MACM stands for Master of Arts in Christian Ministry. It is a graduate degree in Bible, theology, and ministry practice, and at New Geneva Theological Seminary it runs 48 credit hours across 19 courses, requires no Greek or Hebrew, is designed to be completed in about two years, and totals $14,400 at the standard rate of $300 per credit hour. It is deliberately a non-professional degree — built to strengthen people already serving in the church rather than to be the ordination credential a preaching pastor carries before a presbytery. Understanding that one distinction is the most useful thing you can do before choosing it, and it is where nearly all the confusion about these letters comes from.
New Geneva at a Glance
- Tuition
- $300 / credit hour
- Format
- 100% online
- Tradition
- Confessionally Reformed · Westminster Standards
- Founded
- 1993
- Programs
- Certificate · MACM · M.Div. · Th.M. · D.Min.
- Status
- 501(c)(3) nonprofit
What the letters MACM stand for
The full form is Master of Arts in Christian Ministry. The “M.A.” is an ordinary master’s degree; “Christian Ministry” is the field of study, and you will also see it written out as M.A. in Christian Ministry. Degree titles and initials are not standardized from one seminary to the next, so read the credit total, the course list, and the language requirement rather than the abbreviation. The letters on a diploma tell you less than the transcript behind them.
New Geneva describes the MACM as a non-professional degree. That term has a specific meaning and it is not a criticism. A professional degree is the credential a profession requires for entry to its office, and the Master of Divinity is the standard credential for ordination to the pastorate in Reformed and evangelical denominations. The MACM is not that. It is a full seminary-level theological education for people whose ministry does not require ordination to the preaching ministry.
Who the MACM is for
New Geneva built the MACM for a particular reader: the person already carrying ministry weight who wants the theology to match. The program is aimed at ruling elders, deacons, worship leaders, Sunday-school teachers, parachurch leaders, and church staff — leaders seeking to serve more effectively within a Reformed, covenantal framework. The spiritual health of a congregation extends well beyond the pulpit, and a great deal of the teaching, counseling, and shepherding in a healthy church is done by people who will never be ordained to preach.
Admission requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution. There is no language requirement and no application fee, and admissions are rolling, so you can apply and begin in any term. All 48 credit hours are completed online, which means you can finish the degree from anywhere in the world without leaving the congregation where your gifts are already known. New Geneva’s live classes meet weekly by Zoom, and self-paced on-demand courses run alongside them, so the schedule bends around a job and a family rather than the other way around.
What you actually study
The 48 hours are divided into five areas of study. Most courses carry two credit hours, which is why the degree spans 19 of them rather than the handful a 48-hour program might otherwise require.
| Area of study | Credit hours |
|---|---|
| Biblical Studies | 14 |
| History / Religion & Society | 10 |
| Systematic & Historical Theology | 8 |
| Pastoral Theology | 8 |
| Electives | 8 |
| Total | 48 |
The Biblical Studies core is Old Testament Survey I, II, and III; New Testament Survey I, II, and III; and NT 508 Biblical Hermeneutics. Each area’s required courses are listed on the MACM program page; the 8 elective hours are student-choice, so ask the registrar which electives are running in a given term.
The emphasis is confessional and practical at once. You are immersed in the Westminster Standards and in a comprehensive sweep of redemptive history — the whole Bible’s story from Genesis to Revelation — and then pressed to apply it: counseling a family in crisis, leading a small group, teaching a class, so that the doctrine lands in the situations you are already handling on a Tuesday evening. That combination is the whole point of the degree: scholarly rigor aimed squarely at the work you are already doing.
How long it takes and what it costs
The MACM is designed to be completed in about two years. New Geneva counts 12 to 18 credit hours a semester as full-time study, so 48 hours works out to roughly four full-time semesters. Tuition is a flat $300 per credit hour across every New Geneva program, so 48 hours comes to $14,400 in total tuition. Students aged 55 and older pay $265 per credit hour. Because the program is delivered online, there are no housing, relocation, meal, or campus fees stacked on top.
The seminary’s own administrative charges are small and separate: a $25 semester fee, $25 for late registration, and $15 to drop a course. Course texts are bought separately, and each course page lists the books it requires. Aid is handled case by case. A deferred payment plan spreads a semester’s tuition across the term, and need-based and work-study scholarships are evaluated on admission; new students submit financial-aid packets at least one month before their first semester. Current rates and the full fee schedule are on the tuition page, and a wider comparison against other seminaries is in our guide to how much seminary costs.
MACM or M.Div.: the difference that matters
The M.Div. is more than twice the size of the MACM: 100 credit hours across 46 courses, $30,000 in tuition, with Hebrew and Greek required. The MACM is 48 hours, 19 courses, $14,400, no languages. The two are aimed at different offices in the church — but the shorter degree is not a dead end. New Geneva states that MACM credits transfer fully toward the M.Div. if a student later pursues ordination, and the registrar will walk you through exactly how your work applies before you take the next step.
The M.Div. is the standard credential for ordination in Reformed and evangelical denominations, and New Geneva’s graduates are ordained in the PCA, OPC, RCUS, URCNA and other Reformed and evangelical churches. The MACM is not New Geneva’s ordination-track degree. If you intend to be examined and called to a pulpit, the M.Div. is the degree to pursue — and the languages are much of the difference, since its curriculum is built so that a preacher works directly from the Hebrew and Greek text. Acceptance of any degree for ordination is decided by your own church court — presbytery, classis, or session — so put the question to yours before you enroll rather than after. Our side-by-side program comparison sets the three main options out together.
What the MACM does not do
Three limits are worth naming plainly. It does not include Hebrew or Greek, so it will not train you to read and interpret the Bible in the languages it was originally written in. It is not New Geneva’s ordination-track degree for the preaching pastorate. And on its own it does not satisfy the entry requirement for New Geneva’s Doctor of Ministry, which asks for a completed M.Div. or an equivalent professional graduate theological degree — presented as a minimum of 82 graduate hours including one year of a biblical language — plus three years of active ministry experience.
None of that counts against the degree; it is simply the shape of it. If your calling is to teach, counsel, lead worship, serve as a ruling elder or deacon, or run a ministry well, the MACM gives you a rigorous confessional education aimed exactly there, in about two years, for $14,400. If your calling is the pulpit, read the M.Div. page instead.
The cheapest way to find out which one you want is to sit in on a class. Your first course is free to audit and requires no application at all, so you can look over the current course schedule, take a class, and decide afterward. When you are ready, applying is free and every application is reviewed personally by the registrar, Dr. Mark House. Start on the admissions page.
