I am grateful to Wendy Horger Alsup for her contribution last week on Equipping Women for Gospel-Centered Lives.
Next week, we will be hearing from Jason Hayes, young adult ministry specialist for Threads Media.
For this week's Thursday is for Thinkers guest post, I've invited Ray Chang to contribute. Ray is Pastor of Ambassador Church in Brea, California. He has been pastoring and planting churches since 1993.
I have had the privilege of knowing Ray in my work with the Evangelical Free Church leadership. Also, Ray and I took a taxi ride through Taipei, Taiwan and discussed how second generation immigrant churches in America can be involved in God's global mission. You can watch that video here.
Ray blogs here: Transformissional Leadership: An Inside Look at Leading a Multiethnic, Missional and Multiplying Church.
Ray is sharing with us today about the value of ministry internships. He recently completed his doctoral work on the subject and I found it helpful and invited him to share a bit here. He will be interacting in the comments.
Creating a Culture of Internship in the Church
There are many factors that contribute to who we are and what we are about. Whether people, circumstances, or books, God can bring various experiences along our paths that shape us and our ministry. For me, 1991 was a one-year experience that served as the profoundly formative experience of my life.
Growing up at church, my understanding of ministry was either by sheer observation (usually what not to do) or just learning by doing (usually being told what to do). There was very little guidance.
After finishing at two seminaries with two Master's degrees, I was as one person remarked, "educated beyond my intelligence." I had all the theory without practice, until a friend told me about an internship at a large church in Fullerton, California. It was pastored by one of my preaching heroes, Chuck Swindoll. Just an opportunity to be trained under this gifted leader was one of my dreams.
When I applied, I had very little hope that I would be selected. Each year, they would select two full-time interns who would not only work with Pastor Chuck but would also be the interns with the church. This radically changed my understanding of ministry. The internship became the most valuable, formative experience for me. I call this year the seminary learning I never got from seminary, or simply the missing year of seminary.
In our internship year, the church was dealing with an elder convicted of child molestation. We saw how the church dealt with crises and how sin was confronted. We saw how the staff supported each other through the day-to-day grind of ministry rather than creating silos. We saw the key element of trust fostered and nurtured among the church board and staff. We saw worship joyfully experienced and God's Word faithfully taught. We were also given opportunities to teach, lead and learn from all the staff.
I look back at that year as the most foundational and formational year of my life. It was an internship that was personal and practical. It focused on exposure and experience. It gave full access to learning.
Because of the value of internships in my life, I wanted to make this a part of our culture when we planted a church in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The church plant began with five interns from Talbot Seminary and their spouses as the core group. It became a laboratory for these interns to learn how to do ministry. While nothing was set up, they established ministries like small groups, worship, young adult, outreach and assimilation. From our core group of six families we grew to about 60 adults and launched our church.
From this experience, I have learned some principles of developing a culture of internships or residencies. In my doctoral thesis, I examined two case studies of churches who had well-developed "internship" or "residency" programs. For the sake of this article, I will use the terms synonymously. While some have called an internship "slave labor" or "free work no one else wants to do," the goal of an internship is to "provide supervised practical training." The focus is more on the intern rather than the job. It is an investment for the long-term rather than for short-term ministry gain. While churches and ministries may gain from interns, it really serves to invest in building up workers for God's kingdom.
So how does a church, regardless of size, develop a culture of internships? Here are some practical questions and principles to consider.
- Do you have a vision for investing in younger leaders? It begins with the senior leader or leaders. If internship is truly to be a value, then it has to be a value with the person steering the bus. Leaders provide the access points for internships and should lead the church to value the process.
- Are you willing to make financial investments? It takes more than a willingness to bring on interns. It takes resources. Will the church structure or restructure resources to invest in interns? The great news about interns is that it doesn't take a lot.
- Is there someone who can personally oversee the interns? Whether the senior pastor or a staff member, churches of all sizes can offer practical learning if time, direction, and guidance is given.
- Are you willing to give a realistic assessment of the interns? Feedback is important during an internship process. Whether they are serving, teaching, or leading, there must be an assessment process.
- Is there a training process in place? Some of my early internship experience was just about doing. I was a hired gun for a particular need like youth ministry, but there was no training. Training involves both classroom and on-the-job training. It also has to fit with the unique background and personality of the intern.
As I reflect on my days as a pastoral intern, it was one of the most important years of my life. All five principles were integral in the internship. The church was completely on board with this internship. It was celebrated from the senior pastor to the person sitting in the pew. They paid me a full-time salary. The senior associate pastor personally oversaw the process and met with us weekly to go over what we learned. To this day, he is still one of my personal mentors. We had consistent times of reflection and assessment. From the personal interviews at the beginning to internships to feedback through the year, we were constantly challenged to look at how God wired us as leaders. And, the training was both the reading of books and the studying of Scripture together (Pastoral Epistles) as well as on-the-job training. All of this contributed to developing me into a better pastor and leader.
For the sake of the kingdom, we can help the next generation become better pastors and leaders as well.
