Pastoral Internship > How Long Will It Be?

NAD Policy section L 31 30 on Ordination states that "a licensed minister is ordinarily ordained after a period of about four years of field experience."

However, the period of pastoral internship may vary a bit from conference to conference, but most newly hired pastors can expect the process to take from 4 to 6 years of actual field experience depending upon factors such as:

•Education

•Age/life experience

•Development during their internship

•Prior employment

Most conferences will lean toward the 4 year time frame when the pastor already has an MDiv or MA in a church-related area, or who has nearly completed their degree. Some circumstances allow for pastors to earn their masters-level degree during their internship, so it may be that your conference will allow for ordination in 4 years even before the degree is completed. Others may wish to hold to 5 or 6 years years if the degree is not yet completed. Sometimes, conferences take life experience into consideration, especially if their prior employment was in a church-related field of some sort.

It will be helpful to let your intern know that ordination/commissioning is never guaranteed, even at the completion of their pre-ordination/internship process. It may well be that the internship surfaced some issues or skills deficits that may warrant directing the pastor into another line of work. Or perhaps just some additional time for remediation is indicated.

With our denomination's on-going difficulties over ordination and its meaning and practice, perhaps it's more important than ever to be thoughtful and careful in proceeding towards ordination/commissioning. Hold a high standard - a reachable one - but still a high one. Make internship important by taking it seriously. If the new pastor sees you take it seriously, they will, too. Never use ordination/commissioning as a reward or as a bargaining chip. The potential for a life-long work of ministry is important enough to everyone involved to give you ample reason to make sure the most qualified and gifted are properly developed and ordained/commissioned at the right time.

NAD Ministerial is in the process of developing a web application that interns and directors can use to track the progress of the intern through the acquisition of the Core Qualities of Professional Ministry. The goal is to begin testing the app in the first quarter of 2020.

Please Don't Neglect This!

One plea often made by an intern is to know where they are on the ordination track. True, they are wanting to be able to look forward to the probable time-frame for their ordination/commissioning, but it's also a way for them to discover if their progress as a pastor is being realized and appreciated by their conference leaders. They want to know if they are doing well! And they may be very hesitant to ask, thinking that it might not even be appropriate to ask.

So please time the time to regularly review with each intern just where they are in their ordination track. It will mean a lot to them.