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The Power of an Internship Ministry

What are the ingredients for an effective internship ministry in the local church?

Kent and Cheri are church planters in Croatia. They birthed a church where there was no church 10 years ago. Chris planted a church in Wisconsin, his second successful church plant. Robert pastors in southern California and is raising young leaders by the hundreds. Michael is a missionary aviator among an unreached people group in Asia. Tim and Gary are both church mobilizers, working with pastors who are struggling and need the fresh wind of the Holy Spirit to blow through their congregations. Jennifer works with university students in Missouri, discipling women and multiplying her leadership on several campuses. Mike and Michelle took a dying church in Minnesota and breathed life back to it through their leadership.

What do these individuals have in common? Each started as an intern in our church during the ’80s and ’90s. They are among nearly 400 others who answered a call to vocational ministry at Skyline Church over the course of a decade. I believe in the power of a ministry to interns.

I concede, however, that while I always had a heart for young leaders, giving oversight to our internship ministry was a learned process. Sometimes I feel the need to apologize to those early interns who were part of my learning process. Over time, however, it became the most fulfilling part of my pastoral position. Let me share with you the ingredients that made our internship effective.

From the beginning we wanted to equip students who were preparing for full-time ministry. Consequently, we established an internship that lasted 2 years (often the interns’ junior and senior years of college) and required 20 hours each week. This left them time for classes and/or a part-time job if they chose to work. San Diego is a college town and at the time had 100,000 students enrolled on university campuses. We had a large pool to draw from, but a large college nearby is not an ingredient to a successful intern ministry. A student had to be a member of our church and committed to preparing for ministry. We chose them based on their GIFTS. They were . . .

G—Gifted: we saw an obvious public gift in them.

I—Influential: we noticed they had influence among their peers.

F—Fruitful: we could already see fruitful ministry happening in their lives.

T—Trustworthy: we spotted character and maturity in them.

S—Serving: we saw them in ministry before the internship.

Once we selected the intern, we brought him or her before the pastoral staff for approval, just like any other appointed person in ministry. After official approval, the 2-year internship began. We used the following big IDEA, based on Jesus’ method of equipping His disciples for leadership.

I—Instruction

We gave them lots of leadership instruction. You can’t be in a church with John Maxwell as the senior pastor without leadership teaching going on. We taught them at weekly meetings, where we studied one leadership issue per month. We read through books together and discussed their content. Every intern received a notebook to fill with handouts of learning material received over the 2 years.

D—Demonstration

While instruction is important, we knew they needed more than teaching. The internship was show and tell, not just tell and tell. We made sure they had plenty of chances to see leadership modeled at the church. They watched pastoral ministry up close. We took them on field trips and discussed what they observed. They interviewed the staff members at the church and even had a yearly group time with John Maxwell.

E—Experience

We didn’t just tell them and we didn’t just show them—they also got firsthand experience. That’s how people learn best. We forget most of what we hear. We remember more of what we see. But we retain most of what we do. The interns all led something during their time with us. In fact, they each had four to five responsibilities based on their gifts. We gave them spiritual gift assessments and placed them accordingly. Basic assignments included oversight of some ministry team (based on their gifts), discipling at least one person, and some form of evangelism.

A—Assessment

Finally, we made time for regular assessment of their life and ministry. Experience is not the best teacher. Bad experiences can lead folks to wrong conclusions. We felt that weekly meetings, biannual evaluations, and a steady review of programs helped them stay on course. I kept a folder on each of them, like a doctor does on a patient. They knew they were loved and cared for as we equipped them.

—Tim Elmore, Equip Ministries, Duluth, Georgia