Westminster Theological Seminary 
The information on this page was last updated 2/23/2024. If you see errors or omissions, please email: [email protected]
Summary
For more than 90 years, Westminster has trained Bible specialists who have served with faithfulness and endurance. Today we're pairing Westminster's trademark excellence with renewed imagination for the cause of Christ and his global church-profound preparation for a profound call.
Contact information
Mailing address:
Westminster Theological Seminary
2960 Church Rd.
Glenside, PA 19038
Website: wts.edu
Phone: (215) 402-5268
Email: [email protected]
Organization details
EIN: 231352689
CEO/President: Peter Lillback
Chairman: John Weiser
Board size: 15
Founder: J. Gresham Machen
Ruling year: 1989
Tax deductible: Yes
Fiscal year end: 06/30
Member of ECFA: Yes
Member of ECFA since: 1988
Purpose
An Integrated Curriculum: The Westminster curriculum is grounded in the Word of God. It is intentionally developed in beautiful sequence, with each course building on and informing one another.
An Integrated Delivery: To better equip the global church, Westminster offers programs online and on-campus. Both platforms are optimized to deliver the unique demands of our curriculum.
An Integrated Approach: Ministry is not one-dimensional-so neither can be your preparation. Westminster incorporates rigorous study with relational investment across the facets of ministry and calling.
Mission statement
Westminster Theological Seminary exists to train specialists in the Bible to proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and his global church.
Statement of faith
In pursuit of our mission, we value and uphold the following core tenets:
The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is worthy of the worship of all people in all places of his dominion, and this fact must be the fundamental motive for every human activity.
Scripture, as the very Word of God written, is absolutely authoritative and without error. The Bible-centered curriculum is developed on the basis of our motto, "the whole counsel of God."
Reformed orthodoxy, as informed by the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Standards, and secondarily in other Reformed confessions, represents faithfully and accurately what Scripture teaches.
Biblical exegesis and biblical theology (in the tradition of Geerhardus Vos) in harmony with systematic theology and covenantal apologetics (in the tradition of Cornelius Van Til) are among the crucial methods to be used in interpreting and applying the teaching of Scripture and in developing a biblical worldview.
A learned ministry set in the lifestyle of humble and holy affection for Jesus Christ is essential in today's church and world and must be modeled by the board, administration, faculty, and students.
A fundamental mandate of the church, discipling the nations for the glory of Christ, requires culturally sensitive, theologically competent ministers who have both the ability and the passion to apply the eternal word of Scripture to the changing world in which God has placed us.
Because there is one body and one Spirit, all who would build up the whole body of Christ must make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Donor confidence score
Transparency grade
A
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Financial efficiency ratings
Sector: Colleges/Universities
| Category | Rating | Overall rank | Sector rank |
| Overall efficiency rating | | 1002 of 1115 | 125 of 130 |
| Fund acquisition rating | | 1073 of 1116 | 123 of 130 |
| Resource allocation rating | | 980 of 1116 | 108 of 130 |
| Asset utilization rating | | 557 of 1115 | 75 of 130 |
Financial ratios
| Funding ratios | Sector median | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Return on fundraising efforts Return on fundraising efforts = Fundraising expense / Total contributions | 13% | 24% | 15% | 13% | 16% | 19% |
Fundraising cost ratio Fundraising cost ratio = Fundraising expense / Total revenue | 2% | 10% | 8% | 7% | 7% | 7% |
Contributions reliance Contributions reliance = Total contributions / Total revenue | 18% | 41% | 53% | 52% | 44% | 39% |
Fundraising expense ratio Fundraising expense ratio = Fundraising expense / Total expenses | 2% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 8% |
Other revenue reliance Other revenue reliance = Total other revenue / Total revenue | 82% | 59% | 47% | 48% | 56% | 61% |
| Operating ratios | Sector median | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Program expense ratio Program expense ratio = Program services / Total expenses | 84% | 72% | 71% | 70% | 74% | 74% |
Spending ratio Spending ratio = Total expenses / Total revenue | 98% | 88% | 80% | 78% | 92% | 90% |
Program output ratio Program output ratio = Program services / Total revenue | 81% | 64% | 57% | 55% | 68% | 67% |
Savings ratio Savings ratio = Surplus (deficit) / Total revenue | 2% | 12% | 20% | 22% | 8% | 10% |
Reserve accumulation rate Reserve accumulation rate = Surplus (deficit) / Net assets | 1% | 7% | 14% | 14% | 5% | 6% |
General and admin ratio General and admin ratio = Management and general expense / Total expenses | 13% | 16% | 19% | 21% | 18% | 17% |
| Investing ratios | Sector median | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Total asset turnover Total asset turnover = Total expenses / Total assets | 0.51 | 0.43 | 0.49 | 0.45 | 0.49 | 0.50 |
Degree of long-term investment Degree of long-term investment = Total assets / Total current assets | 2.61 | 1.79 | 1.97 | 2.22 | 2.66 | 1.91 |
