Virtual Internships: The View from Inside a ‘Ministry Incubator’
Thomas and Christina provide an inside look at Crescent Project’s new virtual internship program through an interview with podcast host Rashidah (listen to the full interview).
Thomas Messick is director of the virtual internship program, and Christina is an intern from the program’s first cohort in 2021. The program, which is conducted remotely, involves four months of hands-on training and one-on-one coaching geared towards serving Muslims and other unreached people.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Rashidah: Thomas, what’s the vision for the internship program? Why was it created and who was it created for?
Thomas: We started working on this at the beginning of 2021. Steve Helm, our COO, had a vision in his mind, and we started hashing this out on a weekly basis from January all the way through July, just trying to figure out what an internship might look like.
We envisioned an intensive, hands-on experience for committed Christians interested in becoming spiritual leaders and trailblazers in Muslim ministry. What we had in mind was to combine the head along with the hands and the heart. We wanted interns not just to learn things, but to do things. And we wanted them to come alongside our Crescent Project staff, who have experience ministering to Muslims in partnership with local churches.
What we had in mind was to combine the head along with the hands and the heart. We want interns not just to learn things, but to do things.
We came up with four core competencies that we wanted to see developed in our interns:
The first is to competently and graciously engage Muslims with the gospel. We want our interns to be able to share the gospel with Muslims in a loving way – in a way that makes sense to them and engages with their worldview and their background.
A second core competency is the ability to coach and empower local churches to reach out to Muslims in the intern’s area. The local church is central in training other Christians on how to reach out to Muslims.
Our third core competency is the ability to comparatively analyze Christianity and Islam. There are areas of similarity between Christianity and Islam, but a lot of things that aren't so similar. We walk through with interns what these things are and how to critically evaluate them.
And then the last core competency involves helping interns remove cultural barriers in sharing the gospel with Muslims.
People sometimes wonder what we mean by virtual internship. It means that the internship training and coaching is done remotely; you can do it from anywhere in the world. It doesn’t even have to be in the United States, and going forward we’ll be taking in people from around the world.
It's also made to be very flexible for folks who are working, like Christina. She worked all the way through her internship experience and attended our weekly zoom calls on her lunch break.
We meet for one hour each week on Wednesday. Most of the assignments can be completed during the evenings and weekends. Typically it should take around eight hours a week or so to complete the assignments.
Rashidah: You mentioned the internship is for people who want to be trailblazers and pioneers and mobilizers. Are there any other specifics about who the internship is for?
Thomas: The internship is targeting younger people – Millennials and Generation Z – but we’re open to a range of backgrounds and levels of experience.
One of our previous interns was relatively “green”. She had little exposure to Muslim ministry, but thought maybe the Lord wanted her to work with Muslims. She really jumped on board and God stretched her. She began talking to Muslims and talking to churches about Muslim ministry.
We’ve had other folks that came on with a bit more experience, but regardless of ministry background, we’re looking for people who are saying, “Hey, what does God want me to do with my life? Where am I going here?” And they’re trying to figure out if reaching Muslims is a part of their future.
We’re looking for people who are saying, “What does God want me to do with my life? Where am I going here?” – and trying to figure out if reaching Muslims is part of their future.
The internship is a safe space for four months where you can think through things. It’s a chance to learn about who Muslims are and what they believe, to learn about the local church, and to experiment with different ways of doing ministry. Our goal is to have folks think seriously about reaching out to Muslims in some kind of ongoing ministry after the internship. Or maybe at the end of it, an intern may decide, “I need to go and reach out to Hindus.” That’s great too! The point is that interns end up engaging in ongoing ministry; and there are two ways we help interns develop something sustainable.
One way is by helping them form what we call a Philosophy of Ministry. The Philosophy of Ministry helps interns frame their theology, their theory, and their practice – to integrate what they’ve learned into their ministry.
Developing a Philosophy of Ministry includes helping interns understand some of the debates in Muslim ministry. Sometimes we want to think of ministry very simplistically – as “just loving people.” But when you start getting into ministry, you run into very complex issues, particularly with ministry to Muslims. There are lots of diverging views about how to effectively reach Muslims. Some are really focused on apologetics – on intellectual defense of the faith, or on challenging beliefs in Islam.
On the other side, we have ministry approaches centered on friendship and building loving relationships. And I think that's where Christina is. She's a loving, friendly person. We help interns think through how God has wired them, but also we challenge them to think through different approaches to ministry.
The other way we help interns develop an ongoing ministry is by having them come up with what we call an Internship Ministry Plan. Our interns live in a variety of contexts. For example, some are in bigger cities and some in smaller cities. The way you can approach ministry varies based on the opportunities locally, so we explore what types of ministry ideas might work in the intern’s context.
