Dear Future Interns,
Chances are that you’re considering connecting with a church or nonprofit organization because you believe it’s the next step for you as you explore your interests and unpack your calling. What I have discovered with many interns like you is a contagious enthusiasm that fuels energetic participation. Sadly, I have also seen this same enthusiasm and energy transfer to cynicism and disappointment when the internships fail to live up to expectations.
I encourage you to seek out organizations that will set you up for a truly helpful internship. In your search, ask the following questions:
Do they value the meaning you’re making more than what you’re producing?
I have often found that interns think their role is to rock the world, impressing those they work for. Mix this with organizations that are excited about cheap labor and you have the potential for intern burnout. The main purpose of your internship is not for you to produce but for you to make meaning of your experiences.
Pragmatically, you may have the chance to excel in your gifts/talents, benefiting those with whom you work. Developmentally, however, you have a wellspring of opportunity as you reflect beyond what you’re doing, toward why, or what is going on behind your activity.
- What gives me joy?
- Why did that experience evoke fear?
- What am I learning about myself?
Your internship must encourage reflective space for your own thinking/journaling, raising more questions than answers, entering regular dialogue with your mentor. Without this, you will miss one of the most important elements of your internship experience.
Do they encourage discovery more than conformity?
Internships should challenge interns’ assumptions about life, ministry, and self. If you can embrace a reality where doubt is a portal; if you can embrace the idea that failure brings wisdom; that pain is solidarity; that joy arises in unexpected places, you will begin to experience a different kind of internship that has the potential to rearrange your life categories.
When you are tempted to say, “This isn’t what I signed up for,” you may on the threshold of a more profound experience.
- Will this internship mess me up? Hopefully.
- Will this internship allow me to ask questions of my mentor and myself? It must.
In this process, ensure that churches/organizations allow these transformative thresholds to happen. Those who repress doubt as disloyalty; see failure as “unprofessional;” view pain as something to be solved; and equate joy in numbers and programs betray people, interns, redemption. Avoid them.
Do they see internship as a sacred role?
If you are motivated to join a church/organization because “it will look good on my résumé,” rethink doing an internship. Using internships to “help get ahead” can easily lead to exploiting people. Ultimately your goal should be to serve those associated with your internship. This means knowing your role and remembering that behind your task are real people.
- Menial tasks have meaning.
- Projects are connected with real people.
- Conversations you have with others are holy ground.
- Work you give your mentor helps or hurts her.
See every activity as a sacred expression. Treat each task as a redemptive act. Ensure that your conversations with your mentor are not merely about the tasks you’re doing but how these tasks are affecting the people you are serving. Intern and mentor hearts should break as much as tasks get completed.
Are they willing to give you significant feedback?
Mentors and interns must view internships as experimentation. Expect to make mistakes along the way. While affirmation is helpful, real learning comes through talking about the things that didn’t go so well. Be courageous enough to bring these things up with your mentor. Ensure that your mentor is willing to go there with you (many are unable).
Additionally, seek feedback beyond the tasks toward the competencies you are developing.
- Can you be honest with your mentor and with yourself?
- Will your mentor consistently seek you out?
- Is taking ministry and relational risks valued?
Internship goals should reflect a commitment to growing in your competencies as a person and follower of Jesus. Not just getting things done.
Do they encourage healthy living?
Limited intern time forces you to steward your role well, investing your best in the hours allotted. You are not a better intern if you continually work more than your intern hours—you’re a budding workaholic establishing destructive patterns. Accept your limitations. Laugh. Do your best. Don’t expect to do it all.
Ensure that your mentor/organization is equally diligent about this. Make sure they value (and model) healthy work habits and a realistic outlook about one’s person and one’s ministry.
- How is work assessed?
- Will your mentor model a healthy lifestyle?
- Who are you beyond your internship?
Finally…
It is my assumption that organizations that are unwilling to invest in their interns are not ready for interns. Be sure you know what you are joining to ensure that your intern experience encourages your development and prepares you for life beyond internship. Then, someday, do the same for others.
