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CFTROU 0177: Building an Internship Program

In this episode, we are exploring the topic of developing an internship program, specifically geared towards college students. At Family Church, we believe that college students are a vital part of God’s design for our neighborhood churches and want to give them an opportunity to do real ministry work with real ministry responsibility. Joining our conversation are two of our leaders, Pastor Derek Simpson and Pastor Andrew Hernandez. They take us through 10 principles for building the foundation of a great internship program and share examples of how these principles have been implemented at Family Church. Remember, you can start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can! God is the multiplier.


Key Points From This Episode:

  • Making disciples and the difference between that and only focusing on producing leaders.
  • Collaboration vs. ownership and why we designate three different leaders to each intern.
  • The motivation for having interns and valuing the process over the product.
  • Are your interns handling real responsibility or just doing busy work?
  • Providing interns with evaluated feedback in addition to experience.
  • Extracting valuable leadership lessons: focusing on what the intern can gain from leadership and not only what they can do for leadership.
  • Valuing accountability over activity and why it’s important for interns to buy into this.
  • Developing real people: customization over standardization.
  • The importance of whole church exposure vs. only staff exposure.
  • Remember to have fun and make memories.

We invest in young leaders and we let them lead because we believe they are the leaders of today, not just the leaders of tomorrow. Click To TweetWe value collaboration and ultimately we believe that’s the best way to raise leaders for the kingdom. Click To TweetPart of discipleship is leadership. Click To Tweet

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Derek on LinkedIn

Derek on Twitter

Andrew on Twitter

Jimmy on Twitter

Leslee on X (formerly Twitter)

Family Church Network

Family Church on Facebook

Family Church on Instagram

Church for the Rest of Us on Twitter

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