Posted on July 22, 2010 at 7:49 AM ~ 24 Comments
Tagged with:
Subscribe via RSS or Follow us on Twitter
Share This Post
Amen to this. This whole concept is missing across the church. We don't train the next generation to take over, in fact just the opposite takes place too often and we block others from assuming leadership. Retaining glory ourselves is a dangerous thing, but releasing, training and blessing other leaders does nothing but grow the Kingdom. Good word, good challenge.
This is a timely post. We were just talking about this yesterday.
Back in 1998, I finished up my seminary requirement (after finishing classes) for an internship by doing what we called a "Residency" with a church and a parachurch small group ministry. We used the medical "residency" model because like a residency, it was a specific type of ministry (i was working with small groups), it immersed me in the work of church under a pastor and two men who had ministered in the community for years and years. the experience provided a forum for me to utilize the broad education i had received within my m.div program (at fuller...), and i believe prepared me for pastoral work much better than the first internship i had.
since that time i've seen a few other people call their seminary student employment opportunities "residencies" but it really hasn't caught on as a norm. I would think that seminaries would want to structure things more along these lines, and maybe they are, i've just been away from the higher ed scene for a while now...
Jeff. I agree that there should be more structured opportunities for people graduating. I think this is a model that needs to further explored.
i'm eager to see all of those principles in action =)
Ray, I'm curious what you think of the full-time vs. part-time issue within internships. I interned at three different churches during seminary (at Talbot, incidentally), but never had a full-time experience.
Also, what do you think of duration? It seems to me that it takes at least a year for an intern to get his footing well enough to be truly useful to the church. How long are the internships at Ambassador?
Hi Bob,
From my observation, most "internships" are specific ministry focus (youth, children, small group) and part-time. While part-time internships are important, we also need full-time internships. This is what I would call a "residency." I wrote my doctoral thesis on developing a residency program. The challenge here is resources. Most churches don't have either the vision nor finances to support a program like this. However, regardless of the size, I think it begins with developing a culture and making incremental steps to train the next generation.
McLean Bible Church has a program called Future Leaders. You can learn more about it at http://mbcfutureleaders.com/ .
If resources were sufficient, would you do a full-time residency next to a part-time internship program in the same church?
On a separate note, what is the vision that you would present to your elders/board/etc as to why this is important? Training the next generation to reach the next generation? Increased congregational vitality? Training a group of biblically wise leaders who "do things like us"?
Larry. Great program. I planted my first church near Washington D.C. (Ambassador Bible Church - Centreville, VA). Loved the ministry of Mclean and Lon!
Bob,
I would love for more full-time residencies. The learning can be more comprehensive. Again, it depends on what the outcomes you want to focus. For me, I need a full immersion experience.
I would present a vision of discipleship and discipling the next generation. The way we disciple can be structure around an internship. If the board or leadership doesn't buy in, it becomes just another program. It has to be part of the culture. Ultimately, it's about passing down the Gospel to another generation. My friend once reminded me, "we are one generation from becoming extinct."
I wholly agree that residencies are valuable experience for young ministers and future church leaders. The need to re-establish the art of discipleship has to start from the very core of the Church, beginning with senior pastors and elder boards that desire to "work themselves out of a job" through growing the younger deacons and leaders of the church bodies. Additionally, it is saddening that more seminaries do not wholly embrace this philosophy of discipleship, as Jesus did with his 12, in favor of churning out ever increasing class sizes of masters degree "certifications".
However, the reality of this also has to take into account a question of how well the church body is served by having a continual roll (not just role) of interns? Residency programs are established for hospitals where contact between doctors and patients is relatively minimal and do not require significant investment of time to establish trust and accomplish the goal of spot healing. In ministry, where the game changes and relationships and trust take time to be forged and strengthened, short-term internships of only 1 year can help the intern, but do little to help the body. If a church relies on a constant pattern of interns to fill the ministry needs of the church rather than full-time ministers or trained lay persons that fill these ministry needs for the long term, the church gets burnt out on the constant "changing of the guard". The residencies must then be formed as a supplement to the existing ministry of the church, not as a hole in the ministry that can be filled by a "temp" minister.
Additionally, there comes the question of the progression of the resident? The goal of the intern ultimately is to grow into a full-time role, whether it is with the church body they intern with or with an eventual different body. Toward that end, the churches employing the interns should have a clear plan for whether or not they will grow these interns into full-time staff for their own church or for another church. This vision needs to be understood not only from within a staff level, but also from the church body level. If the body is not also aligned to this vision, it can often lead to significant disillusionment and disappointment or even church fracturing as the relationships built by residents are eventually shattered when the residencies come to an end and the residents move on to their eventual ministry homes.
Anonymous,
Please take a look at the blog comment policies here.
Although your comment is helpful and we will leave it here, note that we do not allow anonymous comments.
Thank you.
Amy, LifeWay Research
Ray,
I love your passion for leadership development. I wanted to do an internship as a young man but was not able to find one. It seems that more and more churches are creating such opportunities, and your research will help them do it better.
