Future Leader,
We planted Frontier Church 9 years ago, and it has been a whirlwind of gospel and leadership ever since day one. We created the Frontier Residency in order to take on passionate future leaders who want hands-on experience in ministry and church leadership. This one year residency is designed to provide you with 3 things: theological training, personal leadership & church leadership.
We get 10-15 hours of your time every week, and you get $1250/month (or a total of $15,000 for the year). There is built in flexibility for the starting date and ending date, as well as the curriculum of the residency, based on the individual candidate.
Gospel-Hungry, Steel-Spined Joy Mongers:
An ideal candidate would meet 5 qualifications:
A passion for the gospel: We don’t do fluff. We don’t do self-help spirituality. We want to train leaders who believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ (his saving death on the cross to forgive our sins and cover us with his righteousness) is at the center of every square inch of his life. We preach gospel-centered sermons, we sing gospel-centered songs, we pray gospel-centered liturgies, and we launch gospel-centered communities, so if you’re just a consumeristic religious person, our residency will chew you up and spit you out.
A passion for Joy: We want to train leaders who fight for joy in their leadership. The ideal candidate is the type of person who is a theological bookworm, but he’s also down-to-earth. He can happily disappear for days inside of a John Calvin commentary, but he can also laugh louder than anyone in the room. This guy knows that Jesus does not merely make theology nerds, but also gives his people “fullness of joy” (Psalm 16).
A passion for mission: If you want a cushy Christian bubble, keep scrolling. We want to train leaders who want to reach the big, bad unbelieving world. The ideal candidate is not comfortable spending all of his time with church people, but he lives with an awareness that God has called him to bring the gospel to the world. Our church does not exist for itself but for the sake of our city, and so you’ll be a fish out of water if you think you exist for yourself.
Allergic to cowardice: We want to train leaders who don’t want to play it safe. By definition, leadership exists to take people where they need to go NOT where they want to go (otherwise there is no need for leadership). The ideal candidate knows there will be conflict, hardship and he expects to roll up his sleeves and run into the mess. You can’t be a jerk (read your Bible), but you also can’t run away from tough conversations. If you don’t want more steel in your spine, you’re not the right fit.
An emerging church leader: We want to train leaders who could potentially see themselves as future pastors or church staff members. This does not mean that they need to be on staff or become a pastor at Frontier Church after the residency. We are more than happy to develop leaders who go lead churches somewhere outside of Iowa or go plant churches somewhere outside of Des Moines.