Great Lakes Association Ohio Cluster

Internship + Residency Program

Heartland Community Church logo, featuring a modern blue and orange geometric cross with bold text, representing a welcoming church community in Medina, Ohio.
Cross of Hope Church logo featuring a cross symbol and modern Christian church branding.
Disciples Church logo representing a Christian church community and local place of worship.

The GLA Ohio Cluster Internship + Residency Program is a collaboration between Heartland Community Church in Medina, Ohio, Cross of Hope Church in Parma Heights, Ohio, and Disciples Church in Medina, Ohio.

The program develops spiritually formed ministry leaders through hands-on ministry, academic partnership with Kairos University, and 1:1 mentorship.

Interns and Residents receive compensation, spiritual formation time, and educational support aimed at producing ministry-ready leaders who can serve across the GLA Cluster and beyond.

Intern

(9 months, part-time)

Apply

Resident

(2 years, full-time)

Apply

Mission

We invest in emerging leaders exploring or pursuing vocational ministry by providing holistic development, hands-on experience, and one-on-one mentoring with experienced pastoral staff.

Vision

This program offers a critical leadership pipeline for the GLA Cluster and beyond that develops spiritually healthy, aligned men and women to lead the church into the next generation.

3 Essentials

Becoming an Intern or resident means you’ll get opportunities to grow in the following areas:

Spiritual Formation

The most important thing you can offer someone is your own thriving relationship with Jesus. Your own spiritual health matters most and the program is designed to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus first and foremost through a variety of opportunities to practice spiritual disciplines in community, such as sabbath, contemplative prayer, and 1:1 spiritual direction with skilled professionals.

Education

We believe learning happens best when education integrates your own spiritual formation, intellectual interests, and hands-on experience. To that end, each intern and resident will enroll in Kairos University through our local venue Heartland College. This innovative program bucks the traditional course-credit education model in favor of highly customizable, mentor-team directed educational journeys. Kairos has among the highest accreditation that institutes of higher learning can achieve. Your experience in the program will count as progress toward earning a bachelor’s or master’s degree, depending on your education background and goals.

Experience

Leadership growth happens by doing. At first, you will provide support in the selected areas of our partner churches.* As you grow in your leadership skills throughout the internship or residency, opportunities for genuine responsibility and ownership will also be offered. Your voice will be valued as you work closely with experienced pastoral staff and ministry leaders to build the kingdom of God.

Internship + Residency Pathways

Below are the various pathways available for interns and residents to pursue. Regardless of pathway, all interns and residents will still gather together for all program events.

Exploratory:

This pathway is designed for those who are exploring what ministry work is like and would like experience in many different areas of the church. Future campus pastors or church planters would benefit from this scattershot exposure to many different areas. The intern or resident will spend time in various areas of the church such as: Connections, Students, Kids Operations, Worship + Tech, Communications, and Missions. The opportunities for full responsibility or ownership of various ministry activities would be limited due to the brief time in each area, but this pathway is best for those exploring/discerning their ministry call or interested in a holistic experience of the life of a church.

Hybrid:

This pathway is designed for those who are experiencing a pull in two different directions. The intern or resident would select 2 of the following areas of ministry and devote half of their program duration to each: Connections, Students, Kids, Operations, Worship + Tech, Communications, and Missions. A key goal of this pathway is to help the intern discern what kind of ministry work God is calling them toward. Opportunities for more responsibility and ownership are available in this pathway compared to the exploratory, but are not as plentiful and robust as they might be in the Focused pathway.

Focused:

This pathway is designed for interns who have a clearer sense to which ministry area they feel called. Residents are required to follow this pathway in year 2. The intern or resident will spend their full duration in one of the following areas of ministry: Connections, Students, Kids, Operations, Worship + Tech, Communications, and Missions. This pathway, while not giving the intern or resident the hands-on experience across all areas of the church, offers the most opportunities for responsibility and ownership over ministry activity, particularly in the latter half of the experience.

Intern

(9 months, part-time)

Apply

Resident

(2 years, full-time)

Apply