Watch the full episode here --> https://youtu.be/KfqT_mgC8LY
--
As a leader, should I provide an internship program for my church? What about the liability? What about all the horror stories? Can the next generation be trusted?
What about AI? Is it going to take over the world? Can it really help my church? Is AI biblical? Can IT be trusted?
Join us for this episode of Modern Church Leader with coach and Executive Pastor Ben Stapley as he shares why providing an internship at your church could be an investment in Kingdom work AND how technology (like AI) can expand your ministry.
00:06 - Creative to XP in Church Leadership
11:25 -Maximizing the Value of Internships
21:06 - The Importance of Training Interns
28:19 - AI and Interns in Church Operations
39:36 - Church Internships and AI Sermon Writing
--
For more information on Ben Stapely, visit https://www.benstapley.com
For more information on The Life Christian Church, visit https://www.tlcc.org
--
Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at https://tithely.com
#churchleadership #churchinternship #intership #churchtech #churchonline
Watch the full episode here --> https://youtu.be/KfqT_mgC8LY
--
As a leader, should I provide an internship program for my church? What about the liability? What about all the horror stories? Can the next generation be trusted?
What about AI? Is it going to take over the world? Can it really help my church? Is AI biblical? Can IT be trusted?
Join us for this episode of Modern Church Leader with coach and Executive Pastor Ben Stapley as he shares why providing an internship at your church could be an investment in Kingdom work AND how technology (like AI) can expand your ministry.
00:06 - Creative to XP in Church Leadership
11:25 -Maximizing the Value of Internships
21:06 - The Importance of Training Interns
28:19 - AI and Interns in Church Operations
39:36 - Church Internships and AI Sermon Writing
--
For more information on Ben Stapely, visit https://www.benstapley.com
For more information on The Life Christian Church, visit https://www.tlcc.org
--
Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at https://tithely.com
#churchleadership #churchinternship #intership #churchtech #churchonline
Hey guys, frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader talking with a new good friend all the way from Jersey Actually, my part of my family is like hometown, but Ben, you're still out there. So, ben Stapley, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:You're still out there. It makes it sound like I'm surviving. You've made it, you've made it, I got it. I already got the vibes of West Coast versus East Coast right now from you, frank. I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:I mean Tupac and Biggie. It's still a thing. It's still a thing Too good. Well, you've been out there, you've bounced around a little bit, but you've been out in Jersey for a long time and you're in a new role over the last two years. So why don't you give folks just you know, give us the short version of your journey into the church world and your role today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I started working in television as a producer and reporter in Toronto, ontario. When I pivoted from that, got married to a gal in Jersey, she dragged me down to the States and I've been in church work for about the past 18 years. For the first about 15 years of that it's on the creative side of things, the experience side of things, and then God's called me towards the XP side of things over the past three to five years. So I've moved and migrated towards that and that's like that's a quick snapshot of my experience. And what I really like in terms of our conversation today, as we are talking about internships, is I've just seen the benefit of that in each of those different career stops for myself and so for anyone listening it's kind of like, hey, I'm not, I'm not an XP or I'm not this or that. I know this conversation is going to impact people because I've seen internships revolutionized career organizations and every one of those pit stops along the career.
Speaker 2:How did you make the jump from journalism into church?
Speaker 1:I made it because journalism was dying. We talked off Mike a little bit about this, but this is going to age. Myself, I was going into journalism and I wanted to do hard journalism. I wanted to tell stories, which is kind of what's still what we do in the church will know stories stories of Christ redemption, what came to earth, how he wants to redeem all, all humanity. I wanted to tell stories, but at the time Craigslist was coming on the scene and we were losing all of our revenue from the classifieds. And so I was told unless you want to do TMZ and you want to do that type of news, if you want to do TMZ and you want to do it, you can call it news, get out of this career. And so I knew for myself I needed to find another place where I could tell stories, and the church was a great place for me to do that. For me it's the premier place to tell the premier stories. So that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 2:That's how I made that quick pivot early on in my career, right, and did you go in, like you went in, into the creative side of the church world, right? How does that? How do the dots connect journalism and church creative? What was your first job at a church?
Speaker 1:First job was first job. I was a programming director, slash junior high youth pastor. They brought me on and they said we need, we have a, we want to bring you on full time to oversee our service experience, but we need to fill the seat on the bus. And it's a junior high youth pastor. And I had a number of friends who got into ministry and they said don't, don't take it, because that six months is going to take six years and you're not wired as a youth pastor. You're going to kill a kid or a kid's going to kill you.
Speaker 2:One of the two someone's going to die and you can.
