Servant Partners Canada Internship 2014-15 Overview Here is our best attempt to articulate our expectations for this internship Internship Goals: 1. To encourage the further development of self-awareness and personal gifting through spiritual disciplines and other forms to discern what kind of ministry roles you may thrive in. 2. To be trained in initiative and pioneering skills and to do the work of church planting and community development. 3. To provide experiences for character growth, spiritual formation and healing to be a helpful and healthy contributor in the Kingdom of God. 4. To provide a biblical understanding of: a. God’s heart of shalom for the poor, b. for all people to be reconciled to Him and each other c. The fruit of obedience in personal Lordship evident in our daily choices of love and pursuing social justice. 5. To provide education and experience on addressing issues of global urban poverty and injustice in your own sphere of interest. 6. To provide opportunities to discover the values of Servant Partners: a. Joy in God b. Servanthood c. Incarnation d. Making Disciples e. Justice f. Transformation Learning and Teaching Philosophy: 1. Andragogy – The Adult Learning Style. Our general philosophy is to provide you with a holistic framework for learning that includes various ministry opportunities and activities. Some mentoring and coaching is offered, and we will try to model what we are learning together. The content of our training is intended to be directly relevant to the stated goals, and will address the problems that you are immediately working on. We hope to explain as best as we can why we feel the training pieces are important for you to know for the work you are doing. However, overall we aim to foster an adult learning style (andragogy) in which you are encouraged to take great initiative in your own learning process and ministries. How this plays out in terms of expectations is as follows: 1. You are responsible for understanding the content well enough for you to be able to implement it. Please ask enough questions to get yourself to this level of understanding. 2. You are responsible for finding outside mentors, getting the help you need to accomplish the tasks, and directing your own further learning on the issues

that you are most interested in. We are your first line of help, but not the only, so after you check in with what we are able to offer, we can help you find more resources. 3. You are responsible for understanding and getting whatever help you need to maintain your own internal motivations to pursue the work. 4. As the internship progresses, your ministry tasks and learning will be more and more self-directed. 5. You are responsible for listening to what God is teaching you through the trainings or experiences. No matter how the content is delivered, if you see yourself as a learner in all things, God will be able to show you what He has for you. This learning posture makes a way for you to always feel that something was valuable because you are always able to learn, no matter what the circumstances. Whether new or old ideas, expected or unexpected results, God is always able to show you something new about Himself and yourself! 2. Action- Reflection- Feedback Learning Cycle: In community development, an essential skill for any community to acquire is the ability to critically think through what their needs are, act on them, then reflect on how their action went and receive feedback from each other. We will be using this model in the internship training, providing time for action and expecting that you are making enough time for you to adequate process. Our meetings will most often end with action items, and we will provide time to give feedback after the tasks and reflection are through. 3. Work ethic and experience: Many mission organizations are moving towards not accepting people directly out of college because of a lack of work experience. We are asking you to volunteer with some kind of organization in the DTES in order to get more experience working under various kinds of bosses and in various kinds of environments. We will also use our meeting times and assignments to develop a strong work ethic. In order to do this, we are asking the following of each of you: 1. Meetings are to be attended on time. 2. Assignments will be given clear due dates when they are to be completed. You are responsible for solving how to accomplish them by the due date. 3. We expect that you will feel like you are working hard this year. This is not for you to “burn out” but to be pressed to find and experience your limits and address what is revealed in your character as that happens. This community is created to be a safe place for you to process that, which is a unique gift.

4. The internship meetings are to be the first priority in your schedule. All other time commitments are to be planned around this schedule. One time events will be talked through with your mentor or the whole community. 4. Ministry as a lifestyle Relational ministry is best understood as a lifestyle and not a job. The internship is not a 9-5 kind of job, you are in the “business” of world transformation! We would love for you to consider this work as any other “world changer” job description like Prime Minister, Secretary of State, Ambassador etc. Whether you are on vacation, or “at work” you never cease to be in that role. Because our “work” is loving people, it is never done, and we rest by leaving things mid-process in the hands of God and with Him discern healthy boundaries for renewal. We hope that your experiments with the discipline of Sabbath will evolve over this next year, as rest is very important and a command by God. We also hope that you will maintain your most important friendships and relationships because they will be essential in helping your discernment process. But all these elements of health – relational, physical, emotional, spiritual - work in tandem with your call to relational ministry, not as separate entities that “balance” out your work life. 5. The value of risk and the gift of failure: Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that's where you will find success. Thomas J. Watson (CEO of IBM)

We have a high value for risk. This community is created for you to process your failure with people who want to love you regardless of what you accomplish. We will encourage you to test the boundaries of grace and help each other learn to love you for who you are, not what you do. Components to the Internship: 1. Scripture study - We plan to study Luke and sections of Acts, Nehemiah, the prophets, and Galatians. We will also study other passages to understand pioneering ministry, cross-cultural ministry and love for the poor. 2. Community Life - You are living together in order to learn more about how to be an intentional Christian community. This combination of living communally and being a part of a learning cohort is an essential part of our training, since many opportunities in mission and ministry fail because the teams themselves fail. Through living with one another and working through various team

dynamics, we expect that you will learn more steps in humility, flexibility, conflict resolution, generosity, hospitality, and common mission. 3. Church planting project – You will receive step-by-step training in the beginning steps to building a Christian community in a cross-cultural and contextual manner. We will see where these communities form, but our hope is that something begins in the BC Housing complexes of Maclean Park and Stamps Place. However, wherever we see the Spirit moving and people interested in learning about Him, we will go! 4. Character development – Midway through the program, you will work on a gifts project in which you begin to assess the natural abilities, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts that God has given you. This is done through a process of prayer and reflection, discussion with other interns and staff, written assessments, and confirmation from various friends and ministry partners. There will also be numerous exercises to explore identity, healing that God wishes to bring, and processing suffering. 5. International Trip – During the internship we will have a 2 month trip to Kolkata, India. We will live and work among the urban poor to get overseas experience and time to discern future calling. 6. Spirituality of Justice and the City – through reading assignments, church visitations, city tours and advocacy involvement, you will get hands on experience to explore the spirituality of the city and what prevents or encourages justice to come. 7.

Spiritual Formation through Key Spiritual Disciplines – We will work together to discern what spaces/disciplines will be most in line with your own growth plan. For your own long-term sustainability, we will also pursue the following disciplines together: engagement, fasting, gratitude, reflection, prayer in various forms, study, Sabbath and journaling.

Tentative Core Schedule: TBD: 1/wk. Your own team evening 1/wk. each apt. meeting to discuss household issues 1 /mo. worship night, documentary evenings, Sunday

9:1510:00 10:0011:40

Attend Local Supportive Church Community

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesda y

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sabbath

Prayer

Prayer

Prayer

Prayer

Prayer

Guided Sabbath (once a month)

Training Meeting (scripture study)

11:0012:30 Noon2:00 2:00 – 4:00

9:00

Spiritual Gardening (once a month)

Worship at Jacob’s Well (2nd & 4thwks)

Kids Church Community God’s House of Many Faces Church Plant

3:006:00 5:00 – 7:00

Training Meeting

St. James Music Academy Volunteering Community Dinner for neighbors at Kimsey’s Begin Sabbath

St. James Academy Volunteering

Healing/ SpiritualDirection/Etc. Examen

Examen

Important dates: Optional Pow Wow: July 24-27 Internship Starts: August 11 Christmas Break: December 20-January 3 Flex Vacation : 1 week each Fall, Spring, Summer Trip to Kolkata, India: February/March 2015 Internship ends: December 18, 2015

Examen

Examen

Examen