On Sunday, our first youth ministry intern arrives in town and will start his first official day on the job on Tuesday. Obviously, I have a rough game plan, but I’ve never really done this before, so I’m sort of making this up as I go. Hopefully I will be able to post some insights about developing interns over the next seven months while he is here.
In the meantime I’m looking to those of you who have been there, done that (either in the supervisory role or as the intern) for some input:
- What tips and advice would you give to someone supervising a youth ministry intern?
- How do you philosophically approach an internship?
- How do you teach them?
- How do you evaluate them?
- Do you have any special exercises that help them to develop themselves personally, professionally, or spiritually during their internship?
- Where have you gone wrong?
In general, I understand an internship to be a developmental position, not a grunt-work job. The goal is to train and develop a person for wider ministry in the church. It is hands-on education at its best. So, short of some huge moral failure, I don’t see much an intern could do to require dismissal. I’ve got some things up my sleeve to help push Zach, our intern, to really define his own gifts and abilities, but I don’t want him to catch on to what I’m doing by reading this ahead of time. I’ll let you read about that after the fact.
So for now, I’d like to read your comments. What advice can you give a newbie like me?
For someone who is just ending an student ministry internship, here is some advice to get you going in the right direction from my perspective:
-be approachable, because it’s a learning experience that sets a foundation for what to expect in youth groups in the churches that he will be serving at
-be open to learning from the intern as he may have some interesting things to add to the mix when it comes to innovating and coming up with new ways to reach out to the community of students
-have a day each week to sit down and evaluate the last week in the ministry, going over what he did good and what he could do differently or better
-involve him in the process of preparing an event
-help him identify key leaders or potential leaders in the youth group so that he can focus on investing in them moreso than other students in the youth group. Like a top 5 or top 10 list if you will.
Hopefully this has helped you some. Thanks for pouring into the future of student ministry through this student intern.
Those are great, thanks for the input.
I had two terrific internships with Jesse Hanna at Blackhawk Ministries in Fort Wayne, IN and Jim Horning in Newton, KS. You can probably find their emails on their church websites and email em. They both did a great job.
I’ve never had an intern, but I’ve been an intern for 3 summers, so here’s my take:
-Figure out that intern’s wiring and really encourage it.
-Give them too much responsibility.
-Set them up to win.
-Grow to be their friend as much as their supervisor.
-Don’t just teach them, learn from them.
-Be super-honest with your intern. They deserve to see the crappy sides of ministry.
know that this summer is probably going to change the course of someone’s life. The experience your intern has is going to have will shape their future ministry.
More great thoughts. Thanks, Adam. I’m curious, I’m assuming when you say “give them too much responsibility” you mean to push them past their comfort, perhaps even to failure. How do you see that balancing out with “Set them up to win”?
Did you mean to say “Don’t give them too much responsibility” or to really challenge them? I think I have a tendency to give too much responsibility and it’s something I really need to work on.
Oops. I just needed to keep reading. Great advice.
I personally have not supervised an intern but recently finished teaching a class for students in Children,Youth, & Family studies. These students were all involved in a 6-8 hrs/wk Practicum for a semester which is the step before their full on 40 hr/wk internship for the program. My class was a seminar/forum to help them process through what they are learning in their practicums and giviong them some additional tools for their ministry toolbox. The topics I taught on were suggested by the college and I came on as a ‘practictioner in the field’ to share what I know and have learned. The topics I focused on were:
* Planning using a particular planning guideline and then they each had a 12 hr special project that they needed to take full leadership on for their practicum. (Varied from teaching a class, planning Easter Egg Hunt, Updating a youth ministry room, leading a retreat, and creating a first aid plan/kits & leader training for a congregation.
* Volunteer Management: Focused on Recruiting, Training, Nurturing, and Encouraging volunteers and we used the book “The New Breed:Understanding and Equipping the 21st Century Volunteer” as a text. The evaluated the volunteer managament in their practicum, described the process and made suggestions to improve the program.
* Self Care: Focused on all the areas of life one needs to pay attention to take care of themselves. Including personal finances, stress relief, getting professional help if needed, etc. Each student created a ‘self care’ plan identifying 6-8 ways they’d like to take care of themselves in ministry.
* Intro to Financial Management: Focused on how to read a balance sheet, budget and various financial terms. Students obtained a copy of their practicum site’s financial report and analyzed by making observations and asking questions, we talked about this in class.
Upon debriefing their practicum experiences the things they wished that would have happened in their practicum: * Clear outline/expectiations/description of their role (including any policies about relating to children/youth so their aren’t surprises), Support from supervisor and interaction with other members of the staff (pastors, worship leaders, etc), A good balance between supervisor hand holding and letting go of the reigns, not being used just as help but teaching them as well, Practicum site having a purpose for their being there and making it a purposeful experience for the student.
You can take or leave it but I thought this might be helpful as you decide what to do. Blessings!
Some real helpful suggestions there. Helping out on finances is something that I had only implicitly thought about, but it is very important. I might try to make the financial aspect of the internship a bit more explicit.
I was an DCE (Director of Christian Ed) intern 3 years ago AND my then-supervisor, now-co-worker, soon-to-be-supervisor (complicated eh?) and I are gearing up to have our very first summer Youth Ministry Intern in a week! We are excited.
