About Us

OUR MISSION

To serve local churches in Kenya and beyond by helping to raise up pastor-theologians, missionaries, and church workers who can lead others to navigate the temptations and perplexities of this world by the light of Scripture

History and Vision

The Nairobi Institute of Reformed Theology (NIRT) was started in 2022 by Ekklesia Afrika, a ministry of Emmanuel Baptist Church that is devoted to equipping pastors and building healthy churches in Africa. NIRT offers a four-year MDiv-level program. It was started in response to local pastors and churches asking for rigorous graduate-level theological training that would be orthodox, Reformed, and accessible in East Africa.

There are not many Master’s-level theological programs in Kenya. Of those that do exist, none have a particular commitment to Reformed theology, and high academic standards and even basic Christian orthodoxy are often lacking. Moreover, as also seen across much of the continent, many local theological programs tend to focus on applied theology, such as missiology, without providing a robust grounding in the fundamental disciplines of exegesis, biblical theology, and systematic theology. This contributes to a pattern of African theological discourse in which culture and context tend to govern theology instead of Scripture. The vision of NIRT, then, is to serve local churches in Kenya and beyond by helping to raise up lay Christians, pastors, and pastor-scholars who can lead others to navigate the temptations and perplexities of this world by the light of Scripture.

Accreditation and Collaboration

Presently unaccredited in Kenya, NIRT offers students a unique opportunity to apply for Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary’s (PRTS) online MA degree at a reduced cost. By taking classes at NIRT, students earn 50% of their PRTS MA degree, seamlessly integrating into NIRT’s unaccredited MDiv-level program. NIRT is actively engaging with institutions in the US and Europe to facilitate the acceptance of its graduates into higher programs based on its degree. All NIRT courses adhere to ATS standards.

Faculty Commitment

NIRT ensures theological fidelity by requiring all professors to affirm the historic orthodox creeds and one of the Reformed confessions, including the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Second London Baptist Confession, the Three Forms of Unity, or the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. While our students learn from the whole Reformed tradition, we teach our ecclesiology courses from a baptistic perspective.