Bible Training Institute, established in 1892, was a bible college which aimed to evangelise the working classes in Scotland. It was closed in 2018 due to financial deficit.
History
The foundation of the Bible Training Institute, originally located in Bothwell Street, Glasgow, Scotland, can be traced to visits to Glasgow between 1874 and 1891 by the American revivalists Dwight Lyman Moody and Ira D. Sankey, and was one of several Christian initiatives in the city that owed their origins to their work - including the Tent Hall and various other missions that had a special appeal to the working classes of the day, who often felt uncomfortable mixing with the more middle class congregations of established churches. The Bible Training Institute was opened in 1892 and from 1898 was located in or alongside the Christian Institute building, which also housed the YMCA. In 1980 it moved to a former Church of Scotland building in the fashionable west end of the city, at the corner of Byres Road and Great Western Road and in 1990 it became known as Glasgow Bible College. Facilities here were more extensive than previous buildings, but the college soon outgrew them and relocated to an even larger property in St James Road, in what was previously a college of nursing and midwifery adjacent to Strathclyde University. This coincided with the change of name to International Christian College in Glasgow, Scotland, which was formed in 1998 as the result of a merger between Glasgow Bible College and Northumbria Bible College. In 2013 the college announced the sale of this building and its intention to move to a new location. Following further review, in 2014 it was announced that following prolonged and substantial falls in new student intakes and unsuccessful attempts to cut costs and to reverse these falls, the college would close in its existing form and explore options for a different kind of future. The combination of free student tuition funding at universities in Scotland and very limited tuition funding for Scottish students at ICC, along with independent colleges in the rest of the UK and Ireland now being able to offer full student loan funding to students were the most significant factors in the college's predicament and this decision. In 2015, the college was relaunched as Scottish School of Christian Mission. In partnership with Nazarene Theological College, it is able to offer full student funding for degrees validated by the University of Manchester. It is also an SQA-accredited centre. It offers a BA in Theology, a Certificate in Theology, an MA in Theology and an MA in Theology. A variety of SQA-accredited qualifications are also offered or in development. The college also moved its premises to Parkhead, Glasgow, in 2015, to reflects its historical and contemporary focus on urban mission.
Closure
In June 2018 the Board of Directors announced that the college was closing as of 30 June 2018. Nazarene Theological College would be keeping on some of the staff and taking over full responsibility for the students. The heritage that started with BTI back in 1892 will continue while the effect of all the students that have been taught lives, but the college itself has closed. Its Grogan Library was donated to NTC's Glasgow campus after its closure.
