Internships: Connecting with the Present, Preparing for the Future

Winter 2016 - internship picHeritage College and Seminary is committed to preparing men and women for life and ministry. A key component of that preparation is the requirement for our students to be involved in internships. There are several types of internships that Heritage offers, and one of the key ones is the “Guided Ministry Experience” in which FEB Central and Heritage partner in equipping the next generation of leaders for the church.

In this program, students in various degree tracks spread their last academic year over two years and at the same time engage in a full-time internship in a church. The church pays half of the intern’s salary and helps with tuition costs, and the intern raises the rest of the needed salary.

Beyond the well-known reasons for internships, this intense experience offers the following benefits:

  1. Interns become deeply involved in church life. They experience the ups and downs of ministry at a deep level. Further, it gives interns the opportunity to shape the ministries in which they are involved in fresh ways.
  2. Supervisors of the interns become much more than supervisors. They become mentors and friends, people who will be part of the interns’ lives for many years to come. Further, supervisors grow in their ministry as they interact with these students. I have been shaped and molded in powerful ways as I have journeyed with numerous interns and mentorees along the way.
  3. The church benefits in several ways. It has the opportunity to shape the lives of the interns in profound ways since interns are deeply embedded in the church for two full years. Further, the church enjoys the fresh energy that interns bring.
  4. For undergraduate students in particular, this kind of internship gives them another year of education and experience before graduating and looking for their next ministry.
  5. Finally, these students graduate from Heritage with two years of full-time paid experience. Churches tend to look for people to fill their ministry roles who have had ministry experience, and this kind of internship goes a long way in providing that experience.

For more information on this two-year guided ministry experience offered by the partnership of Heritage College and Seminary and FEB Central please contact Giselle Carter, Internship Director at Heritage Colleg: gcarter@heritagecollege.net, Ian Elliott, Internship Director at Heritage Seminary    (ielliott@heritageseminary.net), or Godfrey Thorogood, FEB Central Leadership Director (godfrey@febcentral.ca).


—David G. Barker is the Vice President of Academics and Student Affairs and Seminary Dean at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, ON.