What is a Pastoral Residency?
The Residency Program is a short-term, intensive program designed to provide practical experience in pastoral ministry hosted, guided, and supervised by a seasoned pastor-mentor in a local church. The twelve-week summer residency will provide hands-on ministry experience for a student transitioning from Seminary to pastoral work where there will be opportunities for learning, growing, and practicing ministry skills. Each resident will collaborate with a mentor to design an experience that will provide equipping and training in the following areas: leadership formation; pastoral ministry; church culture, administration and operations; spiritual formation and personal growth.
Why Consider Pastoral Residency?
The Thriving in Ministry Pastoral Residency is designed to help recent Gordon Conwell graduates:
- Connect the theoretical with the practical: Residency will be a bridge, providing a helpful transition from the academic environment of theological education to the practice of pastoral ministry.
- Learn from an experienced Pastor in a mentoring relationship: Residency will provide a mentored training experience, offering opportunities to learn from a seasoned pastoral leader.
- Gain practical ministry experience: Residency will take place in a local church with varied opportunities to apply theoretical concepts to the practice of ministry.
- Refine ministry calling: Residency will allow time and ministry experiences for further reflection about the graduate’s unique calling, gifts, and strengths for ministry.
- Establish healthy spiritual and soul care practices as a foundation for lifelong ministry: Residency will provide an opportunity to establish a solid foundation of practices for spiritual, personal, and character formation that will lead to long term sustainability in pastoral leadership.