About US

• To provide comprehensive leadership training, preparing and equipping students academically and spiritually for practical Christian ministry.
• To provide training that is sensitive to the need of evangelism and which is culturally relevant to Sri Lanka and other countries in the South Asian region.
• To produce Christian literature (textbooks, anthologies, and journals; dictionaries, encyclopedias, commentaries) and other material to support the educational ministry of the church.
• To provide students with cross-cultural interaction and expose them to interdenominational perspectives.
• To maintain high standards of integrity and stewardship in the life and teaching of both student and faculty.
• To act as a resource centre for specialized study and preparation of research on matters relevant to the Christian church.
• To educate students to think, live, and serve effectively as Christians – including encouraging student dedication to serve the holistic needs of humanity, integrating all knowledge and experience into a Christian worldview.
• To provide undergraduate level training in Sinhala, Tamil, and English mediums.
• To provide postgraduate level studies through a master’s degree level programme.
• To facilitate competence in ministry through a comprehensive programme of practical training.
• To make our training widely available in order to produce the best national leaders possible.

1. We believe in the divine, complete inspiration of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, without error in all they affirm. We submit to it as supremely and uniquely authoritative and trustworthy, governing our belief and our behaviour. We recognise that God uses tradition, reason, and experience to help the Church understand and apply the Scriptures.
2. We believe in one God: holy, eternal, sovereign, almighty; creator of all things visible and invisible; existing co-equally in an eternal relationship of love as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
3. We believe in God the Father who has made known His Fatherhood through the wonder of His creation, the generosity of His providence and the authority of His judgement. Formerly, through the election of Abraham, He chose in love the people of Israel to be related to Him by covenant; but now, by the singular means of His incarnate Son Jesus Christ, He graciously invites all estranged people into this unique relationship by which they may be eternally established as the children of God.
4. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ: God become human, incarnate by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary. In His sinless life of obedience to God, He announced the Kingdom of God, demonstrated its power through His ministry and miracles, and modelled the way His disciples should live. By His substitutionary and atoning death, He paid the penalty of human sin, suffering its shame, and defeated death and the power of Satan. By His bodily resurrection and exaltation, He reigns as Lord over all history and creation, and intercedes for the Church. By His imminent return, He will execute God’s judgment and consummate His Kingdom.
5. We believe in the Holy Spirit: the Giver of life, active in creation, manifesting God’s presence, revealing His truth, and bearing witness to His Son. He convicts human beings of sin and convinces them of the gospel. He regenerates and indwells those who believe; and empowers, sanctifies, guides, and unifies the Church. By a distribution of a variety of gifts, he equips believers for service for the common good.
6. We believe that human beings are created in the image of God for relationship with Him and to represent His rule in creation. Having sinned by disobeying God, the divine likeness has been distorted, affecting every facet of human life, resulting in alienation from God, and alienation within society and creation. However, every person retains their intrinsic God-given dignity and worth.
7. We believe that sinful humanity is perishing and can only be saved through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Salvation is the experience of new birth by the Holy Spirit into eternal life, where the believer is forgiven of sin, freed from guilt and shame, and made right before God. This reconciliation with God implies reconciliation with all believers. In salvation, a person is liberated from bondage to the power of Satan and the fear of death. Salvation is granted by grace, appropriated through repentance and faith in Christ alone, and expressed joyfully in grateful works. This work of Christ includes the restoration of fallen creation.
8. We believe that all Christians are called to live a life of holiness, which is a process of transformation towards Christlikeness. Holiness comes about by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Word, as the believer, in Christian community, pursues obedience to God.
9. We believe in the Church, instituted by Christ, constituted by the Spirit, and founded on the teachings of the Apostles. The Church is the Body of Christ consisting of people of all nations, ethnicities, cultures, and languages, who are in an intentional process of reconciliation to one another and growing in unity.
10. We believe that mission is the ongoing work of God to redeem and restore creation to His rule through Christ. To this end, He sends the Church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, into the world to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom, to pursue justice and mercy, and to be present as the fragrance of Christ.

11.We believe that the Kingdom of God will be consummated at the return of Christ. By His righteous judgement, evil will be destroyed, the unrepentant eternally punished, the redeemed raised to eternal life, and their faithfulness rewarded. In His new creation, this redeemed humanity will live in glorious fellowship with God for ever.

Colombo Theological Seminary (CTS) was founded by a remarkable meeting of minds among a group of Christian leaders from diverse denominational backgrounds – Pentecostal, Dutch Reformed, Methodist, and Anglican. They had a common vision of equipping believers through a base offering easily accessible, culturally relevant, evangelically focused, advanced theological training. This was envisioned as taking place first in the city of Colombo and eventually extending to all of Sri Lanka; and the surrounding countries. Significantly, the vision was to provide resources to the Church for the transformation of nations – from Sri Lanka to our South Asian neighbours and farther afield as the Spirit may still lead: potentially, a region with a harvest field of one billion and more believers.  

CTS’ ministry began in the mid-1990s, following a meeting between a Christian banker and an internationally respected theologian. Many others before them had felt the growing need for a long time about the value of a Theological School in Colombo. God wonderfully brought many people and resources together on this project, resulting in the formation of the seminary now known as CTS. 

The Impetus Institute, which was the Bible School of the Assemblies of God – Ceylon, donated all its resources to the new seminary. The Board of the non-functioning Colombo Bible College bequeathed its parliamentary registration of 1971. The then Dutch Reformed Church, now the Christian Reformed Church of Sri Lanka, gave its Vice-President as the founding Principal of CTS. The first intake of students came from Pentecostal denominations and Charismatic backgrounds.  

Thus CTS commenced operations as a multidenominational seminary, in rented premises in western Colombo, on the 30th of May, 1994. With the purchase of a property in Kohuwela (a busy suburb at the southern edge of Colombo), the fledgling seminary shifted its operations into a converted tea-packing factory on newly acquired land in 1998. Within the first ten years since inception, CTS sent out over 100 trained graduates as ambassadors for Christ and published important theological resources, with the ripening promise of more to come.

Today CTS has completed over 18 years of ministry by the grace of God, and is a respected centre of theological education serving the cosmopolitan population of Colombo and its suburbs while reaching far beyond, training students from all over the country in Sinhala, Tamil, and English. The seminary provides theological education in nine regions around the island in all these three national languages, and averages an annual total intake of over 650 students. Through its publishing arm, CTS Publishing, it has published over 45 written resources in English, Sinhala, and Tamil. The seminary provides a thorough equipping for pastors and Christian workers in remote regions of the country through a series of Ministry Enrichment Seminars, averaging ten seminars and 550 pastors/Christian workers a year, whilst addressing practical and topical issues of Christian life and ministry. 

CTS is demonstrably a multidenominational, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual, truly Sri Lankan seminary.