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Interns come to our churches—and specifically to our youth groups—not only to learn but also to be trained and molded continuously as valuable leaders in God’s kingdom. Presently, we have four interns serving in our youth ministry. So in the spirit of being a good researcher, I turned this week’s topic around and asked the interns themselves what are the five best things they have learned as interns. I hoped this would make a most interesting contrast to what I perceive are the five best things to teach interns. Moreover, in seeing these differences in perceptions of what has been learned, it can provide a place to glean implications for me and those who lead present and future leaders.
Five Best Things My Interns Have Learned:
1. Learn what it is to take ownership of the youth group.
2. Learn to plan ahead.
3. React well to unexpected things that happen during ministry (emergencies and surprises).
4. Keep some kind of record (e.g., a calendar) to remember things about the ministry.
5. Use wisdom in all circumstances.
1. I really don't have any idea what I'm doing. I thought I learned and knew everything I needed to know about ministry from past and previous experiences and books, but I definitely got owned.
2. I am not a student's parent. The parents are the ones who are primarily responsible for their children's spiritual lives, not me (if their parents are active members in the church).
3. It is important to be respectful and honor the culture and traditions of the church regardless of how I may feel about it.
4. It is important to respect the students and not treat them like babies or assume they are immature, naive, ignorant, etc. (even though they may be).
5. If you have the chance to work in a team environment and with experienced pastors/youth workers as opposed to running your own show, take advantage of that opportunity. Experienced pastors/youth workers will be able to call you out and keep you accountable.
1. I am continuing to learn and distinguish what relational ministry entails. Relational ministry takes patience and a lot of grace—for ourselves and for others. It continually reflects on the incarnational ministry of Christ, which is the model I would like to implement in my life and ministry. A distinction I’ve seen in this particular ministry is that incarnational ministry is not another program in ministry, but it is simply being in love with God and loving those we are sent to serve.
2. The quality of the relationships and level of communication within the leadership team significantly affect ministry as a whole. As a part of the leadership team, I am learning what it truly means to be a servant leader. I have to continually keep my attitude in check and work within the team. Decision making and working together in ministry must be communicated across the team so that confusion or misunderstandings will not take place, whether in the team or the ministry as a whole.
3. Time management is something I have learned is vital to my own personal life and ministry. Being a full-time student of a rigorous seminary while serving in ministry is not easy. There are a lot of things to balance. I've learned that a lack of discipline in my use of time not only affects my personal life but my ability to serve and minister as well.
4. I've learned that there are different ways of managing leadership teams. A leader who micro-manages a team controls every detail and responsibility as if he/she is not working with others, while the leader who macro-manages delegates responsibilities to others to achieve the same goal.
5. I've learned that my personal time of worshiping God should not be neglected. As I am serving others, I should only depend upon God alone, for he is my only source of strength and the one who sustains me.
1. Exposure to a ministry operation.
2. Learning what it means to lead beyond simple mechanics.
3. Time management.
4. Learning to balance and make priorities. One example is that if you're too prideful it leads to arrogance, but if you don't have enough confidence, that can lead to faithlessness.
5. Remembering to be always thankful and learning how to apply that to sincerity in one's work and brevity in one's work responses.
Overall, in considering these four lists, I have realized a few things myself.
1. I often focus on more tangible aspects of ministry such as time management, returning emails/texts, being on time, professionalism. I am glad to see that deeper, more profound aspects of ministry were learned by my interns, whether intentionally or not (but I hope it was more intentional).
2. In reference to intentionality, I am blessed, grateful, and joyful for the things my interns learned from our ministry. And while I did question my intentionality of teaching them these things, I do believe that these are intentional and consistent values and aspects of our ministry. Hence, I would stress in terms of the book of James that faith and works do go hand in hand. In other words, I have hope and conviction that the things my interns have learned, which I am proud they have learned, were really just the fruits of the ministry itself and how we function. So ultimately, actions speak louder than words.
