Church Resources

Connecting Churches With Calvin Seminary

Calvin Seminary values connections with churches in Michigan, across North America, and around the world. As a church, you have a number of opportunities to partner with Calvin Seminary. We look forward to connecting with and serving you!

Become An Internship Site

 

Real ministry experiences are an essential component of the education that Calvin Seminary offers its students in the pastoral ministry (MDiv) and specialized ministry (MA) programs. Please consider how your congregation can provide valuable hands-on internships for students as they pursue God’s call on their lives.

Calvin Seminary’s Vocational Formation Office (VFO) is eager to partner with you to help form students for ministry. Get started by exploring the types of internship sites we need, and then contact us so that we can explore your options in more detail. We choose internship sites based on the congregation’s fit for a particular student.

Emerging Leaders: Concurrent and Integrative. Forming the character, heart, and leadership of emerging leaders. This sentence captures the vision of the Vocational Formation Office at Calvin Theological Seminary. We are acutely aware that leadership in God’s kingdom requires more than textbook knowledge. In fact, we are convinced that effective kingdom leadership in an increasingly complex world requires that leaders know their theology – and whose character is rooted in Christ and the Gospel, whose heart is in step with the Holy Spirit, and whose leadership acumen is always growing.

The Vocational Formation Office is looking for partner churches/ministries and vocational mentors from a variety of denominations and ministry contexts. If you think that an emerging leader (intern) would fit with God’s vision for your church/ministry, please contact the Vocational Formation Office.

At Calvin Seminary we are dedicated to equipping our emerging leaders to be the best formed leaders possible for church leadership. A foundational part of that formation involves engaging in real time ministry in the context of a congregation or ministry. This vital work in ministry can dramatically increase the student’s active learning of classroom context. It is for this reason that Calvin Seminary deeply values our partnership with congregations in the work of forming students. A portion of that partnership often revolves around what has in the past been referred to as a summer assignment – or, what we now refer to as Summer in Service.

The basic arrangement of a Summer in Service opportunity is that a congregation invites an emerging leader (student) to join them for the summer in ministry which can be bolstered by the enthusiastic leadership of an emerging leader. In each of these cases, the congregation often invites to student to lead the congregation on Sundays with preaching and worship leadership. Would your congregation be interested in partnering with CTS in the formation of an emerging leader? If so, we would love to hear from you. We have students who are eager to dive in to a Summer in Service. Some of our students will do so simply as a means of gaining experience in ministry. Students do not need to complete a Summer in Service for credit/part of their academic program.

Your congregation or organization can provide students preparing for ministry with a vital ministry experience in a cultural setting distinctly different (economically, ethnically or ecclesiastically) from their own. The goal of the cross-cultural internship is to ensure that students:

  • Gain perspective on their own culture
  • Engage, explore, and articulate the contextual nature of ministry
  • Develop a deepened perspective on the global church
    Reflect more broadly on their own call to ministry.
  • Time commitment: 200 hours can be completed during a five-week full-time internship during the summer or a part-time internship over the course of the summer or academic year.

Posting Available Preaching Opportunities

Calvin Seminary students who are licensed to preach can gain experience in preaching while meeting your congregation’s pulpit supply needs. We value excellence in preaching, and we see these experiences as important to our students’ preparation for pastoral ministry.

How it Works:

Request a Seminary student to preach at your church using the Pulpit Supply Request Form below. Once your request is submitted, Seminary students who are licensed to preach can view your request and can request the service(s) via the vocational formation office. The vocational formation office will then notify the church’s pulpit supply coordinator the student’s contact information.

We want your congregation’s preaching needs to be met well, so we ask that you and other qualified congregational representatives submit preaching evaluation forms after a student preaches at your church. This will provide students training for pastoral ministry with powerful feedback as they hone their preaching skills. Students will be responsible to bring sermon evaluation forms with them the day of the service.

Preaching Evaluation

Calvin Seminary students looking to be preaching pastors are required to get experience preaching at a church. As part of this process, they will be evaluated. If you are at the church, you may be asked to fill out a preaching evaluation form, which can be found below. The completed form will be used to provide feedback and recommendations to the student, encouraging them towards more effective sharing of the gospel.

Announce A Ministry Job Posting

Calvin Seminary students and graduates are equipped to cultivate communities of disciples of Jesus Christ. Do you have a ministry job posting you would like to share with the Calvin Seminary community? Please fill out the form below. If you have questions, please contact the Vocational Formation Office.

Explore Offering Resources

Special Sunday Resources

As the official seminary of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA), Calvin Seminary is blessed to be included twice a year on the Special Sunday Offering schedule. These funds contributed to these offerings go towards specific projects or programs that contribute directly to the church.

Of course, churches are welcomed and encouraged to take an offering at any point during the year. For more information on making a financial contribution to Calvin Seminary, either as a church/organization or as an individual, contact the Development Office.

Classis Information Regarding Financial Aid

Since Calvin Seminary is the official seminary of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA), we receive many request from churches and classis regarding financial support for students from their region. The information below is to provide understanding about our process. Please let us know if you have any questions.

When students are admitted to a degree program at Calvin Seminary, they are given a preliminary award commitment. This award is based on their GPA, recommendations and vocational interests. The scholarship committee meets in late March to match specific awards to each students in order to fulfill that initial commitment. We then see if we can do more. The level of funding that we give to a student in year one is maintained for the length of their program. This allows students to not only budget for year one, but for their entire program. Awards are communicated to students in early April. If a student is admitted after March 1, they are considered in our second round of awards in June. Classis should notify students as early as possible of their award.

Students are required to have their accounts paid or a payment plan in place by the end of September for fall semester and the end of February for spring. If their accounts are not current, they are not allowed to register for the next semester. It is very important that classical funds be made available to students in order to meet these deadlines.

Calvin Theological Seminary does not take classical aid into consideration when making scholarship awards. In other words, we make our awards without knowing what level of support a classis is giving. We do not lower a students institutional funding because they receive classical aid.

If you are a classis that does not offer financial support to women seeking ordained ministry in the CRCNA, please direct these students to contact the financial aid office.

Sample Forms:

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