Internships

Campus Ministry Training Program

The EC’s two-year Campus Ministry Training Program (CMTP) works uniquely to form recent college graduates for evangelistic ministry.
• Our training starts with the building blocks of evangelistic ministry, and develops to help interns pursue their particular interests.
• We keep local resources local, encouraging trainees whenever possible to return to their home campuses. At the universities they know, where they are known and trusted, they are best able to serve by assisting campus ministry staff.

The first-year trainees receive intensive spiritual formation and education with EC staff and practical training at the Catholic Campus Ministry serving the University of Wisconsin?–?Madison. Trainees develop a heart for ministry and the skills they need to do it. While learning small group leadership and one-on-one discipling, trainees are able to specialize in music, speaking, writing and other areas of interest.

More information on the program is provided below, but first meet our current trainees. Their stories mayl help you discern if God is calling you to the CMTP.
2012 Application Deadline: February 1

Current Missionaries

Cody LeClaire

I’ve been doing EC ministry since I attended my first EC Institute in 2008 in Madison, WI. I learned there that evangelization is an active mission of the Church, and that as a student I had the unique privilege to meet my peers on campus where priest and campus ministers cannot. The workshops equipped and empowered me to share the faith story that I have as a believing Catholic Christian, and invite others into life in Christ.

Returning from that glorious weekend, I brought this practice of sharing “faith stories” to my home campus, Iowa State University; especially to the students on our Outreach Team. I spent the next three years teaching my fellow peers how to discover the significance of their unique story of faith, and helping them develop confidence in sharing it with others. No longer limited by superficial conversation, we grew to know each other personally in a new way. We became comfortable sharing “the reason for our hope” daily in the dorms, cafeterias and classrooms of ISU.

I continued to stay in touch with the EC into my senior year. My campus ministers noted my passion for Catholic evangelization, and engagement in equipping my peers to share the Gospel. They invited me to consider applying for EC’s Campus Ministry Training Program after graduation. As a Landscape Architect student, I was hesitant at first. I had already begun my job search. But after taking time to discern God’s will, especially in prayer and reflecting over my passionate involvement as a student ministry leader, I realized that everything pointed to this internship with the EC.

One of the highlights for me at UW – Madison during this first year of intensive training is the way that work and formation are building up my own prayer life. The EC always teaches that you can’t give what you don’t have. The connection to Christ through daily prayer has been critical. Not only does it help me in my work with students, but daily prayer just makes me more peaceful and confident as a servant of God. Working directly with students on a daily basis, leading small groups, challenging them individually to be steadfast disciples, and seeing their abundant spiritual growth has also been an exhilarating part of the CMTP program.

Regular contact with my home campus ministers and students makes me excited to return to ISU in fall of 2012. Their support has been invaluable to me. They too are excited for my return after my immersion in EC methods and spirituality during this year away. We all hope I may help stir-up a culture of evangelization within the existing, vibrant student community of St. Thomas Aquinas Student Center. Until my return, I have my eyes set upon the goal of learning all that I can from the EC while here in Madison.

Please pray for me and my fellow EC trainees.

Andrew Conway

The EC’s Boston area Evangelization Training Camp during my junior year at Harvard changed my life. I was a little reluctant, but I am in the CMTP program now because of those five days with the EC team. I experienced a sense of spiritual awakening I didn’t even know was possible. When I returned to campus the next fall, I went with a vigor for ministry and a trust in the Lord that I had never known before.

In my senior year, I began to discern my options for my post-college life. As I weighed the pros and cons of lab research, med school, grad school, and a 9-5 office job, the CMTP kept coming back to me. During my time at Harvard, the Catholic Student Association (CSA) had helped me make friends, deepen my faith, and escape from the everyday stresses that plague most college students. I found very appealing the idea of giving back to that same community that had done so much for me.

I decided to apply for the CMTP. After being accepted, it became crystal clear to me that God was calling me to work for the next two years in developing my skills and talent for ministry. Whether I ultimately go onto professional ministry or not, I want to bring the kind of vibrant spiritual life to my future parishes that I experienced through the EC while at Harvard.

The training began on the campus of UW-Madison during a month of education and formation in June. Now I am learning what it takes to be a part of a flourishing campus ministry. In the fall of 2012, I will return to Harvard, equipped with the skills I need to serve my home campus and the students in the CSA .

The first year is great! At the Wisconsin Evangelical Training Camp in August, I began forming connections with students of UW – Madison that continue to grow now that I am on campus. The camp also gave me the opportunity to work with students from all over the country as they learned and practiced some of the same means Jesus used with his followers as he equipped them to spread the Good News.

We have the seeds of that at Harvard in the CSA, but it needs to be strengthened. I pray that when I go back, God helps me to make our one-on-one formation in the CSA as strong as it is here at UW!

Sarah Thompson

I confess! I love my job!

It was just the beginning of May (2011) that I was graduating from Bethel College in Indiana, uncertain of my future and how this whole ‘grown-up’ thing would work. Finishing up my degree in nursing and Spanish, anticipating new beginnings on the horizon, I was seeking God’s gentle promptings.

