MQ: Ministry Experiences

During the Setting Your Sail stage, students are asked to engage in three ministry experiences with the guidance of a pastor in their church. The purpose of these experiences is to help students test their gifts and abilities in a supportive setting with a strong focus on learning from the experience. As in the ministry observations, students need to test different components of ministry – leadership, care ministry and service. Two of the experiences may be one-time events. One experience should be for a longer, concentrated time. Some examples of ministry experiences are:

Leadership
* prepare and lead a portion of a worship service
* lead a worship team rehearsal
* preach part of a sermon
* participate on a planning team to create an event for the church or community
* Initiate and plan a service opportunity for a class or church group
* lead a Bible Study or teach a Sunday School class

Ministry (requiring personal interaction)
* Initiate a visit to a shut-in or hurting person
* Participate in a ministry where you have opportunity to share your faith
* Be a small group leader in a Sunday School or VBS setting
* Encourage someone
* Mentor a younger person

Service (looking beyond self and immediate community)
* Serve the poor
* Clean up a street or neighborhood
* Do an unsolicited act of kindness for someone you don’t know
* Care for under-privileged children
* Fund raise on behalf of someone in need
* Plan and provide technical support for an event (eg. Audio and/or visual)

Concentrated ministry experiences
* Work at camp
* Mission trip
* SOAR or ACTION – programs of MBMS International
* Create and/or direct short vignettes to go along with a sermon series
* Organize VBS
* Create a video to go along with a sermon or series
* Join the worship aids group to create visuals for a sermon series or a liturgical season