During one's third year of seminary, one goes away for a year. They're tired of listening to you in class, so they send you away. Oh wait, no... that's not right...
What it really is is a year spent actually doing parish ministry. Sort of. Think of it like student teaching, only a year long, and a with a congregation instead of a classroom.
Internships happen all over the place. There are certain requirements for the parish taking in an intern, such as the number of years the (senior) pastor has been there, the health of the congregation, and so on, to ensure that the intern's going to learn. Of course, sometimes the intern-supervisor relationship doesn't go well, but that's why the ordeal is only a year long.
There are some internships grouped together called the Horizon program where less wealthy congregations that would not otherwise be able to support an intern are able to. It's a grant program, but I don't know the specifics of how it works. There are also international internships. These programs ensure that students have the opportunity (although of course not all students can be accepted into all programs) to intern in a variey of settings. And, for the churches being served by the interns, programs like the Horizon grants enable churches that might not otherwise be able to benefit from an intern's ministry to have that chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment