The Emerging Leadership Internship Project

Our network of Churches in Warsaw is experiencing dynamic growth and church planting, which has created a pressing need to develop new church leaders. Understanding, both the immediate need and the long-term strategic value of leadership development, the pastors of our four Warsaw congregations made a commitment to work together to create a shared “leadership pipeline” or “farm system” that will help identify potential church leaders, accelerate their development and help place them in appropriate church ministry.

The first major step towards accomplishing this vision will be to design a jointly-led minimum of 10-month internship experience that will be:

• an attractive option for capable, emerging leaders considering church ministry or church planting
• an intense, immersive, on-the-job training program delivered in the context of everyday ministry
• an intentional and focused attempt at accelerating the development of interns’ character, knowledge and skills
• a launching pad into potential full-time church ministry or church planting upon completion of internship

 Our strategy is to:

• Create a program that will be contextualized to Warsaw, locally led and resourced.
• Maximize local opportunities for synergy by pulling together resources and leadership of the four Warsaw churches and taking advantage of many existing dynamics already present in our context (see section on Background & Rationale).
• Start small, think big, Go deep. Start on a manageable scale to have opportunity to refine the program, but with the aim of establishing a vehicle and model capable of helping many emerging leaders in the years to come.
• Strategically overlap the internship experience with new church plants to take advantage of learning and leadership opportunities.
• Leverage networking opportunities and establish partnerships to enrich the program.  Network within Poland, in Europe and with partners globally to design and deliver a cutting-edge internship experience capable of attracting and developing high-capacity church leadership for future Polish churches.

Our vision calls for a program that is led and resourced locally within our Warsaw network of churches, but this is our first attempt at creating such a program, so we are seeking to partner with others in the following areas:

• Program Content & Design
• Guest Trainers & Resources
• Scholarships for Interns
• Field Trips & Learning Experiences

To learn more about the ELI Project, simply click on the image below to view the full vision and how you and your church can get involved.