History of Iso Kirja

Iso Kirja College

The Pentecostal Bible College, the precursor to Iso Kirja College, was established in 1952 at Paimio. The college moved to Katinala in southern Finland in 1959 and for several decades Bible courses were held there, lasting from a few weeks to a few months and the focus was on equipping the students to evangelize in practice. Since 1983 the Bible college has hosted the annual Pentecostal summer conferences. A second centre was purchased for the college in 1981. Missions courses were started in co-operation with Fida International. The college moved to Keuruu in 1990 and all educational ministries were headquartered there. The area got the name Iso Kirja.

Iso Kirja College is one of the several units into which the Iso Kirja Education and Conference Centre has been organized. The other units in the education centre are Global Univesity Finland, youth ministries and the administration office.

The late 1980s marked the beginning of educational reforms at Iso Kirja College. In 1994 a decision was made to begin offering BA degree studies. Iso Kirja introduced study programmes that meet international requirements when Global University, a University specializing in distant education, and Iso Kirja agreed to co-operate. The college has offered MA-level education since 1999.

In 1995 the Finnish Ministry of Education granted Iso Kirja College the right to become a folk high school. Currently, ca. 150 churches belong to Iso Kirja Association that maintains the college. The college has trained workers mainly for Pentecostal churches during the past fifty years. In 2004, the University of Wales validated two study programmes offered by Iso Kirja.

Global University Finland

ICI University was founded in 1967.  The institute was initially called International Correspondence Institute. It became part of  the foreign missions of the Assemblies of God.

The institute was first headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. After that it was moved to Belgium where operations continued until 1991. From Belgium, it moved back to the United States, this time to Texas. In 1993, the Institute acquired the name ICI University. In spring 2001 ICI moved back to Springfield and merged with Berean University. It obtained a new name: Global University. At the moment, Global University has national offices in 120 countries.

ICI began offering courses in Finnish in the late 1970s in association with the Christian Literature Society. ICI operated from the premises of Ristin Voitto, the Pentecostal publishing house, until 1994, when the office was moved to Iso Kirja. Initially the institute used the name Kansainvälinen Kirjeopisto, a literal Finnish translation of International Correspondence Institute, and later changed it to Kansainvälinen Teologinen Opisto (International Theological Institute) and then to ICI University. Taina Karhu serves as its director. The Iso Kirja College Board also functions as the Global University Board.