The Apostles Theological Seminary is authorized to grant the Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees in Apostolic and Prophetic Studies as preparation for Christian ministry in accordance with the State of Florida Statute 1005.06 (1)(f), granting religious exemption from State control to churches and non-profit institutions for theological and ministerial training.

In keeping with the religious exemption from the Florida State Regents for Higher Education, the leadership of ATS has chosen not to seek traditional academic accreditation to validate our theological and ministerial degrees. Together with a number of widely recognized leaders of what has been called an apostolic reformation, we are prayerfully rethinking the way ministers are trained seeking instead to recover patterns and methods established by the Lord Jesus and His apostles.

After more than thirty years of teaching in a major evangelical theological seminary, Dr. C. Peter Wagner, head of the Wagner Leadership Institute declared in an interview for Ministries Today, “One of my first goals in designing WLI was to free it of many of the built-in, burdensome restrictions of traditional academia as possible. As a result we are not fettered by required courses, resident students, resident faculty, theological party lines, denominational control, faculty tenure, library facilities, academic restrictions, institutional self-centeredness, financial endowments, academic accreditation or geographical limitations.”

In the same article, speaking of the aversion to accreditation on the part of the many new schools being raised up by apostolic leaders around the globe, Wagner goes on to say, “It is interesting that these schools serving the New Apostolic Reformation are not seeking accreditation.”

Then he added, “Many apostolic leaders have concluded that accredited institutions with which they are the most familiar are, by and large, old wineskins, either unwilling or unable to adapt to the new realities of the Holy Spirit.”

Wagner concludes, “I have found, however, that the leaders of these apostolic schools do have a deep desire for mutual accountability with peer institutions.”

With a deep longing for "mutual accountability" the senior apostolic and prophetic leadership and faculty of the Apostles Theological Seminary have chosen to look to the Lord and to our peers for accountability. Like the Lord Jesus and the first apostolic movement our validation is from heaven itself, not State Boards of Regents or self-congratulating, often skeptical, academic agencies that currently provide accreditation for many denominational seminaries. Just as Peter Wagner and others in the emerging apostolic reformation, we have learned from years of painful experience that accrediting agencies tend to support the "status quo", or the existing state of affairs in Christendom, rather than Christ's Messianic Kingdom and the restoration of the foundations laid by Christ and His apostles and the radical reformation of todays churches. Therefore, as responsible Christian leaders, and understanding very well that over the centuries Christ's Kingdom has been high-jacked by religion and His One Holy Apostolic Church divided into myriads of denominations, we have made the decision to obey our King and to be accountable to the emerging fellowship or communion of apostles and their networks or jurisdictions of ministers and churches, as well as to other apostolic and prophetic schools that, like us, are committed to training a new generation of Kingdom leaders and fivefold ministers for the reformation of the King's Church and of society.