About Us

The Thirdmill Institute is a certificate program created by Thirdmill to provide free, seminary level, biblical and theological training for anyone interested in ministry. The program is designed to be done in small groups, where life and ministry skills are emphasized through the guidance of local trainers.

The Institute’s program is provided free of charge and is open to everyone, regardless of previous education, and has the flexibility of being implemented over the internet or offline. It uses Thirdmill’s high-quality curriculum to train students in the Bible and in theology while also adding an increased emphasis on personal and ministry application. We do this by streamlining the learning process and adding in specific documents intended to be used in a group setting.

The Thirdmill Institute works with churches and Christian leaders to create local learning communities consisting of a group of students and a local trainer. We call these local leaders Institute Trainers. Our curriculum is designed to lift the burden of preparing and teaching classes so these trainers can focus on local application. Each learning community is responsible for finding its own trainer, typically someone from a local church, a group of churches, or a Thirdmill partner.

Learning communities that utilize an “online” approach will have access to Institute classroom materials through the Thirdmill Institute website. Learning communities that utilize an “offline” approach may request a microSD card from the Institute.

Thirdmill was envisioned by Janie Pillow as she came to realize that Christian leaders around the world needed to be trained in their own lands. With the help of Dr. Richard Pratt and a number of others who shared her vision, Thirdmill was launched in 1997 to create multimedia curriculum for Christian leaders everywhere.

Over the years, a number of churches and organizations have expressed a growing need for a ready-made biblical and theological training program, using Thirdmill’s curriculum, to prepare their people for ministry. They also wanted a program that could be accepted by governmental entities requiring certification for pastors. The Thirdmill Institute makes this program a reality!

Thirdmill (Third Millennium Ministries, Inc.) is a non-profit Evangelical Christian ministry in the Protestant tradition. We are recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) corporation. We depend on the generous, tax-deductible contributions of churches, foundations, businesses, and individuals.

Our mission is to prepare Christian leaders to lead a transformation of the world into God’s Kingdom by providing biblical education, for the world, for free. We work toward this goal by providing free curriculum to everyone that wants it.

Our efforts reach millions of pastors and church leaders. Directly and through partner ministries that report their enrollment to us, we have already taught over 1 million students. Millions of others also use it independently or through ministries that don’t report statistics to us. Moreover, the longer our efforts continue, the more education we can bring to these leaders and to others.

Our curriculum is designed to be used by traditional and non-traditional schools, as well as by other groups and individuals. It consists of three central elements: graphic-driven videos, printed instruction, and internet resources. We distribute our curriculum through online streams and downloads; satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcast TV; radio; smartphone apps; USB flash drives; SD cards; and DVD (special order).

We have developed a highly cost-effective method of producing high-quality multimedia video lessons. We create broadcast quality video productions with seminary quality content. All our instructors are seminary professors, and, our writers and editors are theologically trained educators. All our translators are theologically astute native speakers of their target languages.

In order to accomplish our distribution goals, we have forged strategic relationships with many different churches, denominations, agencies, missionaries, seminaries, Bible schools, and other groups. These relationships have already resulted in the distribution of many millions of video lessons to indigenous pastors and seminary students. Thirdmill’s websites also serve as avenues of distribution and provide additional materials to supplement our core curriculum.