Speaker 1:so I said so I just like put that in writing. But you did it and yes, but but I was like come, come six months, in one day I am no longer the junior high youth pastor. I'm sorry, I just I can't do it and so like, so it worked out. But that was my my first career, my first job in church ministry. Yeah, it's something that it was highly qualified and something that I was a woefully qualified to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Youth ministry man, I'm not pay or dues, regardless of whether or not you're wired that way. That's how you start. Yes, this is the entry point. Um, so you did the creative side for a long time and now you've jumped in to the XP. Like why the those those are? Um, some would look at that and go like, uh, totally different worlds, right, like you know, creative folks or like that side of the house right Versus the XP, maybe more business side of the house don't necessarily like that type of person doesn't possess both or whatever. So, like how did you make that jump? Or why did you want to make that jump?
Speaker 1:Are you saying executive leaders and creatives are like oil and water? Is that what you're saying, Frank? How dare you Just wire differently?
Speaker 2:Just bespurch the good name executive creative person but still creative. Right, I think they should be executives, but just a different kind of passion and things to enjoy at it, right, like that they end their bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So myself, my dad, um, he instilled me three values when looking for careers. He said you know, find something that you make a positive impact in a in the world. If you're building tables, whoever needs a positive impact? Find something that you are accurately compensated, so don't just go chasing money, but also don't undervalue yourself. Accurately compensated. And then also find something that you're continually growing in, because if you're not growing, you are going to dry up and become dissatisfied.
Speaker 1:Uh, as an employee, that's going to be the majority of your life. Find something that you can grow into, Right? Uh, you don't want to be doing the same thing again and again if that doesn't give you passion. And so for myself, there's been a number of milestones where I found myself. You know what I'm no longer growing in what I'm doing. I need a new challenge, and for myself, this has been the new challenge. I knew that if I keep on doing the creative arts pastor, I'm going to shrivel up, which is bad for myself, and then also, on the flip side, it's not good for the church. I want to bring my best game to the table and I need a new challenge to do that. So that was part of the pivot for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was the most interesting part of becoming an XP.
Speaker 1:I um probably hand on the on the on the steering wheel is probably the biggest thing in relationship to staffs, and every LP XP relationship is different. You've kind of cut up that pie. The old saying is what does an XP do? Whatever the LP doesn't want to do, which is a little bit of truth towards that. But um, another way to say it, uh, a friend of my rich birch says it is LPs serve at the intersection of vision and execution. So you have the vision from the lead pastor and how are you going to execute it, which is a which is a great intersection to stand at. It's a busy intersection. Uh, sometimes you get um hit and run traffic in that intersection. But the most exciting thing for me is it is just a. It is always invigorating. There's always a new challenge to how do we accomplish that, how do we get from here to there? How do we get from vision to execution? I think that's probably the most invigorating for me which which is it?
Speaker 1:you know I'm going to go on a tangent here which is interesting, because when I was looking for LP roles, I started looking when the pandemic hit and I, you know I go on the job sites and I would look for opportunities.
Speaker 1:I started looking and there weren't any around because there were a lot of LP roles, a lot of lead pastors who were close to retirement saw COVID hit and they're like you know, I'm hanging up my cleats, I'm done. I was going to retire in three, three years. You know what? I'm going to retire in three months. This, this is too much for me for a lot of different reasons. Now, lps like a challenge, like that. They get invigorated. So I saw LPs who were towards the end and they said you breathe, breathe new, fresh life in me. I'm staying in this game longer, and so it was really interesting to see the dichotomy of how different leaders are wired and whether that challenge invigorated them or kind of put a nail in the coffin.
Speaker 1:Right this is too much. I got. I got to call it quits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a whole new world of church happening right now. Let me go see if I can figure it out.
Speaker 2:You know, with like church online and me, you know, building restrictions and just all the different things that were thrown at them. Yeah, definitely presented a new set of challenges for every church on the planet. Well, cool, I know we're not going to talk all about XP stuff, but part of it, I guess, is that you mentioned talking about intern programs, and intern programs in churches are a big deal. I mean my church here in San Diego and we have interns all the time, especially in the summer Seems like summer internships are a big deal and so, yeah, what's your?
Speaker 2:you know, let's talk church internship programs. Why are they important? How do you do them? What's the point? Maybe you start at the beginning for people who may have never done one.
Speaker 1:Is there another point other than free labor? Ben, I don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I was on the station, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's all I have to say. That's my hot take now I'm leaving.
Speaker 1:But no, but it's fascinating because, again, I think this is and this is, I think this is a key. The way to think about it is interns are phenomenal for all organizations. I know we're talking to churches and nonprofits, but, like if this was Microsoft, whoever, whoever on the side of the, I would say you need to do internships even though you probably have the money even the top companies that could pay those people. I would still advocate for internships for a number of reasons. So it's not, it's not just a free labor. The biggest one is probably it gives you a leadership pipeline. So, whatever your organization is especially going back to churches, nonprofits you have that. You have your staff and you have your volunteers. What's? How did they make that jump to staff? Or how do they even make an intermediate job? Maybe a jump to a volunteer leader?
