Intentionally Christian.

Christ is at the center of who we are, what we do, and the Kingdom-building work our students and graduates pursue. Today's world desperately needs Christians who are smart, brave, biblically rooted and world ready. Today's world needs you.

Our mission

Northwestern College is a Christian academic community engaging students in courageous and faithful learning and living that empowers them to follow Christ and pursue God's redeeming work in the world.

Christian academic community

We care about serving and loving God and each other. Students are accepted here and equipped to become better people in God's image. Education doesn't stop after class is dismissed; it's a 24/7 experience as students learn, live and worship with friends and mentors.

Courageous and faithful learning and living

We don't shy away from tough issues or questions "off limits" to some Christians, so students might be challenged by new ideas. Through that, their beliefs will become clearer to them—and more important. This is a safe place to explore, and students can trust that their professors are seeking God's truth.

Pursuing God's redeeming work

At Northwestern, students learn about God's world and their call to help redeem it. We'll prepare them for a successful career, but we'll also get them ready for an even more important job: leading a faithful life. That will require intelligence, compassion and an education that teaches both mind and heart.

Our Christian identity

Northwestern is a Christian college that is Reformed in commitment, evangelical in engagement, and ecumenical in spirit. We view these Christian theological perspectives as complementary and draw from the strengths of each perspective in fulfilling our mission.

Reformed in commitment

Northwestern College was founded by the Reformed Church in America. We accept the ultimate authority of God's written Word and are guided by the wisdom of the ecumenical creeds* and our historic Reformed confessions**. We proclaim the sovereignty and grace of God in every area of creation and human life, our sinfulness and natural inability to have faith in God, God's sovereign and gracious choosing of God's people in Christ based solely on God's good pleasure and will, the Holy Spirit's initiation of the new birth resulting in faith and repentance, the life-giving spiritual union between Christ and believers, and God's compassionate embrace that keeps believers from ever truly falling away from faith. We affirm God's broad redemptive purposes, and we embrace the Christian call to reform the church, reflect critically on worldviews that influence culture, and transform the world.

*The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed
**The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Belhar Confession

Evangelical in engagement

As a Reformed institution, Northwestern stands within the broad tradition of evangelical Christianity. We affirm the divine inspiration, infallibility, authority and sufficiency of Scripture in matters of faith and practice. We seek a warm, personal faith that is the product of conversion through an individual's trust in Christ as Savior and Lord and belief in Christ's redeeming and substitutionary work on the cross. We acknowledge that salvation comes solely through the unmerited, direct and transforming gift of God's grace. We believe that Christians are called to live holy lives, to make disciples throughout the world by embodying in word and deed the good news of salvation, and to love all people through acts of justice and mercy in Christ's name.

Ecumenical in spirit

As a Reformed institution, Northwestern College identifies with the ecumenical spirit that unites all Christians in every time and place. This spirit is embodied in the unified confession of the historic Church as expressed in the Apostles' Creed. We desire greater unity among the universal Christian family. We celebrate the unique traditions and gifts of other Christian communities. We seek new cooperative relationships with other Christians in our common witness to the gospel and our pursuit of justice for all creation. Our ecumenical spirit calls us to appreciate alternative perspectives in an ethos of peaceful dialogue.

Our Vision for Learning

We intend Northwestern College graduates to be persons who:

Trust, love and worship God

Northwestern graduates understand learning is an act of worship. They trust that all truth is God's truth, which frees them to pursue any academic inquiry. They strive to love what God loves, valuing diverse people, cultures and ideas.

Engage ideas

Northwestern graduates are lifelong learners who listen, read, question and evaluate. They add their voices to the wider conversation through disciplined and imaginative speech, writing, art and performance.

Connect knowledge and experience

Northwestern graduates notice and nurture connections between individual courses and across whole disciplines of study—between their college learning and preparation for not only fulfilling careers but also faithful lives.

Respond to God's call

Northwestern graduates explore and discover their gifts—and then use them in service to God, humanity and creation.

Our Vision for Diversity

Guided by the biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption and restoration, Northwestern College strives to pursue God's redeeming work in the world by courageously and faithfully engaging the fullness of our similarities and differences in our learning and living together.

We embrace diversity in God's creation

Valuing each person as created in the image of the triune God and thus intended for community; respecting the complexity of human identities; and recognizing human difference as central to an education that fosters critical thinking, empathy and dialogue.

We lament human brokenness

Grieving our thoughts, words and actions that diminish, caricature or isolate one another; confessing our failure to hear and respond to marginalized voices on campus and in the world; recognizing our past and current participation in unjust social systems; and repenting from any form of dehumanization that distorts God's creation.

We reconcile with one another

Bridging divisions that separate people from one another and from God; partaking in courageous conversations where varied perspectives are welcome; challenging unjust systems of power, privilege and oppression; and building and sustaining social structures that foster the common good.

We embody shalom

Anticipating restored creation, where people from every nation, tribe and language worship God and live in harmony; pursuing human flourishing in our relationships, curriculum, staffing, resource allocation and corporate actions; and affirming that all things hold together in Christ, to the glory of God.

This statement was developed by what is now NWC’s Diversity Resource Committee with broad campus input and approved by the board of trustees in 2015.

The Vision for Diversity articulates our commitment to be a college community reflective of the diversity found in God’s good creation. It aligns with NWC’s core values as expressed in our mission, Vision for Learning, Christian Identity Statement, and policies in the staff, faculty and student handbooks.