Practical Ministry

Challenging Hands-on Weekly Ministry

Each student has the opportunity to work with SUM faculty, local pastors and ministries through practicums, annual Mardi Gras outreach, internships, special events, and evangelism/mission trips.

Practicums

  • All full-time students must complete a minimum of 8 hours per week of supervised ministry practicums. This is typically divided into 2 four-hour practicums. Part-time students are required to complete at least 4 hours per week of student ministry practicums.
  • All students enrolled in the Winter trimester are required to participate in the Mardi Gras Outreach.
  • All student ministry practicums will be under the direct supervision of a practicum leader, who is responsible for teaching, guiding, and evaluating the student’s ministry.
  • In order for any student to receive credit for their weekly practicum ministry, each student is required read assignments and to hand in a student ministry evaluation form and report (one to two typed pages) to the practicum leader the following week.
  • Students are required to complete prayer journals as part of their practicum.
  • Forty hours of practicum are worth 1 credit on a student’s transcript. To graduate, 19 practicum credits are required for both Bachelor of Arts Degrees.
  • A student who fails to complete his/her practicum requirements will be dismissed from the program.

Internships

SUM’s mission is to provide hands-on ministry opportunities in the marketplace, mission field and local church (Mt 28:18-19; Mk 16:15-16; Lk 10:1-3; Jn 4:35-38). The student would work alongside an Internship Leader who is approved by the Dean of Student Ministry or Cohort Advisor who will guide the student to develop a Senior Year Project demonstrative of the student’s call of God and/or course concentration (3 credits).

Process

1. Propose a Senior Year Project that expresses the student’s calling.
2. Collaborate with an Internship Leader about 4 hours/week
3. Submit weekly reports, and at the end of the trimester, publicly display the Senior Year Project.

Mardi Gras Outreach

Annually, SUM students from the main campus and students from across our nation (& from our foreign sites) will converge on the city of New Orleans and participate in an explosive 6-day conference in the morning and street evangelism outreach in the evening. Students will be stirred by the Holy Spirit through worship, prayer and preaching of God’s Word by dynamic visionary leaders and hit the streets as the army of God sharing their faith with the lost.

Summer Missions

SUM encourages students to go to the ends of the earth for Jesus Christ. Students can earn up to 2 credits by completing a Summer Mission Practicum anywhere in the world whether US or overseas. Students will be required to plan for maximization of their mission trip: witnessing, street evangelism and preaching or leading Bible Studies or doing humanitarian works.