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Life Pacific College (LPC, also called LIFE Bible College), Foursquare’s cornerstone ministry preparation center for almost a century, is looking for a new president. A search committee is seeking applications for president of the San Dimas, Calif.-based institution, to replace Dr. Robert Flores, who stepped down in December.

The successful candidate will take over at a key time in the history of the 90-year-old college, established by Foursquare founder Aimee Semple McPherson. Having grown from a two-year institute to a nationally recognized school offering a range of bachelor and master’s degrees, LPC has prepared around 27,000 men and women for service in nearly 140 countries.

In addition to equipping Foursquare leaders and members for church- and marketplace-based ministry, LPC has served students from a wide range of Pentecostal and charismatic church backgrounds. Currently, more than 650 students are enrolled in residential and distance programs, served by 12 full-time faculty, 29 adjunct faculty and 31 full-time staff.

Recent developments in LPC’s programs include online graduate education in strategic leadership and specialty concentrations in pastoral ministry, youth ministry, intercultural studies, counseling and worship arts as part of traditional study programs. Students are given the opportunity to study abroad for a semester in Israel and take part in short- and long-term missions trips domestically and overseas.

LPC wants to appoint someone “uniquely qualified in educational and ecclesiastical leadership” with “a vision for producing strategic leaders for the church and for marketplace ministry,” says Dr. Dan Hedges, director of Foursquare Institutes, Education and Leadership Development, and chairman of the search committee.

The new president will be LPC’s tenth. Dr. Flores, who assumed the role in 2008, resigned after fours years, prompted by his belief that the college needed “a different kind of leader … to lead this school into its next years of greatness,” he said at the time of his departure.

“Higher education institutions in the U.S. are undergoing a sea of change as they encounter shifting targets of state and federal funding, an increased sense of consumerism in college choice, and many questions about the value and meaning of a college education,” states Interim President Dr. Jim J. Adams. “Likewise, LPC faces a number of challenging choices about how to best serve our constituents and stakeholders.”

Founded as Echo Park Evangelistic and Missionary Training Institute, the training center was renamed L.I.F.E. (Lighthouse of International Foursquare Evangelism) Bible College in 1926. It moved to San Dimas from its prior home next to Foursquare’s historical Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, in 1990, and became LPC in 2004.

Last year, the college was recognized by the Association for Biblical Higher Education with the 2012 Jonathan N. Thigpen Enrollment Growth Award, after posting a 54-percent increase in enrollment during the 2010-2011 school year. LPC is also accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Applications for the presidency are being received through April 1, 2013, with an announcement on the new appointment expected in May.

By: Andy Butcher, a freelance writer living in the Orlando, Fla., area

is the digital engagement and communications liaison at The Foursquare Church in Los Angeles.
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