Internship Information

Developing Emerging Leaders

The Purpose of the FMCiC Internship is to build healthy leaders for The Free Methodist Church in Canada and beyond.

To have healthy churches we want to create healthy leaders. We believe healthy leaders develop by putting them in healthy church environments. We hope to increase the leadership pool for the present and future needs of The Free Methodist Church in Canada both locally and globally. Healthy local church leaders know that our connectional nature now requires global awareness and personal involvement. The internship provides one opportunity to prepare for ministry challenges in a rapidly changing world.

The local church develops leaders.
The FMCiC sees itself as a resource to help local churches identify, train, and deploy new leaders for the Kingdom of God . The Internship provides candidates for ministry an opportunity to get on-the-job training. The longer internship is the better internship in our view.

Why do we have internships?
Maybe on-the-job training is reason enough. But there is more: The Internship is part of an organic system of building healthy churches in the reach of every Canadian and beyond.  The local church is the focus of ministry.

Interns spend extended time in local churches.
We put interns into local churches for extended periods of time so they experience local church life. The supervising pastor spends regular time with the intern in training, mentoring, and sharing all aspects of the pastoral life. Extended time in the local church with experienced pastors is the best way to allow Interns to “catch” what God is doing in the healthy local church and let it become part of their emerging ministry DNA.

The Intern is a learner/worker.
The intern comes as a careful observer, asking questions, probing all aspects of ministry life from personal spiritual disciplines to calendarizing ministry strategies. The supervising pastor is expected to let the intern develop skills by doing ministry, build a “track record” of accomplishments. This can range from starting a Bible study, or carrying out a brand new initiative, to equipping and deploying a new ministry leader in the local church.

Are all interns going directly into full-time local church ministry?

There are many previous interns who have moved into full time ministry from internships:

• Matthew McEwen is an Ordained Minister and is appointed Pastor at Holt FMC in Mount Albert , ON
• Greg Elford is an Ordained Minister and is appointed as Pastor at New Heights FMC in Mission BC
• Hilkka Aavasalmi is an Ordained Minister and is currently attending school
• Grant Wolfe is an Ordained Minister and is appointed as the Pastor at Grapeview FMC in St. Catharines , ON
• Matt Wiley is an Ordained Minister and is appointed as Lead Pastor at Rice Road Community Church in Welland, ON
• Darryl Dozlaw is a Commissioned Minister tracking for ordination and is currently in transition
  
• Keitha Ogbogu (nee Slack) is an Ordained Minister and is appointed as Lead Pastor at Hampton Free Methodist Church in Saskatoon, SK
• Chris Payk is an Ordained Minister is appointed as Pastor of Missions & Discipleship at Rice Road Community Church.  His wife Terri is a Commissioned Minister appointed as Pastor of Children's Church.  Both Chris and Terri are currently in active missionary service in Taiwan.
• Phil Hamilton is a Ministerial Candidate and is appointed as Transition Pastor at Kingscourt Free Methodist Church (formerly Butternut Creek) in Kingston, ON
• Aaron James is an Ordained Minister and is appointed as Lead Pastor at Blue Mountain Community Church in Thornbury, ON

Others have not finished school yet; still others are working in unpaid positions in local FM churches and tracking for credentialled ministry in the FMCiC.

Internships: First Steps:

1. Fill out an application found on this website.

a. The Intern fills out an application 
b. The supervising church fills out an application

2. Study and submit the checklist of “things to do.”

a. Intern checklist 
b. Supervising church checklist

3. Begin the dialogue between the local church supervising pastor and the intern candidate.

4. Intern submits a current resume to the Director of Personnel office by email attachment.

5. Local Church submits a job description for the intern(see checklists and Internship Program Handbook for guidelines on creating the intern's job description).

6. Contact the Director of Personnel office if you have questions:  289-362-1555

For information and applications for the Canada Summer Jobs 2013 wage subsidy program go to http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/epb/yi/yep/programs/scpp.shtml  

*PLEASE NOTE:  Application for the federal government subsidy program for 2013 is now closed (deadline was February 28, 2013)*

For 2014, the dates for accepting applications for Canada Summer Jobs will be different. These new dates will allow employers to be notified of their application status earlier. For more information, please visit the Service Canada website in the spring.