Internship Program

Additional Pages:

• Internship Curriculum

• Questions for Prospective Interns
  

OVERVIEW OF INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

In an increasingly multicultural, multiethnic, multigenerational and post-denominational age, we sense a compelling need for congregations that will call and nurture pastoral leaders into the ministry of reconciliation.  Our Parish Resident Intern Program at Church of All Nations is being continually refined and developed for this very purpose.

Background

Our congregation was chartered in 2004 as a multicultural church that would advance the ministry of reconciliation.  Today we are a healthy 250 member congregation that is 30% Asian, 37% white, 22% black, and 10% Latino, with more than 25 nations represented in our membership.  Our staff includes people from Korea, Kenya, Sudan, Brazil, China, Japan, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, and the United States (both Euro- and African-American).  Our session and board of deacons also fully reflect this diversity.  We are one of a handful of congregations in the U.S. with no ethnic majority and sizable groups of the four major racial categories of white, black, Asian and Latino/a.  But we actually have even more denominational background diversity than ethnic diversity, drawing as many Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans as we do Pentecostals, Baptists and Evangelical Free.  We are also unique amongst multicultural churches in that we have a rich generational representation due to our merger with Shiloh Bethany Presbyterian Church in 2006.

Our concern for diversity is not rooted in aesthetics, but about intentionally engaging deep-seated socio-historical divisions and fractured interpersonal relationships with the reconciling power of the Gospel.  As a result, we address issues head on—from politics, racism, the economy and war to generational dysfunctions, sexuality, and relational insecurities.  In the process, we have discovered that what is fundamentally needed is not the development of new knowledge, skills and techniques, but congregations that will form courageous pastoral leaders with the Christian character necessary to confess boldly, discern rightly, speak the truth in love, and testify fearlessly to the liberating power of the Spirit over the long haul.

As a result, we have dedicated our time and resources to becoming a teaching and mentoring congregation to recent seminary graduates through our unique and innovative Parish Resident Intern Program.  While ministerial training shifted from an apprenticeship model to an academic model over the past 200 years, our goal is to couple intensive theological reflection with active mentoring in the context of a diverse yet intimate local church.  To date our full-time interns have come from Bethel Theological Seminary (MN), Columbia Theological Seminary (GA), Fuller Theological Seminary (CA), Houston Graduate School of Theology (TX), Luther Seminary (MN), Princeton Theological Seminary (NJ) and United Theological Seminary (MN).

Internship Description

The primary job of each intern is to receive the love and hospitality of the church community and, out of that receptivity, to love and serve the church in its concrete form—not the idealized church, but the real flesh and blood, sometimes messy, local body of Christ.  We seek to correct the strong tendency toward Docetism in the Western church by focusing on the embodied and incarnate Christ who invites us to follow him into the joy and suffering of real relationships.  Out of this commitment to relating deeply and fully to members of the community, the interns are called out of their various forms of hiddenness and isolation into a state of truthfulness before God and others.  It is in this place of vulnerability and trust that they can begin to hear the call of God in their lives (rather than, for example, the voice of parents, teachers, friends or the surrounding culture) and respond to it faithfully with their particular gifts and talents.  The four communal practices (CARE) that FTE recommends to “notice, name and nurture vocation and call” are at the heart of this process for our congregation and internship program.

• Creating Space to Explore Vocation:

As a “high risk, low anxiety” church, we have created a space where interns are encouraged to take risks leading, embrace the fact that both failure and success will accompany those risks, and then learn from those failures and successes in the context of a trusting community.  Each intern is given full leadership responsibilities of a particular ministry within the church, such as Singles Ministry, Couples Ministry, College Ministry or Outreach Ministry.  They also participate fully in our Cell Group Ministry, often leading their own small group.  Finally, they attend all staff, session and board of deacons meetings, while participating in Sunday worship services.  In this way they are not separate from the congregation, but deeply embedded within the congregation’s daily life and rhythms.

A group of interns and Pastor Jin S. Kim visit Columbia Theological Seminary in June of 2009 during the PCUSA Big Tent Conference.

Of particular importance is the intern cohort, which gathers together on a regular basis to process the joys, struggles and failures of their relation to the community, and what they are learning about their vocational call in the process.  Most of the interns live together in housing provided by community members close to the church, so they cannot easily escape the claims of the community upon them.  This leads them to regularly address underlying insecurities with one another.  The space to explore vocation emerges out of the daily “life together” of the community, staff and fellow interns, which then leads to a deeper understanding of their respective calls through personal and communal discernment.  We have found that this is not a linear process, but rather a spiraling one as obstacles are cleared away and greater clarity gleaned.

