Job Description for Church Summer Intern
The job description for a church summer intern can vary from church to church, but overall there are common tasks you may ask your intern to complete. To clarify things and avoid confusion, write out a full job description before recruiting interns. This will make the interview process more concise, and provide potential interns with the full information they need to make a decision. From office tasks to ministry opportunities, there are many things to include in a summer intern job description.
Other People Are Reading
-
Significance
-
A church summer intern can be extremely significant to a church staff. First and foremost, they often serve as support to a ministry that really needs that extra set of hands to succeed. They also bring fresh life to an office team that is used to working with each other and may be settled too strongly into a monotonous routine. Finally, a summer intern can bring new ideas and strategies to a church, allowing it to run more smoothly and efficiently.
Overall however, the significance of a summer intern comes in serving as a support staff or new leader to a specific ministry or the church as a whole.
Administrative Tasks
-
Office tasks are often part of an internship. No matter what ministry department a summer intern may join up with, almost every internship will include at least some administrative tasks. These may include creating and publishing the weekly church bulletin, sending out emails and recruiting for various ministries, making follow-up phone calls, printing address labels, or anything else that involves clerical responsibility.
An intern will often be given his own work space, although smaller churches may just provide a laptop and the intern can work in someone else's office.
-
Sunday Morning Tasks
-
Interns can be integral in the Sunday morning service. From preparing communion to leading worship when the regular musical director is on vacation, there are many duties an intern may fulfill on a Sunday morning.
If serving as a youth intern, one will often find himself leading a Sunday school bible study or planning a special high school luncheon for after church. If working in men's or women's ministry, an intern may find himself in charge of recruiting participants for an upcoming conference or church event, as well as being available for prayer during service for that specific demographic the ministry serves.
Required Hours
-
Specify a working time frame. A summer internship at a church is rarely a 9-to-5 job. Especially for interns working with youth or children, hours can vary between mornings and evenings. Most interns are committed to one weeknight, as well as Sunday mornings. This is usually on top of traditional part-time office hours, and does not include special events. Special events are often more frequent during the summer months, and so a typical intern can expect to devote 3 to 5 Saturdays throughout the summer to various tasks and responsibilities.
Many pastors will specify hours expected and enter into a contract with an intern to eliminate confusion or conflict down the road.
Accountability
-
Finally, a summer intern's job responsibilities almost always include completing some sort of accountability write up in regards to the serving position. Most schools require this to validate the internship, and it is often a combination of paperwork to be completed by the intern and the supervising pastor.
Interns can expect to write at least one paper reflecting upon a summer internship, and also need to be sure to log their hours and any other pertinent information such as completed tasks and goals in order to have accountability with the school.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit santa maria church in murcia image by Martin Garnham from Fotolia.com my office image by ayhan yıldız from Fotolia.com Antiquarian hours image by HamsterV from Fotolia.com