Speaker 1:Internships are a great way to do that. It gives you a natural sense of who is the rising leader. You get to see cream rise to the top and to evaluate based upon that and move towards it. And, as you are identifying that leadership pipeline, it gives both parties a chance to try before you buy. And this is critical. You know.
Speaker 1:I know for myself when I was in college. I tried. Someone encourage me, try different internships, because you would much rather do an internship every summer and try that out instead of getting into a career that you really didn't invigorate you and motivate you. So so it gives the intern a chance to try before they buy. Am I really interested in doing vocational ministry? Am I really interested in doing it with this church? Right? And on the flip side, for the leaders who are listening, it gives you a chance to try them out before you buy as well. You might be thinking, hey, we want to take the plunge on this person as a staff member. If they have that internship under their belt, then you have a greater degree of confidence that we're going to move from a 10 week internship to a 10, a 10 week internship to a 10 year staff position. It really gives you that confidence as a leader. So those, those are too quick wise, and there's more, but those are too quick wise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not totally makes sense. Do you find most internship programs or summer internships?
Speaker 1:Yes, Again for a couple reasons. For us in the church world, it allows you to maximize some of your ministries that are have a peak proficiency. So a lot of ministries will scale down during the summer. The one, one of the key ones that doesn't is your youth ministry. That's their high season.
Speaker 1:These kids are off during the summer. They have more time. You're going to send them on trips, You're going to go on admission trips, You're going to go to the shore with them, whatever it is Right. You're going to have more time. So summer is peak for a ministry standpoint, especially when it comes to youth. And then also, summer is peak because that's when the you know. From a ministry standpoint it's peak for us, but also for the youth, for the people entering into the internship. If they're college aged, they have that time off, Right. So I would say that is an ideal time.
Speaker 1:But this is a yes and yes, summer is ideal, but don't limit your internships for the summer. So some people think you know it's, it's just summer only I've. I try to run internships year round. Now you always want to walk before you run. You want to get a great internship started during the summer and then expand it over the year. But I would not limit that perspective in terms of the timeline just upon the summer. But again, like you're saying, it is the key time, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it totally makes sense. How do you um, yeah, what are the let's go nuts and bolts Like, how do you start an internship program and how do you find those interns? And how do you know if it's like producing value, like right, versus just like? Oh, I'm hiring some of the kids from church for the summer, they're going to help out, cool, but you know that's just doing it to do it, you know, versus it really being productive or bearing fruit, right. So, yeah, walk us just through some of the nuts and bolts and how you guys run yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the first, the first headline you talked about. You know why you should do it, why you know reduced cost labor was the big headline there In terms of the how. The quick headline I'd say is treat it like a job. So, whatever standard that you have for an employee, do the same standard that you would do for an internship, which you just quickly would answer all those questions. So the first question you asked was how do you, how do you find these people?
Speaker 1:I like to find interns from interns, so that themselves you know you did a great internship here. Who are you going to record recruit to replace yourself? How are you going to be an advocate? And how do you find somebody as well? That's one of the first things I give to an internship is find your replacement for the next quarter. It's actually one of their tasks that we look for them to do. Hopefully they're good at that and hopefully it's. It's beyond replacing yourself, but it's multiplying yourself. Can you find two people through your network that you can replace yourself? So that's the first thing. How do you find them? Through the current internships that you have? I would say that is, you know, in addition to all the other regular communication avenues that you use in terms of a church, in terms of your announcements, your bulletin, your, your social media, whatever it is, but use, use those people who've gone through the program and then you know.
Speaker 1:Going back to the, the job perspective, if you're like, okay, how do you, how do you get started, is the first thing and this is pretty bad because I've seen a lot of internships miss this is write a basic job description. So what are they coming in to do? How are you setting them up? Do they know what that job description looks like? That that's a template that gives them the, the, the freedom to, to foster and flourish during the course of the summer. Giving them a job description. Then, the last question you asked there was how do you know if it's successful? What is it? You know we're investing in them. Again, it's at least our time as leadership. It probably will. Some finances in the back end. There might be a stipend, there might be an hourly rate, but there is some type of investment from your standpoint and there's an investment from their standpoint. They're giving up a summer, usually to be with you. How do you know? It's a win on both sides. Well, going back to the job description. Did they accomplish that job description? And if you can say yes and they can say yes, then I think both parties will say this was a wise investment and this was a win.