The primary difference between congregation members and interns is not specific practices, but the intensity with which these practices are undertaken.  Interns are provided the space and time to explore vocation in a particularly intensive and intentional manner, but through congregational practices already in place.  In this way, we have found they become the “yeast that leavens the dough,” spurring congregation members to deeper vocational exploration as well.  As the interns bring their deep searching into their respective ministry responsibilities, cell group leadership, and daily life within the community, congregation members are organically challenged to rethink their career choices, job opportunities and overall strivings in light of the Gospel’s claim on their lives.  Through the witness of the interns, for example, members have been voluntarily “bound” and “loosed” by the community’s discernment, sometimes leaving jobs or cutting back on hours in order to more faithfully serve the church and God’s kingdom out of their particular gifts.

• Asking Self-Awakening Questions:

In a multicultural and intergenerational church context, exploring personal and collective identity in light of the Gospel is paramount.  This means exploring one’s past as it impacts the present, especially concerning family and church of origin.  Equally important is analyzing how the history of one’s culture, race/ethnicity, and society informs who they are becoming, and how the Gospel liberates the gifts inherent within, while confronting the idolatries also present.  Thus, the disciplines of history, sociology and psychology are all brought to bear on understanding each person, since these areas are interrelated in the life of an individual before God.  In this way we strive to discern what is “of Christ” in the interns’ lives and what is not.

Parish Resident Intern Hikari Nakane testifies before the congregation during our Good Friday service.

One of the primary ways that we do this with our interns is through the practices of testimony and confession.  Most people seem to carry traumas from their past with them into ministry, which then flare up from time to time when the wounds are inadvertently touched.  Our goal is to intentionally expose these wounds in the appropriate time and place so that they might be healed, thereby becoming sources of transformation and healing for others, rather than leading to manipulation, control and emotional violence.  As our interns have learned to share boldly with the congregation in this way, the congregation has also been led into deeper vulnerability and risk taking.  While the love of the congregation clearly nurtures the interns, the intentionality and intensity of the intern community is also challenging and shaping the congregational ethos into one of testimony (an ethos expounded by Walter Brueggemann and Anna Carter Florence).

This culture of testimony and confession is most fully present in our cell group ministry, which involves over half of our church membership.  The interns’ way of leading (some of) these groups involves confessing who they are in real time, thereby challenging and inviting other members to do the same.  Because the interns are continually led into deeper risk-taking and overall trust of the community, they winsomely lead congregation members into a similar state, and do so with integrity.  This also occurs in the respective ministries the interns lead—for example, leading the Couples Ministry out of a deep truthfulness about the struggles involved in one’s own marriage.  As a result, deep and honest examination of one’s self, family and culture before the Gospel is becoming the overall ethos of Church of All Nations, as the courageous testimonies offered within and before the congregation demonstrate—by interns and members alike.

• Reflecting Theologically About Self and Community:

The intern cohort includes a curriculum that engages texts on ecclesiology, missional theology, contextual theology, ecumenical theology, pastoral theology and leadership, racial reconciliation and the multicultural church.  They meet on a regular basis to interpret one’s self, each other and the church community in light of the text that has been read.  They also participate in staff meetings, where interpreting the community theologically is a weekly practice.  The aim of these texts and discussions is to teach them to think theologically about themselves and the church on an ongoing basis and in changing circumstances—so the focus is practical, pastoral and contextual theology, rather than systematic theology and its tendency to universalize.

Choua Vang of Bethel University, John Nelson, Coordinator of Internship Program, and Pastor Jin S. Kim chat while participating in Duke's Divinity School's Center for Reconciliation Summer Institute, June of 2009.

One of the expressions we use to describe the intern cohort is that it is an “articulating community.”  What distinguishes them from the congregation is their ability to critically reflect on and narrate theologically their experience of discipleship, vocation and call.  As they do so amongst each other, in their cell groups and various ministries, and in worship services, they also teach the congregation to do the same.  Through the interns, congregation members are also learning to reflect theologically about self and community, creating a deeper culture of vocation and call.  The interns, then, are learning to preach the Gospel at all times, not just in a Sunday morning worship—and it is Good News grounded in their life in the community.

