Choosing the Right Church Residency for You: Three Steps to Your First Step into Ministry (Part 1)
If you feel called to ministry or are ending your college career with the conviction that work in the local church is what’s next for you, you may be wondering how to narrow down the options about your first step. For your friends who are moving into the marketplace, the path may seem more clear. That’s because the most respected corporate organizations have onboarding plans and performance expectations that are driven by their goals for new employees, and the local church should too.
Traditionally, though, the only two preparation paths available to young ministry leaders are either to enroll in seminary or to join a church staff full time. While each option offers important growth opportunities in isolation, if the young leader doesn’t engage in both, they risk being removed from the real lives of the people they seek to serve. Or, perhaps more commonly, they fall victim to burnout due to lack of support or clarity. Thankfully, with the rise of online education as well as a growing interest in personal leader development, a third option has emerged: the church residency.
Here are three steps to exploring this option and discerning if a residency is your best next step into local church ministry.
Step 1: Ask, “Why a Residency?”
With the rapid growth of church residencies all over the world, the question you should ask is, “Why choose this method of preparation over the other traditional paths?”
Here are three reasons to consider:
Training and Experience
There is enormous benefit to immersing yourself in the day-to-day ministry work that a church residency can provide, including highs and lows, practical problem solving, and tough decision making. There is no substitute for the value that comes from walking with real people through their life changing experiences as they grow in their faith and engage with the church. There’s also no easy way to clearly see that this is difficult work, requiring prayer, integrity, and collaboration. Studying church strategy and implementing it as you walk with experienced leaders who support you as you fail and grow is a critical part of becoming the kind of leader you want to be.Development
Regardless of the first step into ministry you choose, you will likely experience an important and intense period of personal growth as you navigate young adulthood and the realities of life as a ministry leader. A good residency program will provide you with a group of peers and leaders to walk alongside you and challenge you to learn more about your strengths, struggles, gaps, and goals, as well as to shore up your confidence in your identity in Christ.Education
HG Wells said, “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” Quite simply, we study theology because there is the potential to get it wrong. There is an important doctrine that has defined the Christian faith since the beginning, and we are compelled to teach and live out those core beliefs. Your pursuit of higher education in the form of an accredited degree in Bible and Theology gives you the right thinking the wisdom of God provides in his Word. As you draw closer to the text, you draw closer to him, and you can more easily avoid the costly pitfalls that destroy churches when pastors misrepresent the truth.
Paul gives us a model of developmental urgency in the Epistles by selecting leaders who were trustworthy and capable and sending them out with instructions, reminding them of the truth as they learned on-the-ground pastoral skills. The strategy of developing both the head and heart, like a church residency can offer, affirms the kind of leadership the Psalms celebrate in King David as he shepherded the people, “with the honor and integrity of his heart; he led them in wisdom with strong and skillful hands” (Psalm 78:72 The Voice).