church growth, church planting, and others. After sharing his desire with the elders of his church and ensuring support from some of them, his dream was effectuated in founding International Theological Seminary in 1982 as a venture of faith. From the beginning of the seminary till today, the core philosophy of the seminary, which is the training of church leaders from Third World countries, remains unchanged.

The Presidents

Dr. John E. Kim briefly served as president from 1982 to 1984, when Dr. John H. Kromminga, the former president of Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was appointed the second president in 1984. Dr. Kromminga served as president until 1990. Dr. Kim resumed the presidency and served from 1990 to 1995. Due to his acceptance of the invitation to be the president of Chong Shin University in Seoul, Korea, Dr. Joseph Tong was appointed the forth president of ITS in 1995. Under his leadership from 1995 to 2008, a number of notable advances were made, among which were receiving the full accreditation by the ATA (Asia Theological Association) in 1998 and the full accreditation by the ATS (Association of Theological Schools in the US and Canada) in 2006. After Dr. Tong’s retirement from ITS in 2008, Dr. Seenam Kim was appointed to serve as the fifth president of ITS.