Pastoral Intern Carrie B. Smith
Welcome to the Intern’s Corner! I am excited to be learning and doing ministry here at United in Faith this year. You will hear me preaching monthly, and will see me on a regular basis assisting with worship. I will be teaching Confirmation on Sunday evenings as well.
You will also see my family in worship this year. Robert and I have been married for 12 years, and we have two sons, Caleb (age 8) and Zion (age 6). Robert works for the ELCA’s Global Mission department, supervising our missionaries in Europe and the Middle East.
CORNER CONTENTS:
- What I'm Working on Right Now
- Things I'm Excited About
- What I'm Reading
- What is Internship?
- About LSTC
- Confirmation classes are well under way! We’ve been diving into the Old Testament and have been getting to know each other.
- My internship project: As most of you know, I am working on ways to infuse Bible reading into as many areas of United in Faith’s ministry as possible! I believe we Christians will be more effective and more authentic in our ministries if we are rooted in the Word. If you haven’t already, please check out the link below for the Book of Faith website!
- Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson’s Book of Faith Initiative. This is a 5-year initiative to encourage Lutherans to develop a deeper relationship with God through Scripture. I invite you to check out the webpage, and then think about how you can become involved. You can also read your October newsletter to learn more!
- You can test your Bible knowledge with the Bible Tutor offered by Luther Seminary! Click here to try it out.
- “Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution -- A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First" by Alister McGrath, professor of historical theology at Oxford University. McGrath encourages ordinary Christians, to read the Bible for themselves and draw their own conclusions from it.
In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the denomination of which United in Faith is a part, there are 2 components when seeking ordination. The first is an academic component, equal to 3 years of academic study. The second is a field work component. This includes a chaplaincy experience, a year in a ‘Ministry In Context’ church (where the student spends about 7 hours a week working at the church), and a year of internship, or full-time church work.
Internship is a year-long learning experience in a church. Typically, a student seeking ordination (trying to become a pastor) takes 2 years of classes, does an internship during the 3rd year, and returns to school for 1 final year of classes. While on internship, students participate in all aspects of congregational life. “Internship provides [students] with educational experiences and appropriate participation in acts of ministry to assist in developing the attitudes, understandings and skills necessary for the exercise of the pastoral office.”
You can read more about the requirements of the ELCA to enter the ordained ministry at the ELCA's web site.
I am a student at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, located on the south side of Chicago, in Hyde Park. LSTC is one of 8 ELCA seminaries in the country. These schools seek to prepare women and men for ministry. While most students are members of the ELCA, students from other denominations also study and participate in student life at LSTC.