Northeastern Baptist College Gives Students a Biblical Foundation for a Lifestyle of Missionary Service

Vice President and Dean of Students Tony Levesque (center) met with students for prayer at Northeastern Baptist College’s Charles & Pauline Hogue Library.

Five Northeastern Baptist College (NEBC) students will depart their southwestern Vermont campus on May 17 with a “biblical foundation and a distinctive blend of academic excellence and practical mentoring”—and with clearcut marching orders “to impact the Northeast, the United States, and the world” with the gospel.

Since New England’s only Southern Baptist school of higher education was founded in 2013 in the mountain town of Bennington, home to 8,800 residents (2023), fifty-two students have graduated into a lifestyle of missionary service, and the college has grown in enrollment size and reputational stature. 

NEBC now counts seventy-five students from fifteen states and eight countries, a dozen full-time professors, and six adjunct faculty. In 2024 they welcomed thirty-one new students—their largest freshmen class—and are on target to have approximately the same number of freshmen for the fall semester. 

Among the graduating classes, “Several students have planted churches and some are pastoring churches all through New England and beyond. Others have gone on to run Christian schools and many have gone into business,” reported Vice President and Dean of Students Tony Levesque, who was born in Calais, Maine, and raised in Littleton, New Hampshire. 

After nearly two decades as a project coordinator for a steel bridge builder, he wanted to “live an epic life for the Lord Jesus,” so he studied Christian counseling and pondered a missionary career. Levesque found use for both counseling and missionary service at NEBC, and, he said, “Now I’m building spiritual bridges.” 

Like every college and church, NEBC has its share of students with relational uncertainty, social anxiety, medical crises, and mental health challenges. Levesque stated, “One of my primary roles here is as a counselor, an encourager in the image of Barnabas,” the biblical source of encouragement for Paul. 

Exposure to Missionary Options

Students and faculty serve together on mission at least once a year. In 2023 and 2024, they traveled to Morelia, Mexico, to work with Lampei International Ministries. They taught in schools and shared the gospel. 

Students have participated in mission trips with their churches to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and British Columbia, as well as on Native American reservations and disaster relief teams in North Carolina. Ed Lucas, NEBC’s Facilities Manager, directs the BCNE’s disaster relief teams. 

During the school year, every student is required to choose a ministry practicum with a church and they join in weekly Shepherd Groups with a professor for prayer and support. As part of their college experience, Levesque noted that the students “are doing everything from associate pastoring to leading worship to handling technology for the churches to greeting to housekeeping and maintenance.”

The college offers associate and bachelor degrees in Biblical Studies, Business Administration, Christian Counseling, and Christian Education. as well as Master of Arts degrees in Applied Theology and Biblical Exegesis. NEBC’s Early Scholars Program allows high schoolers to take classes that augment their high school education, and they also offer non-degree and audit courses for adults. 

A Strategic Location

NEBC, which affiliates with the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE.net), is located on Kocher Drive in Bennington, on the third and fourth floors of the non-denominational Grace Christian School, in what was a Ramada Inn. The rented space includes academic classrooms, faculty offices, study areas, and an auditorium/chapel. 

The Charles & Pauline Hogue Library is located at 141 Main Street in downtown Bennington, about a mile from the main campus. Student housing is located at Jehovah Jireh Hall across the street from the library. The dorms house approximately forty students.

The college is planning to relocate from the Grace Christian School to a plot of land downtown near their library. 

NEBC held its first classes on August 27, 2013, with a total of eight full-time and thirty-five part-time and auditing students. The college was organized by a not-for-profit, Project Launch 13, which was based in Concord, New Hampshire, and spearheaded in October 2009 by Mark H. Ballard, a native of Pueblo, Colorado, who had committed his life to Jesus Christ at age 7 and preached his first sermon five years later. A detailed history of NEBC can be found online. 

A Financial Challenge

Like any Christian educational ministry, NEBC depends heavily on small and large donations from individuals, churches, businesses, and foundations. These are financially difficult times for any educational institution. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, for instance, recently announced it has been acquired by Trinity Western University (TWU) and “will become TWU’s seminary” when they move from their Chicago-area campus to Langley, British Columbia, in 2026.

The college in southwestern Vermont is not underwritten by any Baptist convention or denomination. The BCNE’s Baptist Foundation of New England has given NEBC five grants or scholarships totaling $37,500 since it started. The college, founded on a shoestring budget of just $762,000, has since grown and today has a budget of $3.86 million.

When the college was preparing to open its doors, Ballard told Inside Higher Ed that “Donations have come from churches, businesses and individuals. I always tell people we started with $47. God has certainly been faithful and provided and we’ve come a long way.”

A Visionary Founder

Mark H. Ballard, founder and president of Northeastern Baptist College, teaches students. 

Since that first sermon, Ballard has started churches in Texas, Florida, New Hampshire, and Vermont. He also was pastor of Browns Baptist Church, Norlina, North Carolina; and Deerfield Baptist Church, Deerfield, Virginia. 

In 1998, he and his wife, Cynthia, left the Virginia congregation to become founding pastor (1998-2010) of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church and president-professor (2004-09) of Northeastern Biblical Studies Center, Londonderry, New Hampshire. During those years, he was president of the Baptist Convention of New England and a trustee of LifeWay Christian Resources. 

Ballard received a PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and  describes himself as “an active participant in the Conservative Resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and 90s, and an uncompromising supporter of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.” 

“Many may wonder why Ballard chose Vermont of all states in which to open a Christian-centered learning institution, more specifically a Baptist one. In fact, an early 2011 Gallup survey revealed Vermont to be the least religious state in the country,” according to a news report published online in September 2013 by the Bennington Banner. 

Ballard told the newspaper reporter at the time that he and his board “looked at around 150 potential sites for the college throughout the New England area before finally deciding to collaborate and share space with Grace Christian School. We felt that God really led us to Bennington in a lot of ways. I see this as a great partnership.”

The school’s founder, Ballard, is a professor of applied theology and church planting. He leads an executive team of five, all of whom also teach, everything from Old Testament and Hebrew to Christian Counseling and Business Administration. Additionally, the adjunct faculty handles subjects that include Intercultural Studies, Music, and General Studies.

Ballard launched a book-publishing arm, Northeastern Baptist Press, which today offers more than thirty books including The Preaching of D. L. Moody: Turning Points toward Text-Driven Preaching (2022), by Ballard; and What Is the Bible? Finding Our Place in God’s Story (2021), by Jared M. August.