SIM Urban Internship Program Details

Purpose - train leaders for fruitful, urban, intercultural ministry through praxis, to please Him who sends us, and to seek His Shalom for the city. 

The intern will have one of the following foci:

§  Urban ministry coaching – facilitating and implementing one new ministry into a church

§  Urban Church Planting – building with other planters, a church for an urban neighbourhood

§  Community Centre-based urban ministry – weaving ministries to meet infrastructure needs

§  Ethno-specific ministry – discipling leaders, understanding culture within urban an context

Spiritual and Leadership Competency Transformation

Urban mission leadership has been an enigma for many denominational and agency leaders. On one hand, leadership still requires the normally recognized areas of spiritual and social maturity, commitment to the task, administrative willingness, and clear objectives. On the other hand, what are the urban intangibles that would move ministry forward in the city? Confusion in these areas has disillusioned many denominations and agencies from engaging in urban ministry. Competency is always appreciated.

Competencies in Personal Spiritual Formation

The city does not lend itself to building leaders in spiritual depth or values. Density, busy-ness, travel and agendas all eat up spiritual commitment and love for God. Instead of bending toward this seeming inevitability, somehow we need to build Christ-centred lives and work ethics. All of our lives we must engage in growing in Christ, in transformation of our characters through the Holy Spirit. But in the midst of urban leadership realities, that requires a balance of effectiveness in ministry, and connectivity in our walk with Christ.  How do we intentionally build people who reflect God’s vision and values as they engage with God’s business in an urban context?

Competencies in Reflective Capabilities

The complexity and system driven nature of the city requires clear-thinking ministry leaders who are both deep and broad in their understanding of the city around them. They need to build an understanding of relevance and context. The city is not only fast-paced, it is also always changing. Urban leaders must become people of innovation, creativity and change. Their communication strategies will need to include the message of the gospel, the perception and experience of their colleagues and audience, and how the message and experience intersect. A growing understanding of goods and services (in business terminology) are also part of reflective capacities. Perhaps relevance in an urban context looks simple, but how do we grow a new generation of young leaders who have both spiritual depth and social and intellectual breadth?

Competencies in Strategic Anticipation

The city attracts success. As urban ministers and missionaries we will provide an infrastructured ministry response and further, collaborate around God’s greater agenda by communicating shared understanding among our colleagues. Excellence is difficult to describe. We must somehow point it out, model it and help each other strive for it. Strategic anticipation is not simply a business strategy. For the urban mission leader it is a balance of conversations in context between believers, between themselves and God, and between scripture and application. How do we build lives of mutual accountability in the multi-faceted growth of urban mission leaders?

Competencies in Empowering Others

One application that the Apostle Paul makes in nearly every letter is the need for the Body of Christ to work together. For leaders, that means they need to build collaborative relationship skills. Influence must become both a characteristic of their lives and an intentional skill-set. In the midst of urban diversity, whole body empowerment requires that we must learn the skills and understand the relationships that work to bring people of other cultures and classes into the energy of God’s work.



Urban Internship/ Culture, Class and Marginality

This internship program will focus, as much as possible on whole neighbourhoods, and will seek to discover and embrace marginalized individuals in society as mandated by Scripture and the example of the Lord Jesus Christ.  SIM’s traditional bias toward ministry with these groups will be continued.

Specifically, groups that will be the subjects of the internship program will include but not be limited to the following: children and youth, women, poor, the sick--HIV/AIDS sufferers, refugees, immigrants, the imprisoned, the physically and mentally challenged, and the disadvantaged educationally, socially, economically and spiritually.