Intern Summit

I'd have to say it was the most inspiring weekend I've ever attended for a Grace Communion International conference.

Seven GCI interns – including our own Jason Frantz – and their supervising pastors – including myself – and others involved in the intern program met in Hendersonville, NC, April 13-16 for the first ever GCI Intern Summit. Knowing how important the intern program is for the future of Grace Communion International, program coordinator Greg Williams wanted to get the team together to discuss how to make the most of the intern program. The program is fairly new and we realized we are still building the foundation for what can be a powerful development for our denomination. 

On the first morning of the summit, we began with worship and communion with three of the interns leading. Starting with communion reminded us to make Jesus the center of all we were going to do in the next two and a half days. After communion, the interns and supervising pastors were split into separate groups and given a list of questions to address: What is working best? What are the greatest challenges? What do we want to do more or less? What new innovations should we consider? When the two groups got back together we found we had the exact same answers. Talk about a Holy Spirit moment. It enabled us to get focused right away.

By Sunday evening we were exhausted, but exhilarated at all we had accomplished together. When we started listing the positives from the summit we ended up with a full page of notes. We talked about the need to keep those positive points in mind. And it reminded us that more than anything else, we had become a unit in communion working to be a blessing for the future of GCI. It wasn’t all work, we ate together, hiked to a waterfall together, worshipped together and spent time together talking, sharing, laughing and building relationship. As always, highlight of the weekend was all about relationships. 

On Monday morning we broke into groups and took turns speaking life into each other. We did this by telling each person in the group how we saw God working in and through them and how thankful we are to be in relationship with them. This act of affirmation was the perfect way to end a successful weekend. Thank you for your prayers for this summit. We are excited about the future of our Intern program and our denomination. Keep praying that God provides more and more people who are willing to respond to the call to ministry.