Haddad will be stepping down from his role as ABTS President in September 2025.

Elie Haddad, President of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. (Photo courtesy of ABTS)

Previously, Haddad and his wife Mireille lived in Canada before coming to Lebanon in 2005. After Haddad departs ABTS, they plan to continue serving with Canadian Baptist Ministries in the MENA region.

Haddad shares what he’s learned from his tenure at the helm of ABTS:

“Probably the most important thing is not to be too attached to what we think we should be doing. Because number one, the situation might change, realities might change, and we’d have to respond accordingly. Number two, God may be wanting to do something a bit different than what we anticipate.”

ABTS is no stranger to change. In fact, it practically comes with the territory in Lebanon.

“We’ve been through so many major changes since I started,” says Haddad. “The war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, then followed [in 2011] by the war in Syria and the influx of refugees into Lebanon and that humanitarian crisis. Then we had our own economic and financial meltdown in Lebanon in 2019, then COVID, the Beirut explosion, and layers and layers of crises and changes.”

Haddad says, “There is not one season for change. It’s a very highly volatile…region for ministry. To be effective, we need to respond differently to change.”

With God’s help, ABTS has survived the storms of change in Lebanon and the Middle East. More than that, Haddad says, “We’ve thrived — and this is a God thing!

“It seems that every crisis is an opportunity for the Gospel and God is opening up new doors for us.”

A thriving seminary in Lebanon is critical for equipping the Church in the MENA region.

ABTS staff worshipping together. (Photo courtesy of ABTS)

ABTS’s vision is “to see God glorified, people reconciled, and communities restored through the Church in the Arab world.” Despite volatility in the region and various ministry changes and challenges, ABTS continues this vision to raise up Christian leaders.

Pray for a smooth leadership transition at ABTS, and for joy in Haddad’s next chapter.

“The ministry is not based on one person,” says Haddad. “We have a very capable leadership team at ABTS.

“I do pray that God will raise the right person that will continue in the same direction with the same ethos and values, working with the leadership team that’s already in place.”

Learn more about ABTS.

Header photo of Elie Haddad, President of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, at the 2015 graduation. (Photo courtesy of ABTS)

This escalation moves Israel one step closer to opening war on a second front, this time with Hezbollah in the north. It wouldn’t be the first time Israel and Lebanon faced off.

“In 2006, when we had the war between Israel and Hezbollah, it was all a matter of weeks. The airport closed right away; most of the infrastructure in Lebanon was bombed. It was devastating but short,” Elie Haddad with the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary says.

“When this conflict started in October, the anticipation of whether it would grow into a full-scale war was a little bit unsettling.”

Located in the hills overlooking Beirut, ABTS is keeping its doors open despite Lebanon’s latest turmoil.

“One of the things that we’re prepared to do [is] open up our guest house and dormitories to house people that have been internally displaced,” Haddad says. “Right now, we have a few families from the south.”

Please pray for the innocent people suffering during these difficult times. Pray that the Lord comforts those who are grieving, that He calms those who are anxious, and that He protects those who are in danger.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary)

Internet access is a deciding factor for seminary students in the coming days and weeks, but plenty of backup plans are in place.

“Right now, more than half of our students reside in Lebanon. If the internet is disrupted, it could be a big disruption for the ministry. We don’t know what that will look like. We’ll be watching, and as things develop, we will respond accordingly,” Haddad says.

“No matter what happens in Lebanon, we should be able to continue, even if we have to set up shop somewhere else temporarily, like in Turkey, Cyprus, or Jordan.”

Pray this experience will equip students to be peacemakers, no matter where in the MENA region they call home.

“Pray for peace in the region,” Haddad requests. “I do believe that war is of the devil. This is the utmost manifestation of sin and the brokenness in the world.”

Header and story images courtesy of ABTS.

Elie Haddad, the president of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon, says they are supporting many Sudanese seminary students and graduates at this time.

“Sudanese people are some of the nicest, most gentle people on the face of the earth. It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening in Sudan right now,” says Haddad.

“We in Lebanon have a lot of experience with crises and wars and stuff like that. It takes a while for things to stabilize and new realities to set in and understand how they’re going to adjust to that…. Now they’re entering into what may end up as a war, maybe a long-term civil war. That’s the fear…. So it’s about safety and making sure that people’s families are safe and people’s church members are safe.”

