'God is at work among young adults in our Baptist movement' 

Young Leaders’ Development Coordinator Isabella Senior reports on encouraging developments - including the launch of our new Internship Best Practice Handbook

It has been a fruitful six months in this position, and I wanted to share some of the encouraging stories. God is at work among young adults in our Baptist movement and it is exciting to be part of this! 

 
Internships  

There are about 50 interns starting in Baptist churches across the country from September onwards. And the number is still growing as I connect with more churches.

London Baptists, Yorkshire Baptist Association, South West Baptist Association, South Wales Baptist Association and North Western Baptist Association are running their own internship programmes in a variety of ways and contexts.

Southern Counties Baptist Association and Central Baptist Association together with Regents’ Park College (EQUIP) and London Baptists (Formation) are offering free online workshops for young leaders throughout the academic year.  

More than 30 churches from across our Associations have already contacted me expressing an interest in hosting an intern, and I am delighted to share that as of this week the Internship Best Practice Handbook - Tips for a successful internship programme is now available!

Our aim in producing this handbook is to encourage, promote and facilitate internships right across Baptists Together. It provides guidance on how best to host interns in churches, from the discernment process through to the practicalities. It also contains templates for an internship role profile, volunteer agreement and code of conduct, among other resources. 

This handbook is mainly designed for churches, but it can also be used for associations, mission projects or any other ministry setting. I pray that you will be greatly encouraged and blessed by this handbook and by the future ministry of your interns! 

 
Summer festivals 

This summer I also had the privilege of attending two summer festivals for a day each: Satellites for young people aged 12-18 years old, and Sixty-One for young adults aged 18-30 years old.  

At Satellites, about 50 per cent of the young people there were from Baptist churches. A Baptist youth leader shared this on the stage on the day I was there, and it was so encouraging to hear so many young people shouting across the room in joy that they are part of a Baptist church.

It was great to hear stories of young people finding Jesus in lockdown. Some of them connected through detached youthwork and others through the youth groups running online.

I met youth groups that have welcomed young Ukrainian refugees and benefited from interns and young leaders in their churches. I connected with two young women who had been interns in two different Baptist churches and they shared with me how much they enjoyed their internships and grew in faith and in leadership in the past year. One of them is off to study architecture at university and the other decided to pursue her calling at Bristol Baptist College.  

At Sixty-One a Baptist church was leading a prophetic workshop which focussed on how to connect with God in prayer and live a naturally supernatural lifestyle. People were healed as we prayed together, received prophetic words for their lives and shared prophetic words for the first time. It was very moving to be in a place with so many other young adults passionate about Jesus and His kingdom – it felt in many ways like we are a faithful remnant! 
 

Social media 

Two months ago, I created an Instagram social media page (@baptistyoungleaders) to connect with Baptist young leaders. So far, I have nearly 200 followers and the account has reached about 2,500 accounts. I share about different internship and training opportunities for young adults in Baptist settings and it has been great to connect with young adults this way.  

This is just a snapshot of what has been happening so far and I’m really looking forward to seeing more young adults grow in faith and in leadership in our Baptist movement this year!  

 

Isabella Senior is Baptists Together Young Leaders’ Development Coordinator

The Young Adults area of our website shares information about relevant resources, internships and stories  

The Baptists Together Internship Best Practice Handbook - launched in September 2022 - can be accessed here 

This page also features helpful documents for churches relating to internships, the majority of which feature in the handbook