Texas International
Bible Institute
The purpose of the Texas International Bible Institute is to train Spanish-speaking people to plant churches that are biblical, relevant, nurturing and evangelistic. On completion of our program, our students receive a Bachelor of Biblical Studies degree recognized by the State of Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Since 2009, at the sites where TIBI has helped train workers, we know of at least 1800 baptisms and 29 new church plants. TIBI´s network now has 250+ sites in 20 countries for its video conferencing classes, offering more than 60 courses per year on our network. We currently have 23 professors from 6 countries in Latin America, 18 of which are Hispanic.
TIBI also currently offers 32 recorded video courses online at es.sunsetonline.org to more than 860 students in 57 countries. Eight more courses are in production, to finish out the 40 courses required for our degree, so that people could do the degree entirely online.
TIBI also provides hard drives with all these materials to churches and schools in places where Internet access is non-existent, difficult, or expensive. We currently have about 350 students in 8 countries using this platform, coordinating with church leaders or institute directors in these places.
In addition, we recently put almost 800 of these video classes on our TIBI YouTube channel, and in the first three months we had more than 14,000 views. So we are excited that these videos are accessible and useful to people in many places, even if they are not seeking the degree.
TIBI provides some full-time scholarships to international students so they can train in place in their own countries and churches. This is economical and efficient, since the students do not have to move or learn a new language and culture before they begin to train. They use what they learn immediately and their congregations benefit from their knowledge. They are supervised in their practical work by a mentor with more than 30 years successful experience in church planting and development.
UCC helped launch TIBI’s international full-time program, supporting several of the international students. TIBI and UCC continue to explore how our congregation and other churches and brotherhood groups can use TIBI to teach, encourage, counsel, inspire and mentor Christians in a variety of settings and places.
If you’d like to learn more about TIBI, please contact director Steve Austin at slaustin@cebridge.net, or at (281) 787-3721. You can also see our video archives of current classes or seminars at 216.69.244.244or go online to our bilingual website at www.texasbible.org.