Speaker 1:Coming back to the intern, if it's a win for them is if they advocate for you. You know what are the product is Nike, starbucks, whatever I like, I'm usually going to champion it, right? If your intern is unwilling to champion your internship program or your church afterwards, or doesn't want to recruit their friends, then you need to look under the hood. Why not? What was wrong with the experience that they do not want to encourage it for others? So that's probably like one thing on the back end, as you look towards the back internship, are they excited to tell their friends about this? No, no, no. I'm going to tell my friends about it, but I'm going to tell them don't come. That's a big waste of their time. How do they respond in terms of encouraging others to participate is something I would look for as a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the point you just made at the very end there about the interns coming out of the program or even being part of the program and wanting to tell their friends being excited about what they just did. That to me, I guess, is a clear sign of like hey, this is someone that you might want to come on staff full time. Obviously, if they've shown the other signs they're good at what they do and their work is bearing fruit and if it's youth, like the kids dig them, the parents dig them, all those kinds of things what other signs do you look for once somebody's gone through the internship like, oh, we should consider bringing these people on staff full time.
Speaker 1:Great question. I would look towards again anything that you would apply towards a potential staff hire. Apply towards that, so basic things like do they show initiative? So I've had people on the back end and we didn't have a job, but they were completing the internship and they said you know what? This is awesome, I enjoyed this here. I like this here. Do you guys have a job here? If so, I would like to apply, and I don't even know what it is. So that the initiative right.
Speaker 1:When you interview a potential staff member, did they follow up with you with an email and saying thank you for taking your time? Did they maybe even send you a card? Did they respect your boundary to say don't contact us, we'll contact you? Do they do all those things? From the same point, I've had interns who showed that initiative and we didn't have a position on the table per se, but we saw their desire, their passion and we said you know what? We don't have them. We saw their competency, we saw their chemistry and then we saw their passion. Because of that, we don't have a position currently, but we need to figure out how to make a position for this person because we want to retain them. So, again, if you're listening on the leadership side and again most people are probably listening from that side from this conversation what demonstration of drive and desire and passion do they have? To me, that's a big. I can teach competency down the road, but I can't teach passion. Do they have that? Are they exuding that? That's one thing that I would look at in terms of what's going on Now on the flip side, what do the staff think about them as well?
Speaker 1:They might be excited to work here, but are we excited to work here? You can do that very easy by sending something internal without the internet included on that. Just say how would you rank this intern over the summer? How did Frank do? What does it look like? Give us your feedback. Would you be excited to work with them? Because, again, it's got to be a win-win and I think that's really helpful as leaders. The higher you get, the more not oblivious, but the more removed you are from boots on the ground and so you cannot rely on your own. Oh, that guy gave me a high five every time. Well, they were kissing up to you, but what did it look like when they were actually working with the rest of the staff? Is the staff excited to have them. So a quick poll with staff really helps you identify that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you usually do internship programs with big groups? I'm not sure what size of the church is at, but I know you've been at some larger churches in the past. So is it like oh, there's 10 interns this summer, we're bringing them all in? They're all youth ministry workers. What's it usually look?
Speaker 1:like. Great question. I would say two things. I would say for the smaller churches try to always get at least two, at least two interns. You might have a church of a 100, 150, 200 listening in and they're like they're not two high school students or college students in my whole congregation. How am I going to get two interns? What are you talking about? But, if possible, get two.
Speaker 1:First of all, it's going to be a better you know, speak to the need in the room. It's going to be easier for you to manage because when they run into a problem, who do they go to? Well, they're going to go to each other first. Hey, I forgot my login. Can you share this with me? Yeah, I can share this with you. Or, how would you navigate this problem? They're going to have a lot of crosstalk. If you don't have to, well, who has to field all the questions and answer every issue that comes up? It's the manager. So when you get to, you allow them to do that, which is better for you and it's also better for them, because they're not just sitting by themselves at a computer. They've got a buddy, they've got somebody that they're going to go out to lunch with. If you're not available, they're going to get somebody that can sit and work alongside with. So that's the one thing. Try to get at least two, regardless of your size. And then the other, encouragement. You know, talk about, hey, can you do 10? You can do 12? How many can you do? I've never been a part Maybe some of your listeners would disagree.
Speaker 1:I've never been a part of an internship, overseeing it or overseeing somebody's overseeing the interns. I've never had too many. I've never thought, oh my goodness, we have two, what do we get ourselves into here? We got five, we got 10, we got 15. Well, what do we? I will always I've always seen managers being able to expand their bandwidth to take on those interns and being surprised by that. And on the flip side too, if you're a manager and some of your work got done, didn't get done, but you were spending more time managing, I will guarantee that your output at the end of the day will be greater because you're managing more interns. And it's not, it's not just a party. I know I said 15 people rocking it in the back room. They are still bringing value to the organization. So more people equals more value. Don't be gun shy, and it may be, you know, maybe when your listeners have a horror story, but I'd say nine out of 10 times you cannot have enough interns.
