Supervised Ministry and Vocational Planning

Expectations of a Supervisor

Supervisors are important partners in the covenant relationships between student, congregation or agency, and the seminary.

Each supervisor must be willing to:

• Submit the site application to the supervised ministry instructor directly.
• The internship hours required are a total of 200 hours per term, or 400 hours for the intensive. For more information, please visit our SMVPO Handbook.
• Complete a required supervisor orientation as a prerequisite for mentoring a student. Orientations are held before the start of the term.
• Develop a learning covenant with the student.
• Assist the student in identifying members of the mentoring team. Most will be members of the congregation.
• Establish and honor regularly scheduled supervisory times with the student and meet with the student once a week for at least an hour. See Weekly Time Log.
• Provide in-process and final assessments.

Supervision Policy:

• A supervisor must not be a spouse or relative of the intern, nor the student’s current pastor.
• Supervisors who plan to be on Sabbatical or plan on retiring during the internship may not serve.

Mentoring Team Information

All internship settings are required to provide 3 to 5 mentors who will meet with the students on a regular basis for feedback and support.

Mentoring Team Requirements:

• The supervisor is not a participant in the mentoring team meetings but should ensure that mentoring team members understand their responsibilities.
• Mentoring team responsibilities are ministry reflection, prayer, support, feedback, vocational discernment, writing mentoring team assessment report is a part of the final assessment.
• The student sets and communicates the agenda for each meeting.
• The mentoring team meeting should occur three times per term.