We are advertising for two Ministry Trainees for the year 2007/08. Details can be found on the website of the 9:38 network.
About our new ministry trainees
Our purpose is to contribute to the training of pastors and evangelists of the highest quality in conviction, character and competence, passing on not so much a methodology for ministry as a set of values, beliefs and passions appropriate for ministers of Christ. We believe that spending a year as something like one of our Ministry Trainees provides almost indispensable training and preparation in how to study and teach the Bible and how to do gospel ministry. It will be of great value to those who are considering whether full-time Bible teaching is the best way they can serve our Lord Jesus, even if they end up serving in another capacity.
We are not seeking to employ Ministry Trainees as a cheap way to get staff. We believe that we can offer a training environment where a couple of people each year can expect to grow enormously in their ministry experience and skills, and throughout it all, in increasing Christlike character. We will be committed to those we employ, treating them as full members of the church, more concerned for their spiritual maturing in Christ than for getting our ‘pound of flesh’.
We are looking for people who are teachable, keen to learn and willing to change. At the same time, the responsibilities we intend for our trainees will best suit those who have already had some experience of Christian leadership and demonstrated an aptitude for handling God’s word and explaining it to others. A key question in interview will be ‘how have you already been exercising the kind of ministry this year will train you in?’
As a church, we will gain from the year by adding a few extra workers to our committed church family, and also through all that the Ministry Trainees will bring to us in terms of their own ideas, hard work and leadership. But we see this year far more as an opportunity for us to give, both to the Ministry Trainees themselves, and also to the wider church as these trainees eventually probably leave us for future ministry elsewhere.