Last year marked the beginning of a new imitative at Western Theological Seminary (WTS). Hope Church is one of approximately 30 congregations who are called a Teaching Church for WTS. In the past, congregations who could afford to would hire a seminary intern. There were guidelines that the students needed to follow for these internships to count toward their formation for ministry credits. A variety of reasons led the seminary to rethink this approach, and the Teaching Church model was born from that investigation.
Now churches decide whether to come into the program and if they do they agree to host two seminary interns at a time: one first year student and one second year student. Students are no longer hired by the church but receive compensation through their financial aid packages. This makes it possible for congregations who could not afford to hire a seminarian to be involved with the program.
Summer internships are full time and are paid for by the hosting congregations. For this reason, WTS still recommends that congregations budget for seminary interns either to host a full time summer intern from time to time or to make a donation to the summer internship scholarship fund which helps smaller congregations to host summer interns.
In the first year, the goal is to get to know the congregation and get involved in the life of the church. The second semester of the first year includes an investigation into the administrative side of church life. The second year includes more intensive involvement in one area of ministry during the first semester and a different area of ministry during the second semester.
Another dimension of the new model is an intentional involvement of the congregation members in mentoring seminarians. While the pastors still provide the day to day supervision and mentoring, a Mentor Team is also established. At Hope Church, the mentor team is convened by Bette Williams and includes David Blauw, Tom Bultman, and Jane Schuyler. They are continuing in their role for a second year and will work with both Danielle, our first year student, and Paige, our second year student. We are grateful to Bette, David, Tom, and Jane for the time they invest with our seminary students. Their guidance and support and counsel are deeply appreciated! You can read more about our seminary interns here.