NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                             
January 3, 2023

John Miller Appointed to Vice President and Academic Dean

Today Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the appointment of John Miller to the position of Vice President and Academic Dean.

“The Lord has blessed the work of CBTS more than any of us could have imagined over the past few years,” says CBTS President, Dr. Sam Waldron, “And today marks an important step that we have taken as a seminary in order to invest in long-term stability and usefulness as an organization, with God’s continued blessing.”

John Miller has served as the Chairman of the CBTS Board of Directors since 2019 and has also served as a professor for the school. His diligent and wise leadership as board chairman has been invaluable to the CBTS Board and Administration who all heartily commend him to the position of Vice President.

“I am delighted to announce his appointment to a position which recognizes and embodies his service,” continues Dr. Waldron, “By his competent, diligent, self-denying, and enthusiastic service (as a professor, as a board member, and for several years as the chairman of the CBTS Board of Directors), he has made himself indispensable to the administration of this seminary.”

“I could not be more pleased with the appointment of John Miller as Vice President of CBTS,” says CBTS Director of Administration, Rex Semrad, “His tireless efforts in both scholarship and pastoral ministry continue to amaze me.  I trust that our risen Lord will mightily bless his service to CBTS with his excellent example of Informed Scholarship with Pastoral Heart.”

As a Pastor and a scholar, John Miller embodies the core mission of CBTS, which is to provide Informed Scholarship with Pastoral Heart to help the church in its mission to train men for the gospel ministry.

John Miller serves as Pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, PA where he has served since 2017. Before that, he served as Pastor of Covenant Baptist Church of Clarksville, TN. He has also been involved in planting five churches.

Mr. Miller holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Furman University (2001), a Master of Divinity from Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (2007), a Master of Theology (Th.M.) in Old Testament Biblical Studies from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary (2018), a Master of Arts in English Literature from Austin Peay State University (2020), and he is currently working on his Doctor of Educational Ministry in Global Missions from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he hopes to complete in 2024.

Statement from John Miller

“I am excited to be a part of what the Lord is doing in and through CBTS. I love the biblical mission of the seminary to come alongside local churches to assist them in training faithful men for the ministry and in maturing Christians for further service in the church. Taking this position enables me to be more involved in this great work, and to be more involved in working alongside the humble and godly administrators and faculty that the Lord has brought together at CBTS.”

Miller continues, “As someone who has been a part of CBTS since 2015, I have had the joy of seeing the Lord accomplish so much through the seminary in the last seven years. The Lord has grown the seminary far beyond what we could ask or imagine. I am so very thankful for the graduates the Lord is raising up to serve in the church, and especially for the privilege the Lord has given us to assist the global church. Over 20% of our student body is located in almost 20 different countries around the world. Furthermore, in the last several years we have assisted Reformed Baptist churches in five different Latin American countries to begin affiliate seminaries in their own country. I am so thankful to be a part of this work in seeing Christ’s kingdom advancing among the nations.

In line with the mission and vision of the seminary, I am committed to scripturally saturated and robustly confessional training that is academically rigorous and reflects the pastoral heart of Christ, our Chief Shepherd. Therefore, as VP I hope to do my part in helping the seminary to continually be growing, developing, and improving in its work into the future. By God’s grace, I hope to see more faculty raised up. Furthermore, I hope to see the current faculty continuing to grow academically and pastorally through professional development and increased collegiality. I hope to see more courses of study developed that will be a blessing to the church. And I pray the Lord would be pleased to use CBTS even more in assisting churches to train future pastors, and especially future church planters and missionaries.”

Mr. Miller lives in Carlisle, PA with his wife and four children.

Adjustments to CBTS Board

Christopher Sheffield, Pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, NC, has agreed to serve in the position of Chairman of the Board of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. Pastor Sheffield has served on the CBTS Board of Directors since 2019.