Current asset turnover Current asset turnover = Total expenses / Total current assets | 1.41 | 0.77 | 0.97 | 0.99 | 1.31 | 0.96 |
| Liquidity ratios | Sector median | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Current ratio Current ratio = Total current assets / Total current liabilities | 7.92 | 5.95 | 8.30 | 6.96 | 7.31 | 13.73 |
Current liabilities ratio Current liabilities ratio = Total current liabilities / Total current assets | 0.13 | 0.17 | 0.12 | 0.14 | 0.14 | 0.07 |
Liquid reserve level Liquid reserve level = (Total current assets - Total current liabilities) / (Total expenses / 12) | 7.43 | 12.97 | 10.85 | 10.39 | 7.91 | 11.56 |
| Solvency ratios | Sector median | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
Liabilities ratio Liabilities ratio = Total liabilities / Total assets | 24% | 12% | 8% | 9% | 12% | 8% |
Debt ratio Debt ratio = Debt / Total assets | 11% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 2% |
Reserve coverage ratio Reserve coverage ratio = Net assets / Total expenses | 148% | 205% | 186% | 204% | 179% | 184% |
Financials
| Balance sheet | |||||
| Assets | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Cash | $7,662,746 | $16,820,264 | $8,773,088 | $7,070,007 | $5,799,282 |
| Receivables, inventories, prepaids | $2,321,648 | $2,047,290 | $2,538,103 | $1,506,724 | $1,334,276 |
| Short-term investments | $24,709,049 | $8,769,310 | $11,275,537 | $6,804,706 | $12,363,184 |
| Other current assets | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total current assets | $34,693,443 | $27,636,864 | $22,586,728 | $15,381,437 | $19,496,742 |
| Long-term investments | $3,554,094 | $3,361,565 | $3,232,526 | $4,297,159 | $19,280 |
| Fixed assets | $13,019,631 | $12,778,569 | $12,340,358 | $11,079,293 | $7,131,613 |
| Other long-term assets | $10,879,581 | $10,654,422 | $11,932,235 | $10,165,315 | $10,647,985 |
| Total long-term assets | $27,453,306 | $26,794,556 | $27,505,119 | $25,541,767 | $17,798,878 |
| Total assets | $62,146,749 | $54,431,420 | $50,091,847 | $40,923,204 | $37,295,620 |
| Liabilities | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Payables and accrued expenses | $2,106,215 | $1,349,723 | $1,857,065 | $1,142,372 | $633,606 |
| Other current liabilities | $3,721,246 | $1,981,325 | $1,386,111 | $962,290 | $786,556 |
| Total current liabilities | $5,827,461 | $3,331,048 | $3,243,176 | $2,104,662 | $1,420,162 |
| Debt | $1,062,357 | $392,958 | $432,247 | $1,816,886 | $585,779 |
| Due to (from) affiliates | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Other long-term liabilities | $590,861 | $646,023 | $786,971 | $851,926 | $817,002 |
| Total long-term liabilities | $1,653,218 | $1,038,981 | $1,219,218 | $2,668,812 | $1,402,781 |
| Total liabilities | $7,480,679 | $4,370,029 | $4,462,394 | $4,773,474 | $2,822,943 |
| Net assets | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Without donor restrictions | $16,275,972 | $14,218,817 | $12,917,691 | $11,462,419 | $7,864,347 |
| With donor restrictions | $38,390,098 | $35,842,574 | $32,711,762 | $24,687,311 | $26,608,330 |
| Net assets | $54,666,070 | $50,061,391 | $45,629,453 | $36,149,730 | $34,472,677 |
| Revenues and expenses | |||||
| Revenue | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Total contributions | $12,492,680 | $18,039,643 | $14,858,605 | $9,721,561 | $8,207,003 |
| Program service revenue | $15,441,675 | $14,868,480 | $12,934,149 | $11,881,850 | $12,107,967 |
| Membership dues | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Investment income | $2,423,278 | $756,369 | $796,070 | $264,834 | $551,830 |
| Other revenue | $82,138 | $64,075 | $75,922 | $78,466 | $83,682 |
| Total other revenue | $17,947,091 | $15,688,924 | $13,806,141 | $12,225,150 | $12,743,479 |
| Total revenue | $30,439,771 | $33,728,567 | $28,664,746 | $21,946,711 | $20,950,482 |
| Expenses | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Program services | $19,358,127 | $19,073,713 | $15,723,916 | $14,962,273 | $13,946,510 |
| Management and general | $4,337,110 | $5,067,581 | $4,706,508 | $3,595,683 | $3,260,651 |
| Fundraising | $3,021,940 | $2,736,081 | $1,915,682 | $1,589,827 | $1,564,916 |
| Total expenses | $26,717,177 | $26,877,375 | $22,346,106 | $20,147,783 | $18,772,077 |
| Change in net assets | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Surplus (deficit) | $3,722,594 | $6,851,192 | $6,318,640 | $1,798,928 | $2,178,405 |
| Other changes in net assets | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total change in net assets | $3,722,594 | $6,851,192 | $6,318,640 | $1,798,928 | $2,178,405 |
Compensation
| Name | Title | Compensation |
| Peter Lillback | President | $234,866 |
| David Garner | Academic Dean | $189,014 |
| Chun Lai | Chief Operating Officer | $180,321 |
| Jerry Timmis | VP of Stewardship | $174,745 |
| Yohan Kim | Sr Director of Online Learning | $169,954 |
| Jonathan Brack | Sr Director of Enrollment | $153,904 |
| Mark Garcia | Professor - Systematic Theology | $151,565 |
| Andrew Schwartz | Sr Director of Stewardship | $150,223 |
| Steve Carter | VP Campus Life/Secretary | $143,515 |
| Mike Halpin | Enterprise Transformation Lead | $140,110 |
| Pau Ping Sze To | Director of Finance | $116,384 |
| James Sweet | General Counsel | $56,194 |
| Lee Augsburger | Secretary (part year) | $29,900 |
Compensation data as of: 6/30/2023
Response from ministry
No response has been provided by this ministry.
