ProMETA, as an online international theological institution, is approaching twenty years of ministry, providing awarding-winning education to Latin American leaders. When it began, many were skeptical of its educational model since few if any comparable programs existed with robust and well-designed master’s degrees totally at a distance and totally in Spanish to any qualified candidate anywhere in the world. At that time online learning in Latin America was in its infancy and the idea of convening leaders virtually to form what was to become an international learning community representing twenty-four different nationalities and nearly twenty denominations was unconventional and untested. 

In the year 2007, ProMETA was incorporated as a non-profit education association in Costa Rica. It’s an interdenominational institution and serves many associations, organizations, and evangelical churches throughout the region and beyond. It was birthed as a project of the international ministries of the Evangelical Free Church of America and is the response to a long felt need for an institution that could equip Hispanic leaders with a high-quality theological education. 

Between 1998 and 1999, an investigative study led to the foundations of the programs and course offerings. ProMETA grew as a Biblical and higher educational institution with the goal of reaching the decision-makers and principal voices in the evangelical church in Latin America. 

ProMETA has continued changing, offering a wider variety of courses, expanding into pre-graduate certificates, and growing in it’s reach to include more Spanish-speakers outside of the Americas. Relationships and partnerships have been formed on a regional and global level with other institutions.   

During these past twenty years, online learning has matured and become an established form of theological education, and ProMETA is now a recognized leader in online theological education in Latin America. ProMETA’s team has grown from a handful of missionaries to a diverse group residing throughout the Americas and Europe, specialists in their fields of study. The student body includes those who are looking to start out in full-time ministry, but also seasoned pastors hoping to continue expanding their skills and missionaries currently serving around the world, including in creative access contexts.

As ProMETA looks to the next twenty years, we continue to ask ourselves, «How can ProMETA enhance and expand its role as a catalyst for transformative learning that
empowers Spanish-speaking leaders around the world to fulfill their calling?»