3. “Teach a person to fish.” After seeing these lists from my present interns, I am more affirmed that the things that I have focused on in teaching my interns will and have equipped them to do ministry for a lifetime in the kingdom. In other words, I believe that they have learned things so that they can do ministry not just for the context of our youth group but for the eternal, universal kingdom of God.
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I wrestle with the title of this slant, “the five best.” It sounds so final. Every intern has a different outcome in mind, and they also have different personalities. But there are some important and essential things that we’ve got to pass on. I’ve been chewing on this for a while. Then it occurred to me to ask my interns.
So that’s what I did. I asked my two most recent interns what they considered to be their best lessons and then made my comments (see italics). Consider this a slant within a slant. Three viewpoints in one. Right on.
Five Bests from Alexandra Burgess (Southeastern University):
Teach me to budget.
Teach me to learn.
Teach me to have a vision and express my vision.
Teach me to be hands on and proactive.
Teach me to lead and disciple.
1. I loved how you showed me your budget. I believe this is something interns often overlook, and I think it is stuff like this that is crucial to understand before entering ministry. Interns need to learn how to manage their ministries with integrity and creativity. Especially when it comes to budgets.
2. Give your interns opportunities to sit in on a youth workers’ conference or convention of some kind. Teach your interns to be learners. Cultivate their boldness and idealism while offering them opportunities to grow under the leadership of authors, speakers, ministers, and veterans.
3. I think youth pastors often leave their interns out in regards to their lesson planning and sharing their passion and ideas behind their series. You put it out there and really got everyone excited about it. Don’t forget to share why you do what you do, when you do it, or the importance of vision in ministry leadership.
4. I also liked the hands-on work that I got to do. Teach interns to do the work, make the calls, create a poster, or carve a pumpkin—whatever it is that you do, let them help you do it!
5. I think every intern should have the opportunity to lead a small group because that is definitely what impacted me the most. Ali was able to connect with her girls and get to know other students through her small group. She learned valuable lessons—on teaching God’s Word, thinking as a student would think, and planning her own mini youth group—that she’ll take with her into ministry.
Five Bests from Nathan Neihof (Kentucky Mountain Bible College):
Teach me to keep Jesus first.
Teach me to plan and prepare.
Teach me to build relationships.
Teach me to lead together.
Teach me to take time to study.
1. Keep Jesus at the forefront of everything. This has been modeled to me, and it was wonderful for me to see it lived out. I think many interns are looking for the real deal—people who live the way they say everyone else should live and humbly follow Christ.
2. Ministry doesn't evolve into excellence in the heat of a church service. I’ve learned that there is a lot of preparation, planning, and practicing that make ministry happen. Teach interns what it takes to plan ahead, pray over, and prepare well for the ministry ahead. There will always be surprises, and planning well gives them room to respond rather than react.
3. Relationships are key in ministry. My first week here, I was plugged into a small group. I got to know the guys, and they decided I was “cool.” When the first Wednesday night came, I was able to establish a group of guys who already decided I was approved, and this led to other guys giving me their approval. This is an echo from Ali. Teach your interns to be involved in small-group discipleship. There are multiple lessons to learn, and the rewards will keep them inspired.
4. Establish a core group of volunteers you can depend on and delegate leadership roles to those people. This makes your ministry more powerful in its outreach and expands the capacity of the amount of people one can minister to. It also makes ministry more enjoyable because you don't deal with all the stress of being the lone shepherd. Amen, well said!
5. It’s been vital for me to learn how to prepare and study. I have met a lot of pastors who don't spend a lot of time in study. Teach your interns to make time for God’s Word in their work schedules. If they don’t plan for it, it probably won’t happen. It’s the thing that will give them life as they minister to others.
Overall, teach interns your heart. Nothing will stick with them more than the expression of your call to ministry because it will help them to cultivate their own call. Teach them to fan into flame the gifts God has given them and to rely on others’ strengths for the gifts they lack. And, maybe most importantly, teach them to forgive. The church is full of humans who are all on a journey. There may be some pain, but God can and will use the hard spots to refine us as we find rest and purpose in him.
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