It’s the time of the year that churches start looking for summer interns. A summer intern program is an excellent way for your church to have some extra help during those low volunteer summer months. It also is a way for young adults feeling a call to ministry to spend several months exploring that call.

Finding and equipping summer interns is not always easy. But having someone else who can pour into your students over three months is incredible if you can make it work.

Recently I sat down with youth leader Cletis Rogers, and we talked about how to find and equip our summer interns. Here’s a link to that podcast.

In there he shared a few ways that you can help set up your summer interns for success.

I encourage you to listen to the whole thing when you get the opportunity. So here I wanted to share some of his suggestions and some of my own on how to support your summer interns.

Provide Information

Before they come to work for you, make sure that they are well aware of everything they need to know. Send them dates off events, expectations of office hours links to your social media so they can get a feel for your group, paperwork to fill out, and anything else they may need. They may not be able to look at all of it until after finals, but it is essential to make sure they at least have access to everything beforehand.

Don’t Start Till the Job Starts

Most of your intern hires will be in college. They have the end of semester projects, finals, moving out of dorms or back for the summer. If your church is not in their home town, they might need some time to spend with family before they spend all summer with your students. Have a firm start date but do not expect them to do a whole lot before then. If they want to get started sooner, that is great but do not expect it from them.

Help Them Adjust to Your Culture

Unless they are working in their home church, your church, town, and culture may be a lot different than what they were used to. I grew up in the fast-paced, concrete and traffic of the Houston area and my first job was in a town with one red light and a Dairy Queen. It was quite a culture shock. Your interns may need some time and help to adjust. Set up some times where they can get to know parents and other church members in a relaxed setting. Give them a little time to adjust on their own once they get there. Do whatever you can to ease the transition.

Define A Win

What is a win? It is crucial for your interns to know, at the end of the day, week or summer that they accomplished their goals. It is good to sit down with them ahead of time and go over your expectations. But make sure to ask them their goals, their hopes and what they want to accomplish. This way everyone knows what they need to do. This does not mean that they, or you, will not be doing other things, but it helps to give an opportunity for accomplishment.

Pray

This is something you do not need to wait till summer to do. Start praying for your intern. Pray for your church, your youth group and that whoever comes is the right person at the right time. Have your youth group and parents be praying for this person before they go and throughout the process. Let them know you are praying for them and encourage others to do so as well.

These are just five ways you can support your summer youth intern. There are many more that could be added to the list. What would you add to the list?

Like I mentioned before go and check out the podcast on Finding and Equipping Summer Youth Interns for more ideas.

This post is reposted from Umylead.com.