Opportunity

I’m still muttering under my breath from time to time: “Why didn’t they have something like this when I was graduating from seminary??!?!?!”  What a great idea to offer young ministers a hands on experience in the parish since we all know . . . most of what a pastor experiences at work was never covered in seminary–it takes hard time on the ground to learn the real stuff.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Initiative for Ministerial Excellence is offering ministry residencies lasting two years, during which time newly graduated seminary students can work on the staff of a teaching congregation and learn a whole lot of the things they never learned in seminary. 

Calvary has been selected a teaching congregation and as a result I recently got the chance to meet the other pastors who will join me in supervising residents over the next two years.  The array of settings and opportunities is breathtaking (“Why didn’t they have something like this when I was graduating from seminary??!?!?!”) and the group of supervising pastors and teaching congregations is incredible.

Next step: finding students.

This cannot be hard, I thought to myself.  In fact, if they had had something like this when I . . . well, you know. 

All of us are working now to get the word out about residency opportunities so I am shamelessly using my blog to promote them.  If you are a student who has recently graduated or will graduate in May from one of the eligible seminaries . . . or if you know someone who is . . . pass the word along, please.  Calvary already has a student for these next two years but several congregations are still looking. 

More information and the application are available here.