Little did I know that by the end of the month I would be living in Madison, Wisconsin and working in Catholic campus ministry, no less! How did that happen? Let me expand just a little bit on my journey.

Reflecting on my four years at Bethel I am astonished in the ways I grew. Those were the years of being challenged academically; making crazy late night pizza runs; pushing through painful moments of spiritual growth; and forming lasting friendships. Most importantly, those were the years of discerning joining the Catholic Church and stepping into full, glorious communion with it.

That momentous step of faith forever changed my life and has brought me so much unspeakable beauty. Involved in many ministry opportunities at my local parish, I developed a strong desire to pass on the faith of Christ’s Church that had captivated me.

My initial introduction to the CMTP was through the testimony of people directly affected and discipled by EC staff. The stories and the fruit of EC ministry — conversions and many, many vocations — drew me to more intense prayer and discernment about the possibility of being involved.

I felt an inward call not only to personal conversion and discipleship, but also to direct identification with those who yearn for the same things I do for our church. I want to share the Gospel. I want to walk alongside people striving to live their faith authentically and fully. I want to give hope and love to people who feel as though they have lost or never had them. I want to wake people up from the stupor of this world and help them meet Jesus.

I applied to the CMTP because I know the Evangelical Catholic wants the same things, and really helps it all to happen! Everything I’ve seen so far convinces me that the EC can equip me for mission with the help of God’s Holy Spirit.

Because I attended a Protestant college, my hope is to remain on the UW – Madison campus during my second year to support the EC staff and the evangelistic programs that serve St. Paul’s Catholic Student Center. I will discern this with our Executive Director, Jason Simon, as the time to make the decision arrives. God might call me elsewhere in EC’s expanding network of university ministry alliances.

Wherever I end up in my second year, I know the support, formation and training I receive in this first year will make all things possible in Christ.

Life of an EC Trainee

Train

…under the senior ministry staff at the Evangelical Catholic. Our Executive Directors, Jason and Grace Simon, both earned Master of Divinity degrees from University of Notre Dame. Director of Resource Development Faye Darnall, has over fifteen years of experience in campus ministry and a Master of Divinity from Harvard.

In their first year, trainees receive spiritual formation that can readily be shared with college students, as well as education in the theory of ministry and evangelization. They are challenged to grow in the habits of a disciple. We study a survey of relevant books, articles, and encyclicals. Later, training becomes experiential as trainees begin active ministry on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison, leading small groups and mentoring students one-on-one.

As the year progresses, trainees take on more responsibility. They spear-head projects relevant to their interests. In the past, trainees have focused on event planning, writing and publication production, graphic design, retreat leadership, grant writing and music ministry.

In their second year, trainees return to their alma mater if possible to work alongside the existing campus ministry in strengthening and expanding already established ED ministries, or developing and implementing a vision for evangelization.

Learn

…not only effective and proven methods for evangelization but also professional skills such as crafting presentations; speaking in public; coordinating trips and conferences; writing Bible studies and instructional materials; working with a team; and inspiring and empowering others to take ownership of the call to go and make disciples.

Travel

…around the country and learn how to train students and staff in effective methods of evangelization.

Live

…and work beside other trainees who are experiencing similar growth in discipleship to Jesus Christ and training in the skills of ministry. This co-laboring leads to deep, Christ-centered friendships, fellowship, and community.

Pray

…beside EC staff and fellow trainees for the coming of God’s kingdom on the campuses that you serve. The program forms trainees in lasting practices of daily personal prayer, devotion to Scripture and lectio divina, a deep sacramental life, and reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit. The EC knows that ministry is not merely a job, but a calling that needs to be informed, sustained and strengthened by frequent prayer.

For more information, Click here to listen to a conference call given by Sarah, Andrew and Cody about the life of a missionary.

Interested? Click here to see the brochure. Click here for the 2012-2014 CMTP Application.

Campuses served by the Evangelical Catholic:

Alliance Campuses receive monthly visits, weekly phone calls, guaranteed admittance to our week-long summer Evangelization Training Camps (when facilities limit attendance), and priority placement of alumni in our CMTP program.

National Campus Ministry Evangelization Alliances
• Harvard University
• North Carolina State University
• University of Central Arkansas
• University of Wisconsin –  Madison

Campus Ministries with which we have worked, or are currently working. Many of these will become Alliance ministries in the next five years.
• Iowa State University
• University of Missouri (Mizzou)
• University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• Duke University
• Dayton University
• University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
• University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
• Bentley University – Boston
• San Diego State University
• Wayne State College-Nebraska
• St. Michael’s College – Vermont
• University of Massachusetts – Lowell
• Florida Institute of Technology
• Eastern Illinois University
St. Paul’s Outreach serving:
• Ohio State University
• University of Minnesota
• University of St. Thomas
• Arizona State University
• Texas State University
• Rutgers

Dioceses with which we have worked
• Archdiocese of Chicago
• Archdiocese of Boston
• Archdiocese of Milwaukee
• Diocese of San Diego
• Diocese of Joliet
• Diocese of Raleigh
• Diocese of Madison
• Diocese of Green Bay