After a plan is developed, the implementation is supported by coaching from Crescent Project staff. Coaching is a big part of the internship program. Every intern is assigned a highly-experienced Crescent Project coach, and the two touch base on a weekly basis. It doesn't have to be a long drawn-out discussion every week – it might just be a text, or a simple phone call – but the coach walks with the intern for a four-month period to answer questions and to challenge them.
Coaching is a big part of the internship program. Every intern is assigned a highly-experienced Crescent Project coach, and the two touch base on a weekly basis.
We’re also adding a new feature to the internships going forward. We’re helping interns connect with a local coach as well, perhaps a trusted friend or local pastor, to supplement the input from the Crescent Project coach and to help the intern complete the program and carry ministry forward.
Rashidah: Christina, how did you hear about the internship program and what inspired you to participate?
Christina: I kind of laughed when Thomas mentioned the intern who was “green”, because I think he might have been talking about me!
I don’t have a lot of mission-oriented things in my background, outside of normal mission trips with the local church – things like going outside the community and helping clean up after weather disasters.
But I specifically got interested in Muslim ministry and felt called to go overseas in the Middle East, and was preparing for that. I found Crescent Project and their podcast, and eventually stumbled on this internship and thought, “Wow, this is a great thing to get me ready to go overseas.”
One of my biggest takeaways from the internship experience, though, is that I don't have to wait to go overseas to do Muslim ministry. The tools that this internship gives you are comprehensive – they’re not just limited to “Hey, here's what you can do when you find yourself in the Middle East, around Muslims.” The internship is about empowering us to get involved right where we’re at.
I was exposed to Embassy, one of Crescent Project’s Digital Outreach ministries, during the internship. Embassy facilitates online connections with Muslims all over the world, and I thought it was fantastic. I didn’t know it was possible to get involved in Muslim ministry right away, but the internship showed those opportunities and provided practical tools to engage them.
I like what Thomas said about combining the head and the hands and the heart, because when I first came across the internship, those things weren’t really connected and I was confused about what steps to take in ministry.
The internship really solidified all those things and helped me hone in on the type of work I want to do, and where I want to do it, and how I want to do it. So I loved the experience that I had.
The internship really helped clarify things for me: I was able to hone in on the type of ministry I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it. I loved the experience I had.
Rashidah: Do you feel like God clarified that vision for serving in the Middle East, or here in the United States?
Christina: I think it did. I'm still pursuing overseas ministry and wanting to go on a short-term mission trip. But I also think God redefined the ministry possibilities for me, through the work that Crescent project does in the United States, and the work we can do outside the United States through the internet. Every door can be open if God wants to open it.
Thomas: Yes, and God has a way of surprising us and changing plans. I’ll share a story as an example.
We had an intern who lived in the mountains, in a remote area. There are virtually no Muslims around him. And he’s thinking, “There are hardly any Muslims here. What am I going to do?” Then something remarkable happened. Right in the middle of the semester, Afghan refugees start being resettled across the United States, and refugees end up being resettled in his mountain town.
And so midway through the experience, the intern completely changed his plans. He had been focused on online ministry through Embassy, and he decided to pivot and focus on preparing churches to receive Afghan refugees. He ended up producing a really well-done video to help train churches in ministering to refugees.
So I think Christina's right. The Lord opens our eyes to possibilities that are different from what we thought, sometimes by using world events.
Rashidah: Christina, what else did God teach you? Are there any stories or lessons that you'd like to share?
Christina: The Crescent Project coaches were a life-saver for me. I was in the middle of preparing for a move overseas, but I didn’t know if it was right for me. My coaches really encouraged me and empowered me. They told me to persevere and do what I could, and that God is going to use whatever I have.
I have a lot of insecurity – I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel qualified to be an effective evangelist that goes out, shares the gospel, and leads someone to Christ. But I was reminded that feeling unqualified doesn’t mean God can’t make me qualified. I know the message, I know the messenger, I have the Spirit of the living God in me, and that makes me qualified.
I was reminded that feeling unqualified doesn’t mean God can’t make me qualified. I know the message, I know the messenger, I have the Spirit of the living God in me – and that makes me qualified.
I think this internship for me was just really about empowering me to feel qualified. To just take a risk, to simply share what I know.
I also felt I learned to empower other people in the same way, which I hadn’t done before. As interns we learned to encourage the people around us, including people in our church. One of my big ministry projects for the internship was teaching a class in my church to get other people excited about ministry.