(Photo courtesy of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary)

These young Sudanese students at ABTS are learning how to advance the Gospel and grow the Sudanese Church. A part of their program also includes peacemaking initiatives.

“Our Sudanese students and graduates, it’s incredible how God has been using these leaders in proclaiming the Gospel and reaching new people groups that no one has thought possible,” Haddad says.

Could this be the generation God has called for such a time as this for Sudan?

Haddad says, “We support our Sudanese students in equipping them and then building relationships with the churches and coming alongside some of the projects…. So we have a very close connection with them. The Church in Sudan is very dear to our heart.

“We are committed to coming alongside them any way we can. We always come alongside them in terms of theological education, the initial formation for the Church. We work with seminaries that are in Khartoum as well. And now we do want to come alongside them in terms of relief efforts as soon as things are figured out and they know what’s going to happen.”

Habil, a Sudanese graduate from ABTS. (Photo courtesy of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary)

For now, many students at ABTS need financial support, including their Sudanese students. You can help sponsor an ABTS student here!

Meanwhile, Haddad encourages, “Let’s keep Sudan in prayer. Let’s keep the Church in Sudan in prayer. The Church in Sudan has done a great job at being open, engaging with the community in very positive ways, [and] preaching the Gospel in meaningful ways. Let’s pray that the Church in Sudan can continue to do this despite the hardship that they’re facing right now.”

Header photo of Habil, a Sudanese graduate, courtesy of ABTS.

Ellie Haddad, President of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, says, “I remember growing up in the church of Lebanon. I lived through the civil war in Lebanon. The Church was very much not involved in what was happening around it at the time. More recently, maybe in the last 10 years, God has been using these circumstances to really transform the Church and give it a different heart and outlook on what proclaiming the Gospel means.”

A new perspective

This is a crucial perspective, Haddad says, for any Christian body. Churches often can focus on survival or growth, not so much impacting society. Lebanese Christians have become more and more involved with life outside the church walls, repairing, cleaning, and feeding.

Haddad says this is a way of showing the hope of Jesus to a hurting country. “We understand that Christ is coming back. We understand that there is eternal life. We understand that at the end of the day, good will win over evil. But outside the church, they don’t have that concept. And they don’t care to learn about what’s going to happen at the end of time when they are hungry, and they’re starving. They have immediate needs.”

Ask God to provide for Christians in Lebanon and give ever-increasing compassion. And pray the same for churches all around the world. Haddad says, “If we want to look for the state of the church, or the health of the church in Lebanon right now, we don’t go to services on Sunday morning. We go to the streets of Beirut, where the big need is.”

Header photo courtesy of ABTS on Facebook.

And what a chaotic 60^th year it has been. Elie Haddad, President of the school, says, “We had the economic meltdown in Lebanon with the hyperinflation, the social and political uprising, the pandemic, and then the big Beirut explosion in August. We’ve been through a series of crises.”

All this, especially COVID-19, has caused ABTS to rethink its residency program and adjust programs accordingly. Find out more here.

Civil war

These aren’t the first trying times ABTS has been through, Haddad says. The Lebanese Civil War that raged from 1975 to 1990 also caused havoc for the school. “Towards the end of the Civil War, in the late 80s, the leaders then, the American missionaries, were forced to move the operation to Cyprus for a couple of years. Then it moved back. At that time, there was a transition from missionary ownership to local Lebanese that took ownership.”

Join a Facebook live stream on November 12 to learn more about the curriculum at ABTS. (Photo courtesy of ABTS on Facebook)

Elie first arrived at ABTS in 2005, and by that time the school had been fully revived after the war.

The founding of ABTS

American missionaries first founded the school as an aid to church planting. Haddad says, “They started the school to train the pastors that were assigned to these new church plants. So, they came in, created the need, and met the need. It was an amazing thing for something like that to happen in 1960.”

The seminary originally trained leaders for churches in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.

To the future

Looking to the future, Haddad says ABTS needs to be aware of the challenges in the region, such as poverty, unemployment, and the fallout from COVID-19. ABTS always seeks to train church leaders for the real situations they will face.

Haddad says, “It is not logical,” that a small school like ABTS should survive for 60 years. Praise God for His faithfulness, and pray He will continue guiding ABTS into the future.