The information below was provided to MinistryWatch by the ministry itself. It was last updated 2/23/2024. To update the information below, please email: [email protected]
History
Over 90 years ago, our founders faced a choice: to stay in place or to boldly go.
The founding of Westminster began in 1929 when J. Gresham Machen-who had spent 23 years as an esteemed scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary-resigned from his Princeton post. Princeton was the preeminent Reformed seminary of the day, but liberalism had been gaining a foothold there.
Machen-and others who soon joined him-felt convicted to oppose theological compromise. Instead, these men chose obedience to the truth of the Bible and centrality of Christ. This came with a cost. Together they sacrificed jobs, status, legacy, and financial security. Machen was even stripped of ministry credentials by his church.
With humble faith in the surpassing power of Christ, Westminster was founded.
Amidst the upheaval of change and uncertainty of the future, these men persevered in faith. Just a month before the Great Crash of 1929, the founders opened the door to Westminster Theological Seminary. It held its first class on the first floor of someone's home in Philadelphia. The school had few resources, no land, and no name recognition. It had every worldly reason to fail.
"But to Christ, despite all, we hold." These words were the culmination of Machen's first convocation address. He extolled the glories of Christ and the truth of Scripture as the cause of their new school. He reminded them that their pursuit meant going against growing trends in culture and even in seminary education.
The legacy of faithfulness of the founding faculty continues to embolden us.
Machen's faculty and their successors have equipped generations of incisive scholars and bold preachers throughout the 20th century. The scholarship and teaching of Westminster has heavily shaped Christian leaders in America and abroad.
Today, our expert faculty train students with the insight, conviction, and ingenuity they inherited from our founders. Westminster's distinct, robust teaching method empowers students with exegetically grounded systematic theology, biblical counseling, presuppositional apologetics, redemptive-historical hermeneutics, Christ-centered preaching, and extensive historical theology.
Meet some of Westminster's Founders:
J. Gresham Machen (Founder) - When Machen founded Westminster in 1929, he brought with him not only the Old Princeton tradition but confessional fidelity that has shaped our curriculum for over 90 years. Machen created a self-aware and integrated curriculum that is bound together by God's holy, inspired, and inerrant Word as confessed in the Westminster Standards. Machen's life's work was centered on the Gospel of God's Son. His dying telegram reads, "I am so thankful for the active obedience of Christ, there is no hope without it."
Cornelius Van Til (Apologetics and Systematic Theology) - Van Til brought covenantal apologetics to Westminster. He saw how Scripture was the rule of life in biblical studies and pastoral theology-and applied that same methodology to the art of apologetics. For Van Til, apologetics and evangelism were not at odds; the apologetic task was bringing the whole of Scripture to bear on the whole of life with evangelistic fervor.
John Murray (Systematic Theology) - John Murray was one of the first systematic theologians on faculty at Westminster, however, he is most widely known for his commentary on Romans. According to theologian and pastor John Piper, "no other commentary has surpassed Murray in theological depth and precision than Murray on the book of Romans." Murray brought an exegetically grounded systematic theology to Westminster. This means that special revelation controls systematic theology, just as it does with biblical theology, pastoral theology, and apologetics.
Edmund Clowney (Practical Theology) - Edmund Clowney taught practical theology and was Westminster's first president. He instructed his students to preach Christ from all of Scripture as Jesus models in Luke 24. Clowney equipped his students to use their exegetical, biblical, and systematic theology tools to show that "Christ is the author, interpreter, and substance of the whole counsel of God."
Ned Stonehouse (New Testament) - As a student of Geerhardus Vos, Ned Stonehouse emphasized the organic connection of God's one unfolding story of redemption in Scripture. He showed that the best way to understand the New Testament is to understand the Old Testament. Students today are still required to learn both Greek and Hebrew exegesis as prerequisites for all biblical studies classes.
Program accomplishments
By God's grace, our humble beginnings have resulted in great impact.
4,000+ alumni serve churches in over 50 countries
300+ alumni teach as professors around the world
60+ alumni have founded and led schools and seminaries
500+ books have been published by Westminster faculty