Speaker 2:Yeah too many. Yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of horror stories when using interns, but hey, that's life. You're hiring young people.
Speaker 1:You said I know you have a wealth of tithely and you probably can't talk on the record, but it sounds like you got some moves. Actually, don't we?
Speaker 2:don't have an internship program at tithely. I've seen lots of interns at my church. It's usually like kind of college ministry, high school ministry kind of those two groups seem to be where that we bring on quite a few every summer.
Speaker 1:So so let me play.
Speaker 2:They seem great, let me play. I did it when I was in college, like I was an intern a couple summers, way back in the day. So you know it's a great experience Like you get a chance to like really like work in a church and kind of go to staff meetings and just see what it's like. And then you know, like I did it in college, so we're on campus, right, we're doing, you know, bible studies and small groups and activities like on campus and kind of live in that life. It was amazing, so I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:You said you're all for it, but you also said I'm sure there are horror stories. Which, what would you? I'm gonna? I, you know, I have my background in journalism, so I have interviewing in my blood. I apologize for flipping the rolls here for a second, Frank.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 1:What would you say is the biggest? Because I'm intrigued. What would you say the biggest hesitancy or battle scar people have from dummy internships? That that that prevents them from jumping in. Or maybe they're in it, but maybe prevents them from taking it to the next level and really making it blossom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I can't speak from experience because it's not like I've run a bunch of internship programs myself, but I just can imagine. You know, I've got kids myself and I was in youth ministry, I was in student ministry. You know kids are young and you know immature and inexperienced and all that. So you get all of that stuff. So you bring in some high school kids, let's say, as interns, you know, working in the junior high program or something like that, and they're, they're just high school kids and you know they're gonna make mistakes. They're gonna, you know, and most of the time it's not going to be catastrophic, but I'm sure they can do some dumb things, right. So I think it's like that.
Speaker 2:And if you don't, you know, I think it's just comfortability, all right, if you have people who are running your internship program, or if you as a, if it's a smaller church and it's used the senior pastor who's running the program and All of that, and you have the time to put into these people and give them direction and leadership and guidance and Help them, right.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they're planning a high school event and you're they've never done it before. Well, they need to be trained, they need to Go to some and see what it looks like and then know how to plan it and all. So it takes effort to do that. That Takes away from you doing your kind of daily thing to help these people. But that's part of what it's about, right? It's helping train these next generation folks. So I think if you have the right Things in place, you can help Make it successful. But if you, if you don't, maybe you just leave more room for kids to be kids and Not that I, you know I don't think anybody's doing it maliciously or whatever, but you know stuff happens you said a couple key words there I think are really helpful, especially for an older leader who may be listening.
Speaker 1:You know leadership, mentorship, training, really hands-on, which is helpful. Again, I know I'm I'm Jen X, so you know age myself and I remember when I came into the, the workforce being supervised and managed by boomers. The expectation was I'm going to give you a job to do and you're going to do it right. We're not good friends. Yeah, I'm not going to train you, I'm not going to mentor. What is this mentorship You're looking forward to? It says this is what you need to. I'll give you a year-end evaluation. We'll touch point base once a year. But that was the. You know, right or wrong, that was the expectation.
Speaker 1:I came into the workplace that I experienced a lot of leaders passing that down to me. Again, right or wrong, I don't think it's right or wrong, but it's. It's a unique perspective. Now, again, if you're of that mindset and you were trying to oversee a younger generation Entering into the workplace, you really need to change your mindset, because they are looking for more than a job description. They're looking for leadership, they're looking for training, they're looking for mentorship. And unless you were about willing to provide those things and you see the fruits from that. You truly see the benefits from it. To me, I see the benefits of it. It's not a one-way street. I'm investing in them and they are flourishing and moving the organization forward. Now, if you can lead that way, do it, but if you can't, then don't visit your.
Speaker 2:Your right, it's gonna be butting heads oil the water all summer long. That's the point of an internship program, in my view. If, if you're just hiring, bringing them on part-time not hiring necessarily, but whether it's a free internship or a paid stipend type of thing or whatever, the point is to train these people. Right is to give them an experience, let them learn but also be trained because they might find out that they do love it and, and you know, if you're Like, you're more likely to love that experience. If you're looking for the next generation, you know to serve in full-time ministry. Well, that those interns that are coming in are more likely to love it if they have a great leader. That's training them and mentoring them through the process, right. If you're just kind of like, hey, come be an intern and then it's like, go figure it out, I mean, I Gotta work in a work.
