I believe churches all over should have this opportunity of bringing in young people as residents. It's awesome, especially when the church environment is healthy and willing to continue growing every day. My experience in residency has far exceeded any ministry experience I've ever had.

Residency was a clear choice for me to fully experience leadership growth in a safe space to do so. Leadership Pathway’s process made it super easy.

If I was sitting at the table with senior leaders wondering about residency, I would say that having residency at their churches is a really good idea because it can help various ministries at their churches grow, while simultaneously raising up the next generation of church leaders.

Leaving the community I had at college, where I was deeply connected, was a challenge when I first began my residency. Though, it’s not always easy to find friends my age, I cherish the connections I have that much more.

After college, I struggled to land a job as a youth pastor. I was searching for something to help propel me into a job, and that is where Leadership Pathway stepped in. I currently serve as a Student Ministry Resident at Rocky Mountain Christian Church, just north of Denver.

Right before I graduated high school, God opened my eyes to what he had been doing in my life up to that point. He had provided experiences that not only helped me develop as a musician and a leader but guided me towards a heart of service.

I am currently a full-time ministry resident for the Online Campus at Real Life Church in Santa Clarita, CA. I chose to do a residency through Leadership Pathway because I felt that the protection and care that they offered in assisting me to find a church that was a good fit for me was unmatched.

Leadership Pathway helped me with my next step after college by getting connected to where I now serve as a Production Resident at Waters Edge Church, a multi-site church in Yorktown, VA.

I really had no intentions of ever being in ministry. I had always wanted to be a manager of a company, and that’s what I pursued in college. I loved my last job, where I was able to share Christ with my coworkers nearly every day. I thought that was God’s plan for me, until I realized that God was laying it on my heart to do more for the church through full-time ministry.

I knew when I was 13 that God was calling me to ministry. I want to give students and kids the experience I grew up with. I want to be part of teaching the next generation about Christ. I had so many awesome leaders in my life, and I want to be that for someone else!

I think the hardest part for me is learning all of these new skills that I have never done before. I want to know it all. I want to be able to do things right the first time and provide detailed answers when someone asks what would be best for their church. Blocking out this fear of failure has been a challenge for me, but Residency has taught me to take on the new challenges and learn from my mistakes in the process.

I’m (Steve) a read-the-instructions kind of guy, so I thoroughly read the Leadership Pathway materials and asked lots of questions. These are some specific thoughts we learned and began to value in this process:

1 It’s not about what a resident can do for us but what we can do for them.

2 We had to anticipate and embrace our roles as a supervisor, coach, and PARENT.

My leadership journey began when I was in high school, volunteering as a Sunday school teacher and in college, leading some high school girls in my church. For about a year, I began praying about God’s call on my life to ministry. I knew I needed to be obedient to trust Him and take that leap into ministry. I hadn’t actually pursued a ministry degree while in college, so I didn’t quite know the right route to take. I searched for internships and residency programs.

Residency has provided me the courage to pursue ministry rather than continue only as a volunteer; plus, learning leadership soft skills has been much more valuable to me than any time I spent in a classroom while enrolled at a Christian college.

Currently, I serve as a Worship Resident at the Lexington, KY campus of Crossroads Church (Cincinnati, OH). From the beginning, residency has been a challenge, but in the absolute best way that is making me grow and get better! I have known for a long time that God called me to be a worship leader, and now I am in a position to do everything I can to make that a reality.

Leadership Pathway connected me to Community Christian Church in the Atlanta suburb of Sharpsburg, GA. I was taken by their motto as a church ‘for the rest of us.’

You should look for a residency program like this one, and if you’re at all considering ministry, I’d say that’s probably the Holy Spirit nudging you to do this.

When I first began in residency, theology and doctrine were the most important things to me. Now that I have experienced what ministry really is, I understand that relational skills, leadership, and counseling are just as important.

Residency has been transformational for me. 
My journey towards leadership began with my desire to not lead, yet I moved forward with a sense of responsibility and an attitude of obedience and heart to follow God no matter what, even if that meant feeling uncomfortable or out of my element.

Here’s my conversation executive pastors Bryan Carter of Crossroads Cincinnati, Greg Gilmore of Owensboro Christian Church, Chris Hahn of Southland in Lexington, KY and Bart Stone of Momentum Church in Atlanta. All went to college together, all began in kids ministry (I didn’t actually even know that until this conversation), and all have sustain ministry for the better part of 25 years.