And I’ve been telling people, it’s not just ministry to Muslims; it's anybody in your area. If you find yourself in an area heavy with Hindus, heavy with atheists, with whatever – get engaged. God has given you a mission field, no matter where you live.
I also developed more confidence in approaching people I would normally hesitate to approach. For example, with Muslim women, a lot of them just want to be seen. And I think there's a need to be seen by Christians. They don't want to be dismissed, and they don't want us to get uncomfortable and pretend like we don’t see them.
I learned how to be more confident and to approach a Muslim woman and say, “Oh my goodness, I love your hijab!” and start a conversation. Like everyone, they want to be seen and respected.
I learned to be more confident, to approach a Muslim woman and say, “Oh my goodness, I love your hijab!” and start a conversation. Like everyone, they want to be seen and respected.
Thomas: Our Women's Director here at Crescent project talked with our interns about how to minister to Muslim women, and she shared that for some Muslim women, particularly in the culture where she grew up overseas, the families don’t say “I love you” to each other. Expressions of love are kind of absent. And she really emphasized that these ladies simply want to be loved, and to know what the love of God is.
Ministering to Muslim women is one of many topics we discuss with interns. You can see the latest syllabus at crescentproject.org/internships for more examples.
Other aspects of the program include weekly prayer for a Muslim people group. There's a little bit of an outreach component. There's some church mobilization. We assign some videos and readings. We cover the Bridges Study. There's a small writing component, which is tied to that Philosophy of Ministry I mentioned earlier.
We spend time critically analyzing authoritative Islamic sources, like the Quran and the Hadith, and we look at Muhammad’s life. We have a little section on historical progression of and globalization of Islam. And then of course, some theology – reviewing the Christian and Islamic understandings of humanity, sin, salvation, the nature of God, Christ, the place of women, and so on.
All interns gain access to our most intensive training, called Sahara Challenge, which provides a lot of this background information, as well as practical guidance on ministering to Muslims.
Going forward, we also want to provide more guidance on working with local churches. We want to help interns learn how to approach a missions pastor and be able to share a vision with them.
For those interested in the internship, the place to start is the interest form at crescentproject.org/internships. After you fill out the short interest form, we may ask you some follow up questions, and then invite you to fill out the full application. We then get in touch with applicants to let them know if they’ve been accepted.
Personally, I want be zealous for Jesus, so I want to see our interns zealous for the glory of Christ among all peoples, including people from Muslim backgrounds. And so we're here to help you on your journey, wherever God calls you to go and whatever he calls you to do.
I want be zealous for Jesus, so I want to see our interns zealous for the glory of Christ among all peoples, including people from Muslim backgrounds.
Christina: The internship costs $1,000, so I actually used the internship as an opportunity to recruit other people. I sold some goods to kind of invest, to get other people invested in my journey. That’s what helped make the internship possible for me. It’s a chance to pull other people into this work and get them excited and enthusiastic about how God's going to use them.
Rashidah: It sounds like a wonderful opportunity to grow and to be challenged and to be equipped and inspired. Christina, would you close us in a word of prayer, especially for people who may be sensing a call from God into Muslim ministry, but they don't know the next step?
Christina: Absolutely!
Jesus, thank you for the opportunity to share about this internship.I'm excited about all the ways that you're using it to equip your saints for the work of ministry.
Lord, as I was thinking about some of my own insecurities, I thought of Zacchaeus. Lord, if somebody is feeling like Zacchaeus, and right now they're kind of up in the tree and they're trying to look and see, “What is this? Can I maybe get a glimpse of this? Can I maybe get a glimpse of the work Jesus is bringing?” Lord, help them see that you're calling them down from the tree and you're giving them the opportunity. And you're saying, “Come have lunch with me. I'm having lunch at your house.”
Lord, help them see that you're calling them down from the tree and you're giving them the opportunity. And you’re saying, “I’m having lunch at your house.”
Let them know you do the work of equipping. You give us the message to share, you give us the ways to share it, Lord. And that's what this internship is all about, equipping your people to be effective in ministry to Muslims, to inspire people, to get more on fire, to share the gospel, to fulfill the great commission wherever we're at Lord.
So we just thank you for this work. I just pray that you'll work in the hearts of those that are still unsure. Lord, you are making a way, just as the friends of the paralytic dug a hole in that roof, you are going to make a way for them to say yes to the work that you have for them. Lord, you haven't completed the work in us, and I believe you're still doing it and we want to embrace it, whatever that means.
So Lord, I just pray that you would inspire, that you would encourage, that you would comfort and bring peace. Because all of us just want to bring honor and glory to you and build your kingdom. Thank you for making us your coworkers in all things. All glory in Jesus’ name.
Thomas: Amen!