Ministry Trainee

We're a new church plant in Glasgow's east end. Aiming for a start in August/September 2026, we are seeking to appoint a ministry trainee to develop them and create a training culture within our church.

Responsibilities

If you've ever played a sport competitively, you'll know the purpose of training. Training is to prepare you for matchday. There might be all sorts of things that you enjoy about training (being with friends, working hard, etc) but if the training doesn't prepare you for matchday, it hasn't achieved its purpose. A Ministry Traineeship is to prepare you for ministry* and it does that through training and experience. Training is like your practice sessions and experience is like your matchday. Training Cornhill Training Course (two days per week, for two years) - this training is delivered in person in Glasgow. St Silas Trainee Seminars - wherever possible, you will join Ministry Trainees at St Silas for regular seminars. Theological Grid of Leadership - as a part of your regular supervision, our lead pastor will coach you in Biblical leadership. Experience Mission Portfolio Every trainee will spend one day per week gaining experience in our evangelism portfolio. This will look like supporting Mission events and the evangelistic course as well as personally stretching your own evangelism and mentoring someone else. Another Portfolio of your choice You have the option of also choosing a second area of church life to be a part of. What this looks like will vary. Team Leading You will get an opportunity to lead a team of people at some point during your traineeship. It might be for an event or a ministry. Hands on Bible Teaching You'll get a chance to implement the Bible handling skills you're learning at Cornhill through word ministry at East Glasgow Church. * Whether you end up following a path of full-time vocational ministry or not, you'll be better equipped for a lifetime of ministry because of the traineeship.

Required skills

- Be an active member of a local church - Have a servant-hearted attitude towards Christ and his church - Had sufficient ministry experience (as a volunteer) to be able to reflect on some of your strengths and weaknesses - Have a minister or significant church leader endorse your application

Other

Commitment A traineeship is best entered into as a two-year, full-time, commitment. Expectations For and After Your Traineeship It is very possible to step into a traineeship with expectations that are either too lofty or non-existent! You are likely to be more prone to one of these sides of the spectrum than the other. Here are three healthy expectations you can bring into the traineeship (though this isn't an exhaustive list) Healthy Expectation: You will be stretched as a Christian Being stretched is a good thing. Being broken is not. You should feel the anxiety of trying something new, the strain of working hard and the trepidation of holding onto your convictions in the midst of difficult conversations. You'll get to experience that and more within the confines of a supportive training environment. If you don't want any of that, a traineeship probably isn't the best thing for you at the moment. Healthy Expectation: Learn more about yourself A helpful governing principle for personal development is that you will have the greatest capacity for growth in areas where you already have strengths. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because we're always told we need to get better at the areas where we are weak. Leadership theory suggests, however, that while you should strive to achieve baseline competence across the board, you shouldn't seek to be excellent at everything. You should, rather, invest heavily in the one or two areas of ministry and leadership where you are gifted. Knowing the areas where you are gifted is a really valuable lesson. Healthy Expectation: Discover if ministry might be for you Try not to look too far into the future as you make plans for your life. A ministry traineeship is best thought of as a way to discern whether ministry is a good fit for you (and you for it) as opposed to a career launchpad. You should seek feedback from trusted people in your life throughout your traineeship to get a sense of whether ministry should or should not continue beyond the two years. Discovering the answer to that question makes the traineeship a worthwhile investment. After the Ministry Traineeship We'll encourage and seek to support you after the Traineeship however we can. If that is by continuing to pursue Ministry, applying for a Pastor-in-Training placement at EAST is well worth considering. If not, we will seek to help you work out what the next best step might be and how to take it. Funding Through generous financial partners, and various funding sources, we are able to make the financial commitment to being a Ministry Trainee an achievable goal. A reasonable expectation is that with the right attitude and effort towards fundraising from you, the traineeship should be able to be funded through a combination of the following A third of the support from the EAST congregation A third of the support through other funding bodies A third of the support from personal fundraising We suggest a target fundraising amount of £21,000 per year. The intention is that this covers living expenses (approximately £16,000) and your program fees at Cornhill (£4,950) with each of the above contributing £7k. We can help coach you to assist with the personal fundraising and put you in touch with other funding bodies.