Curious about how the ABTS curriculum works? On November 12, ABTS faculty members will hold live streams in English to explain how the school prepares the Arab Church for engagement in their context. Join the streams on the ABTS Facebook page.

Header photo courtesy of ABTS on Facebook.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to awaken the Church to this Kingdom mindset. For Lebanon, that crisis was the Syrian war. Now, for most churches in Lebanon, living out their faith is less about keeping to themselves and more about serving and loving others.

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

There was a time before the Syrian refugee crisis when churches in Lebanon kept to themselves. President of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) Elie Haddad says, “One aspect is if we look at the sociological models ‘bounded-set’ versus the ‘centered-set’; our churches had always been a bounded-set.”

Haddad goes on to explain how a bounded-set community defines itself by the boundaries it draws. Bounded-set communities often have religious norms for outsiders to conform to before they can become a deeper part of the community. However, Haddad says the Syrian refugee crisis has shattered this paradigm in Lebanon.

“It’s interesting that the whole mission world has been praying for the 10/40 window for the longest time; that people will come to faith. That’s starting to happen. But we don’t like it because it doesn’t look like something that we’re familiar with, something comfortable to us. It’s shattering our paradigms [and] it’s changing things. It’s shaking our own communities,” says Haddad.

Kingdom Mindedness in Lebanon

The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon has pushed churches to lean into God and respond with open arms. Haddad says many churches are more centered-set because of it. Haddad defines centered-set as “a community that defines itself by the center — that Jesus [is] at the center. Our job is to draw people to the center no matter how close or far [away] they are.”

(Photo/caption courtesy of EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations via Flickr)

Once this mindset takes root, personal ministry barriers are often dismantled and doors open, because the goal is not self, but to draw people to the one true hope — Jesus.

“The Kingdom mindset is now we want to invite people to have a relationship with God. [It] doesn’t matter if they come to my church or if they stay in their own church and be light within that church so that they help other people draw closer to God,” says Haddad.

Furthermore, a Kingdom mindset supports training and equipping people to go out and do ministry. Haddad says because of the refugee crisis, churches are reaching out to meet the physical and spiritual needs of strangers in their country. Through this selfless act of love, they introduce people to Jesus.

“I’m sure we have a long way to go as a Church in Lebanon. But having that Kingdom mindset in front of our churches is extremely important…. This is the mission of the mindset that we’ve been working on for a long time at ABTS as well. It’s not about how many chairs we fill in our building on Sunday morning. It’s how many people were released for ministry, and what are we doing to equip them to be released for ministry,” Haddad explains.

“The job of the Kingdom mind [and] missional mindset is to just release people for ministry.”

The genuine love which flows from a centered-set mindset is evident to refugees, immigrants, and newcomers. Haddad says these people recognize when others treat them as a project.

“Especially people coming from our own culture. If no one has come into their home, if they have not been invited to other people’s homes, then they don’t feel that they’re being cared for. So, it’s when these relationships take place and they grow…then I think that’s when they feel that, yes, we are living Christ among them. It’s not just a task…. It’s the person that’s important. It’s the relationship.”

A Shared Lesson

Churches beyond Lebanon also need to give their fears to God before they can impact their communities. Haddad says there is a lot Christians can learn from one another across the globe. Each community has different contexts, different histories, and different journeys to share.

“There was a time when Jesus came to our part of the world, but we had to hear the Gospel message from Western missionaries. I think now the role needs to be flipped a little bit,” says Haddad.

Haddad believes ministry in the West may be more difficult than in the Middle East because the mindset is different.

“Over there, the enemy is inside the Church and no one even notices — materialism, consumerism, and careerism, and [inappropriate forms of] patriotism and nationalism…. That’s much tougher to deal with,” says Haddad.

“How do you take comfortable people out of their comfort intentionally and put them out in the world? So yeah, you want revival? Pray for [a] crisis.”

Ask God to equip the Church in Lebanon for the ministry work before them. Pray for their encouragement and perseverance in the face of hardship.

Also, pray for the global Church to become more centered-set and for Jesus to use us to draw the hurting and marginalized to Him.

Learn more about ABTS’s work here.

Header photo courtesy of Ramy Kabalan via Unsplash.