Of particular importance in these reflections is the relationship between the self and community.  Because we live in the United States, we regularly challenge radical individualism and the impact it has upon individual Christians and local church bodies.  This has deep theological roots, since we believe the reign of God that Jesus incarnates and proclaims is fundamentally concerned with “right relating.”  As the interns learn to more fully and faithfully relate, articulating this journey en via to congregation members, they also challenge congregation members to reflect on their own relationships to community.  This has been especially evident amongst our college students and other young adults.  While this is typically an age of individual self-exploration, they are learning to commit to, participate in, trust and learn from a discerning community.  This results in a new sense of self that is bound up in, with and through other people.  Instead of Descartes’ maxim, “I think, therefore I am,” they are internalizing the South African principle of ubuntu: “I am because we are.”

• Establishing Vocation Enriched Opportunities:

Attending national conferences, local events and taking retreats is a regular part of the intern program.  They also travel with Pastor Jin when he gets invited to teach at various schools and seminaries, such as Bethel, United, Princeton and Duke.  Within our church, they attend staff meetings, board of deacons meetings, session meetings, and other relevant committee meetings.  The majority of them also serve on a committee within the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, while going through the CPM inquiry and candidacy for ordination process.  Finally, last October we embarked on a learning trip to South Africa, exploring the history of apartheid and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, since it has been so instructive to our church’s identity, while also remaining instructive for the ministry of reconciliation in the American context as a whole.

A group of interns and Pastor Mauro Souza enjoy a meal following a conference with Jurgen Moltmann in Chicago, September of 2009.

While many of these outside opportunities are exciting, we have discovered that their real fruit emerges from the discussions in our community that they provoke.  Their significance is not in and of themselves, but exists in relationship to our local community of call that is a part of and connected to the global body of Christ.  When deeply grounded, our interns are able to humbly learn from a wide variety of sources—from the National Council of Churches to the PC(USA) Multicultural Conference to a Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals gathering.  As a result, it is important that they share these learnings and experiences with the community when they return—in cell groups, their various ministries, and often during the offering time of the Sunday morning worship service.  This helps the entire community take ownership of these vocational enrichment opportunities, and invites them into deeper learning as well.

It is fair to say that there is a sort of “holy envy” evident amongst some of our congregation members toward the interns.  The older adults wish they had such an opportunity at a young age, the young adults seek out guidance and mentoring from our interns, while some of our high school age students talk about wanting to be an intern someday.  This demonstrates what a deep desire there is for intensive discipleship within the local church, and points to why we place such a high value on leadership development.  We need more “calling congregations” that will provide these sorts of opportunities, raising up leaders that value integrity, faithfulness, and servanthood over numbers, success and personal achievement, thereby shaping healthy communities in turn.  Fortunately, we have discovered that this envy does not cause strife, but rather acts as a gravitational force, pulling our members deeper into the life of discipleship that our interns have embarked upon.

Program Development Aspirations

Over the past year we have sent two of our “graduating” interns into pastoral calls—a PC(USA) Korean immigrant church in Houston, TX, and another to lead a more traditional PC(USA) church in St. Paul, MN—both seeking to become genuinely multicultural congregations out of their unique histories and contexts.  Three more graduated from the program this past fall, leaving us with five full-time interns—a Japanese female, Euro American female, Korean American male, African American male and a Euro-American male.  We currently receive new applicants on a regular basis.  Thus far our congregation has borne the majority of the financial burden of this program.  We welcome any who may want to partner with us in support of these emerging multicultural church leaders and the emerging DNA of our entire community.

We recently appointed one of our internship graduates to serve as Coordinator of the Internship Program to advance the program through greater coherence, structure and resources.  We hope that it will be a benefit to the intern program and to our congregation as a whole, helping us improve and intensify our culture of call.

With the addition of the Coordinator, we also hope to improve our resources and increase our “vocation enriched opportunities.”  Our interns currently receive a very modest stipend, but do get free housing.  We also provide for them in other ways, including buying them the books that we read, funding them as they participate in conferences, and putting on one or two intern retreats per year.  We have also considered hosting our own conference on pastoral formation and the ministry of reconciliation, which would obviously be rooted in our internship program.

In the end, the reason we are developing this internship program is to help plant and seed reconciling multicultural congregations both in our immediate geographic area and throughout the country.  This is part of our vision for and contribution to the renewal of the church in America, especially as the country continues to move toward a more diverse and global population.  We have no desire to be a megachurch; instead, we aim to raise courageous missionaries to go forth and lead their own healthy, midsized multicultural “calling congregations” as our investment in the local church and the global body of Christ.