Gateway Seminary Partnership Brings Accredited Theological Training Closer to Home by Craig Webb
During the 2025 Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention Annual Meeting at the Outrigger Kona Resort & Spa, messengers witnessed a historic moment as HPBC and Gateway Seminary formally signed a partnership to launch a new regional campus in Hawaii.
This journey began when the HPBC Executive Board voted on August 22, 2025, to empower Executive Director-Treasurer Craig Webb to pursue a partnership with Gateway. On October 15, 2025, Gateway’s trustees unanimously approved the establishment of a new regional campus serving Hawaii Pacific Baptists, with classes planned to begin in fall 2026.
The new campus, to be known as the Hawaii Pacific School of Theology, will be centered at the HPBC offices at 2042 Vancouver Drive on Oʻahu, with additional in-person classes offered at HPBC churches and ministry locations across the islands and throughout the convention’s wider region—including Guam, American Samoa, and parts of Asia. Wherever at least eight students can gather, Gateway hopes to bring a class, using creative schedules designed for busy ministry leaders.
Gateway President Dr. Adam Groza shared Gateway’s mission of “shaping leaders who expand God’s kingdom around the world,” highlighting the seminary’s long history of contextualized, biblically faithful training and its commitment to keeping students in their local churches and communities while they study. Because of Cooperative Program support, every Southern Baptist student receives an automatic 50% tuition discount, and Gateway seeks to help students graduate without seminary debt.
On stage, the partnership agreement was signed by Webb, Groza, Gateway board chairman Kevin Caruthers, and outgoing HPBC president Brian Frable, surrounded by leaders from both HPBC and Gateway. Webb shared his prayer that, in the years ahead, every Hawaii Pacific Baptist church will have the option of calling a pastor raised and trained in its own community.
“This is your campus,” Groza told Hawaii Pacific Baptists. “Together we can raise up a new generation of ministry leaders to serve Christ and His church long after we are gone.”
Photography: Andru Ellis @pngpasifika_photograph