Join Our Team

A church plant team begins with the church planting pastor. This may be someone who is indigenous to the community we are planting in, or he may be an outsider (or even a hybrid of the two). Being indigenous to the community or an outsider have their own strengths and weaknesses which we address in our pastoral apprenticeship.

The second most important hire, after a church planting pastor, is a woman to disciple women and girls in the neighborhood. Inner city neighborhoods bring intense challenges to the women and girls who live in them, including fatherlessness and absent husbands, abuse, machismo culture, and commercial sexual exploitation. Our teams need women who can build relationships, teach the word, love the women and counsel. Though we do not have a two-year apprenticeship, as we do with our planting pastors, we do support and provide opportunities for development, including Charles Simeon Trust workshops, conferences, and seminary classes.

Additional staffing help for our teams may come in the form of interns, volunteers, and church members who serve in ways needed the most, as determined by the leadership of the church.

The church planting apprenticeship is a two year program, designed to equip our pastors for the specific work of pastoring in the inner city. We want our pastors to be well prepared for this specialized ministry. Additionally, the two-year apprenticeship gives our NEU staff the chance to confirm your fit for this work, and affirm your readiness to plant and pastor. We want you to not just plant a church, but to sustain a healthy life for years to come. NEU partners with Acts 29 to assess our pastoral apprentices.

The apprenticeship has two tracks. Track 1 includes seminary classes, Track 2 is for those who have completed seminary. Both tracks have in mind church planting. However, you may be pursuing church revitalization. You will still choose the appropriate track, but in either case the topics and activities you engage in, and the books you read, will reflect the work of revitalization.

The elements of the apprenticeship are designed to support the pastor’s growth in matters of character (Luke 6:43-45), service (Ephesians 2:10), and understanding (Jude 3).

In the process of the apprenticeship, you and we will discern whether you should move forward or not. If not, then you will be free to leave the program, and free to terminate your employment with NEU. If your direction is confirmed, then in the course of the two years, you will begin to develop relationships in the neighborhood you plan to plant in, building a foundation for the church.

At the core of NEU Church Planting is the fundamental reality that inner city churches will not be financially self-sustaining. Our solution to this problem is a missionary model of funding. We expect that our church staff, will be funded the way foreign missionaries are in most countries: through regular donations by ministry partners. This includes our pastoral apprenticeship program. As soon as you are accepted into the program, you will be on staff, and will begin raising support. How your studies overlap with your fundraising, will be determined by each apprentice and the support staff of NEU.

NEU sends our new staff to a three-day training conference by Support Raising Solutions. Then NEU staff coaches new staff in the process of their donor development.

We will discuss with you more details about the funding model, the donor development process, and about any questions you have related to funding.

Ministry interns are very important to our work. They are more than just a worker to us. We plan for them to work hard, grow deeper in Christ (through our discipleship plan), and enjoy making new friends.

Internships take different forms:

• Calendar year or school year internships
• Summer internships helping our church teams with outreach
• Special projects
• Internships in partnership with your church
• A broad ministry internship as you discern the way in which you may want to serve in ministry

If you are interested in serving as an intern, please contact us.

Our support staff is crucial to making the whole ministry function. Our home base is in Providence, RI. From time to time we have new needs or job openings. These may be administrative, media related, operational or direct ministry positions.

If you are interested, please contact us.