|
<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: Pastoral Internship > What is Internship For? |
Pastoral internship is designed to provide ample time for:
•Acquisition and development of basic pastoral skills and behaviors that are necessary for the life and practice of pastoral ministry
•Observation, directing, mentoring, and evaluation of their development, and for their calling and fitness for employment in full-time ministry
While internship is generally reserved for full-time pastoral employees, conferences may elect to include part-time pastors when appropriate. Examples of exceptions would be: a part-time pastor of a migrant group for which there is not yet funding available for full-time employment but for whom a fully-qualified pastor is required, and a hospital chaplain serving an institution in your conference who will need to be ordained/commissioned in order to continue their work as a chaplain.
Most newly-hired pastors already exhibit a number of identifiable skills and gifts that point toward pastoral ministry, but nothing can substitute for actual, on-the-job training. The internship should expose both the skills already present as well as those that are lacking. The temptation for most any pastor, and particularly a new one, is to lean on those skills and gifts you already possess rather than focus on the less well-developed areas. But ministry's demands are wide and deep, and it's imperative that a new pastor be given as much exposure to the wide range of actual ministry activities as possible so that there is ample time to hone present skills and for the development and strengthening of the weaker areas.
If an intern is placed in a church or district by him/her self during their internship, they will be pretty much forced into dealing with the full range of pastoral tasks and duties, even if their skills are not yet honed. One good practice for you as a Ministerial Director to develop in yourself, is taking the time to be in regular contact with your interns to dialog with them about their experiences. During these times of dialog, if you sense that the intern is currently facing or will soon be facing a new or complex or sensitive task, take the time to walk through what they are facing so that they will be well prepared for what they are about to face. Taking the time to do this beforehand may well be less time-consuming than having to help them clean up afterward because they did not proceed in the best possible way!
If the intern is placed on staff with an experienced pastor, chances are they will be purposely exposed to the wide range of pastoral duties by their senior pastor. Still, it would be worth an occasional conversation with the senior pastor just to make sure they are on track.
If your pre-ordination process includes a check-list of skills and activities, you'll have an easy way to track their progress.
Their internship period is your best opportunity to most intentionally monitor their development. It does the pastor and their churches no favor to allow them to muddle along without receiving the guidance they need. If they are not mentored properly, certain unhealthy or unproductive habits/patterns may become ingrained that sometimes prove difficult to unlearn later on.
You may discover that as their internship progresses, your focused time investment in them can gradually taper off. That would actually be a good sign because it should mean that they are indeed getting the hang of ministry and need less guidance. Just make sure that their first couple of years in the field are closely monitored so that you can provide the right guidance early on.
It will also be useful if the intern can be coached to initiate contact with you when they come to anything new or difficult in their experience with which they need help so that they can receive what they need. They need to be assured that it will never count against them for asking for help! If they can learn that your estimation of them actually goes up when they contact you with their questions, they will develop the healthy habit of seeking counsel when its needed.
It is strongly urged that the NAD's Core Qualities become the benchmarks for pastoral development. Extensive work has been done on these Core Qualities, even reaching into the undergrad and graduate education of pastors toward these qualities. They provide a well-researched set of qualities that are identified with successful pastors, plus they provide important objectively-measurable skills toward which the pastor may reach.
The NAD's Pastoral Internship page provides some additional thoughts and information that might be useful for you.