Speaker 2:When I did it I was in college, right, so it's kind of college years and I did it two summers. I mean it was heavy training. In fact, it was probably More focused on the training aspect of doing it than just doing the job. Right, it was like being trained and I mean we're in Training and staff meetings and it was with others, right, it was I don't remember the exact number, but call it 10 people. And so you know you're doing it all together and you're going to staff meetings and you're responsible for things, but you've got the staff people who oversee the ministry and you're doing it with them. So you know, it was just the whole thing and the training was Like incredible, you know. So it's a blessing to the interns to get great training. Whether they go on to full-time ministry or Go somewhere else, that training they get there can really help them.
Speaker 1:You know, in a lot of ways and that you you key down on something that I think is helpful to unpack. You talked about training and you're involved in conversation. It's sound like you were involved in training and conversations that didn't even necessarily apply to your internship, which I think is vital to grow somebody that. How are they receiving cross training in the organization or is it you know they're Remember of the youth and they're serving on them? Do they ever engage with pastoral staff or the kids staff or the creative team? How do you give them that cross? I remember for myself I was an interns intern at NBC in Chicago a lowly intern and the executive producer would pull me in and their we know early morning phone call when they talked with York and in the West Coast hey, what are the stories that we're going to cover? How are we being aligned? What they were talking about was way above my pay grade, but being able to listen into that conversation and hear how this leader Interacted with other leaders and how they were trying to get a unified message out across their stations, that that was. I think it's the only thing other than grabbing coffee that I remember from the internship was those phone calls. Now, what value did it bring to the organization Nothing, but it brought a lot of value to me and it motivated me to be a better internship. I was getting something from it.
Speaker 1:The way the pithy statement I would use to to sum this up is that you're looking for life lessons and accomplished Assignments. So sometimes you think internships, it's all accomplished assignments. Okay, what's what's the checklist? What's the job description? What are you gonna get done? Well, it's that and Life lessons. So how are you peppering in both? If you can do, if you can pepper pepper in both, it's gonna be again. It's that win-win accomplish assignments for the organizations, life lessons for the intern. That brings value to both parties. That's gonna be a win for both parties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you find interns If you want to do a pretty right maybe you haven't done it your church thinking about it. You listen to this podcast like yeah, I really needed that. Like, are you just looking inside your church Most of the time when you're starting like I want one for my again? My high school ministry I think that's probably really common area, like junior high, high school, middle school, that kind of stuff. Is it like let me go find the kids in my church?
Speaker 1:and where the kids you look for a warm body and then you know so. So we're, we've tapped. We've tapped already in terms of the Internal and whatever internal recruitment you use for your own volunteers, apply that for interns. But I just do the same. Here's the deal. What I would send this is I'd say there's a continuum and there's a spectrum that I would encourage churches to in some areas, think outside of where they can look to other interns and where is where did they need to be aligned with your organization Optimization, lee, and where do they not need to be aligned? So, like for you know, I've been internships, I've had interns before and I think by and large all of them.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think of my track record for church. I think the one bar that we applied for all interns was follower of Christ and that we didn't Make that ball. Hey, this is. You know, you need to be a follower of Christ, but For for us, member of the church, not necessarily. So we had interns that were at another church down the street and there I love my church and when the internships done, I'm gonna go back to my church. Right, we said you know what? Do you need to be a member of this church to help us Run these summer cans for you? I don't think so. I think that's so. I think what I'm saying is I think sometimes we put a bar too high for ourselves and we put all these requirements on people and they don't get engaged.
Speaker 1:I know for myself like a great, great, great internship recruiting potential outside of your church Is if you're in a college town, whatever their religious club is Connecting with them and say you know, got campus crusade for Christ, who or where it is Connecting with them. Saying, hey, we're a local church and we have a number of interns. We want to make you aware of it. We don't know who you are and you don't know who we are yet, but you might attend another church and be faithfully committed there. That's great. Or maybe you're not anywhere yet, you're just kind of a spiritual nomad. Well, we would still love to have you as an intern. So I would. That's like a great, usually untapped resource for churches, those extra those parrot church organizations again, college churches, college stands going to colleges, or even, again, those parrot church organizations if you have one in your, in your city, yeah, they might have potential interns for you as well. So I'd hit them up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's on the internship topic. But maybe maybe a slight, you know tertiary connection, Like AI coming into the world. You're an XP, You're thinking about the operation of the church and all the things and I've had some really interesting conversations with you know folks like you and church leaders, you know at the Executive level, like AI is a thing and it's like maybe it's the next intern. How are you thinking about that as it relates to, you know, doing things, getting stuff done at the church?
Speaker 1:I knew you were going to shoehorn in AI into this conversation.