Thanks,
Ed
Anonymous,
You have hit on one important caveat.
"If a church relies on a constant pattern of interns to fill the ministry needs of the church rather than full-time ministers or trained lay persons that fill these ministry needs for the long term, the church gets burnt out on the constant "changing of the guard". The residencies must then be formed as a supplement to the existing ministry of the church, not as a hole in the ministry that can be filled by a "temp" minister."
Residency can help the church; but if not done with wisdom can harm the church. We learned some lessons the hard way here when we had a revolving door of interns. People don't like change when it comes to relationships. Not only are programs established but relationships are built. When interns or residents leave, it can leave a hole.
The way we have managed change is to make sure this is part of the culture of the church. So the whole EXPECTS and PREPARES and CELEBRATES. This happened at Fullerton. We were there for this very purpose.
Thanks for your input.
Ed,
Thanks again for the opportunity to post. I imagine what ministry would be like without my experience at Fullerton. For one, I know I probably would never been a part of EFCA and probably never met you. :)
I think the problem of young leaders not having models or opportunity to learn from is a sad reality in our churches.
RC
Hey Ray,
Some good thoughts. Appreciate your ministry. At New Song we always had the mindset that the interns that we had opportunity to train were acorns to develop rather than fruit to be harvested.
We wanted to treat every intern as if they were a favored son or daughter. We had a couple of guiding principles:
1. They aren't free labor.
2. They are treasures to train.
3. They are arrows we shoot into the future for the Kingdom.
4. They need guidance but not hand-holding.
5. They need opportunity not answers.
These helped us to train over 30 interns in our first decade, plant 6 churches and mentor over 100 church planters. I look forward to reading more of what God has taught you. Keep up the great work.
Ray & Anonymous, you hit a nerve with the comment about sequential interns. When I was in High School, our church used a series of senior religion majors from the local denominational college. Start in September, stay the year, camp in June, wedding in July, gone by August. (Except Steve, who spent too much time at church and had to repeat some classes the next year.)
And one pastor I worked with recently didn't grow up in church, was sent straight from seminary to pioneer mission field, then a church with no deacons, and finally a troubled church with no deacons. He's now out of the ministry. A year of "residency" would have helped him know how congregations operated, and he might still be preaching.
This post is super encouraging. I'm a young guy coming out of para-church ministry with Campus Crusade and seeking to move toward pastoral ministry. I've recently moved so my wife could go to grad school and I've been praying that God would connect me with a church in the Cincinnati area that has a heart to invest in me and help give me the practical training I'm lacking. I've had some discouraging points. Someone, with kind intentions, questioned me as I described what I was hoping to find in Cincinnati. He said, I don't see how you could "sell" this to a church.
I've felt kinda bummed but I am still trusting God to connect me a church in the Cincinnati area to serve and learn.
Do you have any encouragement for a young guy like me seeking to fulfill what God has put on my heart?
Matt,
I can empathize with your situation. Early on it seemed like there were very few churches. Ed also wrote about his struggle. But the good news is that there are more churches. I would recommend these steps. Pray. Talk to denominational/association leaders (EFCA, SBC, PCA, Acts 29, etc) that may know of churches that have this. Ask around. Attend a conference like Exponential, Catalyst and begin to ask around. Stay encourage Matt. I believe God can lead you to the right place.
Ray, thank you for sharing your heart on this issue. I tried posting on this yesterday but for whatever reason it didn't stick. I'm thinking about internships as the key "environment" for helping nextgen leaders flourish and multiply. I'm experimenting in my own ministry context as well.
I would love to talk more about this with you, including your thoughts on possibly case studies where internships are seeing flourishing and multiplying effects.
Have you written or seen anything written on this topic recently?
Thanks a TON!
Ray,
One question or comment after reading through the article and comments again. What about church size? I believe that interns need churches of all sizes to do this type of ministry. Most new seminary graduates, especially pastors, are going to end up at smaller churches initially. I was so glad that my seminary practicum or residency was at a smaller congregation, it was the only exposure I had in how to minister in a non-mega church (which was the only type of church I knew coming into seminary). You have also inspired me to look at how our church (of about 200 in attendance) can be involved in this type of ministry.
Thanks again for the good word.
John,
Great question. Our church has several interns and we are a small church. I don't large churches at better at training interns. They do have resources. However, I think a smaller church can be just as or even more effective. Most seminarians may not be a part of a large mega church so churches of all sizes need to be training ground. I have been blessed to be a part of both - the key is the leadership willing to invest in young leaders.
Ray
Ray, thanks for the post. I was talking with another pastor here in the city where I live about how valuable internships/residencies are. Is your dissertation available online anywhere? I would love to read your research.
John, I have received several requests for my dissertation. I will send it to anyone that wants it. Head over to my blog (link on top) and I will post it for anyone who wants to download the pdf.The specific topic is "A church-based church planting residency program." I think you can find some crossover application to an internship. Hope this helps.