MBTS Job Board: Midwestern Seminary Ministry Openings
How Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary connects students and graduates with churches — and where else Baptist openings get posted.
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) in Kansas City is one of the six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention, and over the last decade it has become one of the fastest-growing. Its stated identity — "For the Church" — shapes how it handles placement: the seminary is oriented toward getting graduates into local congregations, and churches looking for Baptist ministry candidates often approach MBTS directly.
Does MBTS have a job board?
Midwestern operates placement and career services for its students and alumni, connecting churches that have openings with graduates who fit. As with most seminary placement offices, access is generally oriented toward the seminary's own community — current students and alumni — rather than being a fully public job board.
That is worth understanding clearly, because it cuts both ways:
- If you are an MBTS student or graduate, this is among the least competitive channels available to you. Search committees that come to the seminary are pre-disposed toward its graduates, and the candidate pool is far smaller than on a public board. Contact the placement office directly.
- If you are not connected to MBTS, you will likely not be able to search those listings, and a public board will be more useful to you.
- If you are a church, approaching the seminary gives you candidates with a known theological formation — but a smaller pool than a public posting reaches.
Because seminary policies and programs change, confirm the current arrangement with Midwestern directly at mbts.edu rather than relying on a third-party summary.
Where else Baptist openings get posted
MBTS is one channel of several. For a fuller picture:
- State conventions and local associations. In SBC life this is where a great many pastoral openings actually appear first. See our guide to how Southern Baptist pastors find their next church.
- The other SBC seminaries. Southern, Southeastern, Southwestern, New Orleans and Gateway all run their own placement services with the same alumni orientation.
- Confessional Baptist networks. Churches in the Founders Ministries orbit and those aligned with 9Marks often recruit through those networks.
- Aggregating boards. A board that pulls many sources together lets you watch the whole field at once instead of checking each seminary and convention separately.
Our full list of Reformed and seminary job boards covers the rest, and our comparison of church job boards explains which to use when.
Baptist and Reformed openings on Sola Jobs
Sola Jobs aggregates ministry openings from across the confessional world, including SBC, Reformed Baptist and independent Baptist churches. There are 4,000+ open listings, it is free to search, and no account is needed to browse. For churches, the first posting is free for 30 days, then $49/month.
If you are an MBTS student or alum, start with the seminary's placement office — it is the best channel you have. Then widen the search: browse open Baptist and Reformed positions or post a job if your church is hiring.