Speaker 2:I knew I was waiting for it. It's a free intern.
Speaker 1:It's a free. You're right, it's funny. I think it's exciting to be a part of it's the Wild Wild West In these conversations. What I find to be really helpful as a practitioner like I'm not on the outside looking in telling churches you need to do this. I'm actually in the trenches trying to maximize my 50-hour work week and saying how do I best use this? I can't be chasing ghosts right now and I can't be chasing theory. What does this actually look like? And I know just some quick things for myself. If we're going to go that route is I know, for us we've been looking at grant writing and you have two routes. In the past you had two routes. Now you have three. In the past it was spend a lot of money to hire somebody to write grants for yourself really well, or spend a lot of time figuring out how to do it. Or now allow AI to write 75% of it and you come in and you clean it up on the back end. That's a very tangible way to use that For myself.
Speaker 1:I got a chance to speak about half a dozen times over the course of the year. What are some of the message points that I would bring to the table here. I know the tool, my toolbox as a teaching pastor. What does it look like for me to use that? The Bible, the Holy Spirit, concordances, friends, ai. It's a great tool in that toolbox. Now it's not going to write my whole message for me In fact, I'm usually displeased with how vanilla and bland it comes out but it's a great tool to use. So to that end, you're putting me on the spot here. How could I use AI instead of the intern?
Speaker 2:Have you done anything at the church yet with it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so those two examples right there. Grant writing and Messick writing are two quick examples that I've used for myself. So the answer is yes, but again, since we're talking about it, I'd love to know from you not theory, but practice how have you seen churches practice AI and use it in a very tangible manner?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's a new conversation, but the couple of really practical ones that I heard, I was talking to a church a week or two ago and they've actually been using AI for the better part of a year, like maybe a year and a half, and so they're using it like all over the place. But one of the big ones is like all their content, like anything on the content side of the house, right, they've written content, video content, like their blog, their website, their newsletters, their social media, like all that kind of stuff. They've been using AI for a year, right, and letting it kind of be the creator of a lot of stuff. And then they come in, like you're saying, with the grant writing. It's not done without the human right. It's a great way to start things, it's a great way to get 80% there, and then you do the extra parts of it, so all content, yeah, content, and in particular for myself, I find it helpful for policies.
Speaker 1:So we have a 45, 46 page staff handbook. It's way too long, so I'm running that content there and saying boil this down, get it down to from 48 pages down to eight pages. What do you got for me? And so for me, it does well at that. And also condensing content, which I usually don't want to expand content, I want to condense it. Or creating new policies. So we don't currently have a great ordination process. So, okay, I'm going to put in some of our standards as a church. How would you create an ordination process for a church with these values? What would that look like? Go yeah, yeah. So new policy and content is great.
Speaker 2:It's like it used to be cool to have the big handbook. Now it's cool to have a really small one. Right, it's a plaque on a wall, read it yeah right, like nobody read it. So you might as well make it small enough and concise enough to do what it's supposed to do, but do it very quickly. And AI is great for those kinds of things, and I was like somewhat, you know, tongue in cheek, but also very sincere in that, like AI shouldn't replace interns, but it can certainly do a lot of these kinds of things that you might have had an intern or you might have somebody on the communications team like doing, and now they don't have to do this part of the job, right.
Speaker 2:Like they can go do maybe the higher level part of the job versus spending time on stuff that's just like super monotonous, super like you know. Making the handbook smaller, right, more concise, like that's like why should a human have to do that? You can use AI to.
Speaker 1:Why should even a computer have to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, why should? A computer and then sermon writing is an interesting one, like I've talked to pastors about it, and you kind of get you know, we get you know people doing it already and having a good time with it, and even interesting things like translating your sermon in your voice into another language, right?
Speaker 1:If you're going to do that, because if not, it just again comes off as vanilla. And I'm sure you've seen like articles like written. You're like that was 100% AI, like I just I know it in my bones because it did, I know the author or I know the site that it's on and it doesn't have any of the flavor of that. It just feels very artificial. So, what you said is bringing in your back catalog of content to the table, inputting that and using that to create your voice. Super helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or actually taking your sermon that you preached on Sunday and learning it from English to Spanish or English, french, and just using AI to do it. So it's in your voice, it's your sermon going out in another language, right?