Some things that we learned worked for us in our intern-supervisor relationship:
1) weekly STRUCTURED meetings. We didn’t go to Robert’s Rules, but we had a set agenda that covered new stuff, old stuff, and health (spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical… I always joked that he was going to make me do more crossword puzzles if I got mental unhealthy).
2) regular self-evaluations. The intern should do these once a month. They should be simple 1-10 scales with an opportunity to comment and 2-3 reflective pieces. We are adapting my DCE internship evals for the youth intern (narrowing some of the areas, etc.).
3) regular supervisor evals. Depending on the length of the internship, maybe every other month. Or once mid-summer and once at the end in a summer intern’s case. Similar format to the self-evals. Save copies of these (they will help you write the impending letters of recommendation!)
4) Process the evaluations as teammates, not as an HR person giving the intern their 90 day reviews.
5) This should be #1 or #2 develop written goals as a team. Everyone has their own goal-writing philosophy, so we’ll leave it at that. They should be written. 🙂
6) Provide them opportunity to share ministry with you. What I mean is that when I first started, I wasn’t in charge of much. I accompanied my supervisor. Then with each program, he handed something small over to me each time. Within a few months, I was chugging out things all on my own.
(long list…)
7) provide a social opportunity for the intern to meet your top ten leaders and pray for the internship… then set up the expectation for the intern to reconnect with those top ten for a cup of coffee/tea/water to get to know them a bit more.
8 ) Set up an opportunity for the intern to create a signature program/bible study/etc. Encourage them to document their creation process well so that they can use in their future career OR others can emulate it at your congregation.
That’s it for now…. Blessings on your preparation!
I know this was written a long time ago, but I was wondering if you could share your evaluation form. We are developing on now and I need a place to start. Thanks!
Tami, I will see if I can dig up my evaluation form.
I said for now, I meant it literally.
We are going to have our Summer Intern arrange for a middle school teacher of his choosing to observe one Sunday morning bible class teaching session and provide feedback.
Haha, well, those are great thoughts. I will definitely be putting some into practice.
@Matt about “setting up to win” vs “give them too much responsibility.”
here is how it worked for me: I was given a ton of trust. Not necessarily relationship trust (i wasn’t asked to disciple the senior girls one-on-one), but trust that I understood some things about ministry and that I was capable of more than my title as “intern” suggested.
In my first intership, I was given the responsibility of running the youth groups most significant fundraiser of the year. I had just finished year 1 of college and I’m horrible at detail/organizing/etc. I did it anyways. I had to pull an all-nighter the night before, but success happened. I learned a ton, etc. In that first intership, i was given “too much” responsibility, but it paid off.
In my next internship, i was set-up to win. The people around me knew my wiring and my gifts and they totally reinforced those. They allowed me to serve where I was gifted.
Unless you’re using the internship as a pre-cursor to hiring the person, I think an internship has to be SUPER-tailored to the intern, because – probably – they’re going to go somewhere else and minister in a different context/church/ministry/etc. So, making it all about your church’s style of ministry will probably close them off to future opportunities more so than open them up to what they’re called to.
just my thoughts. could be completely wrong. could be heretical. i don’t know.
Matt,
Great question… We JUST hired a YM intern who is in his first week at the office. I’m taking all the advice I can get from my former boss (for whom I was an intern).
I just thought I’d reply quick and let you know that I’m using Wufoo to set up a feedback form that the intern will fill out weekly. I can’t remember if you use Wufoo or not, but it eliminates paperwork and the completed forms can go directly to my inbox (I could set it up as an RSS feed even!).
Here are the questions on my form:
– Who did you contact this week?
– What did you talk about? What do I need to know?
– What project(s) are you currently working on?
– What is your ministry highlight and lowlight this week?
– Besides your assigned reading, did you read anything pertinent to youth ministry (i.e., magazine articles, websites/blogs, newspaper articles, etc.)? As a side note: I provided him with a list of YM blogs and websites and set up Google Reader for him
– What did you learn this week?
Hope that helps. Appreciate this blog post, man.
Did you, ahem, subscribe him to my blog? 🙂
Soon and very soon. 🙂
@ jake.
sounds like a grand intership.
thanks for turning me onto wufoo. great stuff.
um, can i intern for you?
I had my first intern last year, and this year have our next one, plus a volunteer intern!
– You really have to gauge where they are at. Last year, I had a guy with zero ministry classes or knowledge. So, with him I worked on fanning the flame for youth ministry.
– Show rather than tell. Just like we tell parents, “Your kids are watching you. Faith is caught and not just taught!” Same with interns. You can’t tell them to hang out with the whole youth group over the summer, when you don’t even hang out with two.
– Keep your expectations low. I’m not saying not to challenge them, I’m saying have grace. If you have lower expectations, you will be surprised. Don’t expect your intern to come in and be your equal.
– I agree with the commentator above: Let your intern see the hard side of youth ministry. Ours got to see how to deal with death as one of our teens died in a tornado at Scout Camp. Rough time, but that’s not stuff you learn in seminary. Invaluable teaching time.
– Invite them to meet with your leaders. I encourage our interns to meet twice a month with our elders (and every week at staff meeting.) They need to learn how to deal with leadership.
– Have fun together!
– Pray together. Not just during class or at staff meetings. This is where I wish I had done better.
Awesome thoughts, thanks.