Do Internships and Residencies Really Matter for Your Church?

Pastor, is your head on a swivel? Let me explain. Are you constantly on the lookout for men and women in your church who you need to invest in? Specifically, are you actively encouraging those in your congregation who God might be calling to vocational ministry?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is often, “I don’t have anyone who fits the bill,” or “I just don’t have the time for that.” Can I be so bold as to say that I believe we must be focused on finding these people. If they aren’t in your church, they’re in your community. If they aren’t in your community, pray that God will bring them. It is a critical part of shepherding the body. I’ve heard this quote often: “The hurting will always find you. You have to go find the hungry.” Most of us in ministry are here because someone saw a hunger in us that God was growing and they invested in us. Why wouldn’t we want to be committed to doing the same?

What if we took seriously the responsibility to help the next generation explore a call to ministry? What if we created real opportunities for people in our churches to exercise ministry muscles that resulted in vocational calls to plant churches, pastor churches, or be sent as missionaries to the ends of the earth? At Converge MSC, we are working and praying through several ways to help you see this happen. One specific area of focus is residencies and internships. 

Internships are opportunities to take people through an educational process of discovering what vocational ministry is all about. They are often part of a school’s practical ministry curriculum. The intern does hands-on ministry while completing specific learning requirements that you help guide. Although some stipend or compensation is appropriate, an intern should not be thought of as staff. They are a student and the primary purpose is practical learning.

Residencies, while similar to internships, give someone who has received a call to vocational ministry the chance to gain hands-on experience under the watchful eye of a supervisor. In this context, more authority and opportunity are extended to do ministry that both develops the resident and blesses the church. This typically comes with greater financial compensation and, where appropriate, help with school tuition. A residency may conclude with a staff position at the church, or it may equip the person to be sent out to serve elsewhere.

There are many benefits to residencies and internships. Here are just a few:

1. You build leaders from within who already know your culture and community rather than importing someone who needs 12-18 months just to acclimate.
2. A residency can function as an extended working interview. You see how someone handles real pressure, relationships, and responsibility before making a full hire.
3. Residents and interns extend the staff's reach. They can lead programs, disciple smaller groups, and manage projects that could otherwise fall through the cracks.
4. The discipline of training others creates accountability to actually mentor, not just manage your people.
5. Not every resident or intern stays and that’s a good thing. Your church could and should become known as a sending church. An added benefit is that this kind of missional thinking often attracts high capacity people. Young, high-potential leaders want to grow, and a structured development path signals that your church’s leadership is genuinely invested in them.

The list is longer than this. Simply put, being intentional about developing future pastors and leaders is among the best investments your church can make. And we want to help. In the coming months, Converge MSC will celebrate where internships and residencies are already happening. We want to provide training for churches that desire to start or strengthen their residency and internship programs. And we want to create pathways for high capacity young people to connect with internship and residency opportunities across our region.

You could really help us out in all of this by answering a simple question. Does your church currently offer an internship or residency program?

If you’d like to talk more about this, please feel free to reach out to bryan@convergemsc.org.