Speaker 1:For us. Another really practical. I'm sure a lot of your leaders already do this, but we used to have somebody, about three hours once a week, writing, taking the message and condensing it to a discussion guide for our small groups. Well, that three hours is now down to like 30 minutes because of it. You know you're running it through there, You're editing it, but that's a great practical application of the technology right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like message like small group discussion material, like take the sermon, go listen to it, like, yeah, three hours, like, and you're like laboring over that, whereas AI can do that. And then, yeah, you have a human. That's like okay, is this is it good? Right? Is it actually good? Did it make sense of things? That kind of stuff is anything just weird that's coming out. So I think that's a great example too. Yeah, no, I mean and again tying it back to the conversation around just interns like these are all things that you know humans have to do, but now computers can kind of super. I tend to like I feel like it's like a superpower, right, it's like it helps you do things you're already doing, but maybe do it faster or a little bit better or whatever, and then you can go do maybe more higher level things right, whatever that might be in your organization, but things that like you'd rather spend your time there than on this thing over here.
Speaker 1:It's a super, it's a great, it's a superpower now, but it will become a common function down the road In other words this is going to become ubiquitous, and so, while you have a chance of whatever, whatever curve you're trying to get ahead of, this allows you to get ahead of, but there's going to become a day where everyone's using this and there's no longer super power, it's a normalized power.
Speaker 2:We can all fly. We're all super.
Speaker 1:So jump into that, you know, for any of the leaders. If you don't get a sense, frank and I are gently trying to push you into this to get involved now. Check it out, play.
Speaker 2:at least play with it, try it out. Go to chat GPT. Go to Bard. There's a bunch of other third party ones. Do you have anyone that that's not chat, gpt or Bard that you've like?
Speaker 1:No, those are the two I'm playing with the most.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the name. There's one that people seem to like. I'll throw it in the show notes. Anyways, and yeah, we've been working on one. It's tidally called Sermonly, so it's all sermon writing. It's a little side project that we've been working, but it's like sermon writing with AI. So you know, I think there's just tons of cool things that you know. I mean even even even sermon writing. Like some churches, like larger churches, like larger churches usually have people, extra staff that's helping the pastoral staff write sermons, right. So, like the sermon writing team, I mean even that can get, you know, made more efficient or better using AI. So lots, lots of applications Come in your way. Well, ben, this has been great man.
Speaker 1:Anything when it come, I guess, circling back to the internship program, any kind of closing words that you'd encourage church leaders with related to intern programs, yeah, the last thing I would say is we talked about what the groundwork you need to do beforehand to make it successful and then what happens during the internship to make it successful. The the ball I see getting dropped the most is. It ends there, and what I encourage you is how do you make it on after the internships over? How do you still make it successful really quickly and really easy is you can write a letter of reference for them. You can jump on LinkedIn and take a sound bite from that and write them a recommendation and give them a glowing review that they can use down the road. And then for myself, as well as follow-up, I'll put it on my calendar that after you know three months and then 12 months, just follow up with someone. So give them a call. How are they doing, especially if they're they didn't get a job at your church or have moved on from your church or never again, never part of your church. They were part of the church down the road. Following up with them again gives them value. It is super, super encouraging.
Speaker 1:I'll give one one last story to like sell internships for anybody still listening is that I was at a conference once and again I was talking at was talking on entrance entrance and the value of entrance and as I was talking, a gal, like, was trying to frantically raising her hand. I was talking about how, if you invest in interns, interns want to invest back in you, right? And I was like, hey, the girl in the back, you know what. You stand up and I was far, I couldn't see her and she's like hey, I want to let you know like that's true and I can say it firsthand because I was an intern, a band ten years ago at XY and Z Church, and it was just like, oh, like an aha moment from like, oh, god, like thank you for your goodness, thank you for bringing this first full circle.
Speaker 1:But sometimes you don't see right, you put your fingerprints on this person as a leader, you train them, you mentor them, you lead them and then, ten years down the road, man, look what God did in your life and I I had the honor of playing a part in that. That is so exciting. I can't wait to see how God uses you in your next chapter to advance Kingdom. So you, as a leader, when you invest in interns, you have those aha moments when you see them down the road. So that would be my last encouragement for leaders to consider internships. It moves the Kingdom forward, yeah amen.
Speaker 2:I love that and that's probably the point, right, that's the, that's the whole point of the whole thing is making a big impact. Growing God's Kingdom, helping people make an impact. So, then, this has been awesome. Thanks for coming on today. Thanks for having me, frank. Where should folks go to check out the church you're at today or to learn more about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can go to tlccorg. I'm at the life Christian Church here in West Orange, new Jersey. Or if you want to find out me again, I'm kind of scratch the surface if you're like, hey, I want to do more of that internships, but I need help, or I need actually. Can you have a conversation with my lead pastor? Can you cast vision for them? Go to Ben staplie, comm slash coach. I'd love to give you a half an hour free of my time to help consult and see if I'm the best person to help you Move that forward at your.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing, amazing, all right, man. Well, thanks, ben, appreciate you. Thanks, frank. Thanks guys for listening today. We'll catch you on another episode of modern church leader next week, see ya.