Verve Prospective Intern Questionnaire
Thank you for your interest in Verve. We’re excited to explore how God can use us together as a team to build a dynamic church that does awesome things for His Kingdom. Below you’ll find a series of questions. Please answer them carefully. They aren’t designed to waste your time but instead to help each of us discern God’s will as we explore whether or not He may want us to work together. Please keep your answers concise, but detailed.
E-mail your completed questionnaire to .
1. Name, address, phone number, e-mail
2. Birth dates for you, and your spouse if married:
3. List every church you have attended regularly since birth. Please list the name, city and state, the church’s denomination, any ministries you were involved with in that church, and if you were paid to perform any of those ministries.
4. List any personality tests you have taken, and how you “scored” on each:
5. Describe your conversion experience. How did you come to know Christ? When and where were you baptized?
6. Describe your calling into ministry. Please indicate whether or not you have been ordained, by what church, and the date.
7. Education: Please list, for you and your spouse, all schools attended after high school, degree received, graduating G.P.A., honors received, extra curricular activities, etc.
8. Do either you or your spouse intend on pursuing your education further? In what?
9. Describe the family upbringing of you and your spouse. Brothers/sisters? What did your parents do? What were they like? What was your childhood like? What were the positive and negative aspects of your childhood household? How many cities did you live in before you were 18? Where did you spend the majority of your childhood years?
10. Family Situation:
a. Are you married? How long?
b. Take a moment and describe your marriage relationship.
c. Have either of you been divorced?
d. List all your children by name, age, and sex. Briefly describe their personalities and your relationship with them.
e. At this point, what are your plans for the future in regard to having more children?
f. How is your spouse supportive of you and your ministry? In what ways does ministry frustrate him/her?
g. What are your spouse’s greatest concerns about the possible move to Verve and/or Vegas?
11. Do you have a good credit rating? Have you ever failed to pay a debt? Are you willing to provide a credit report?
12. Please list your loan debt load beyond your house/rent payment. Please specify amounts and length of each loan payment including all credit card debt.
13. Are you recovering from any addictions? Please describe your recovery.
14. What about Verve compelled you to apply for a position?
15. In your own words describe Verve’s vision and philosophy of ministry. Describe how that fits with your personal philosophy of ministry.
16. What areas in Verve’s basic values and beliefs (as you understand them) are most different from your values and beliefs?
17. Describe what type of internship you hope for at Verve. What ministry(ies) would you hope to work with? What would you hope to do? Would you plan on it being full-time or part-time?
18. Describe your goals for the internship. Is it to prepare you for a permanent role in full-time ministry? Or to someday plant a church? Or just to get the experience of doing ministry with Verve in Las Vegas? Or what?
19. Verve does not pay interns. (We are sometimes able to provide free housing.) Interns must raise their own financial support. Does this concern you? Why or why not? What would your plans be for raising support?
20. What are your spiritual gifts?
21. Tell us about the last three people you led to Christ. How did you meet them? What did you do?
22. Take a moment and really brag. What are your best ministry accomplishments to date? What have you done that people would say, “Man, that was awesome!”?
23. We all make mistakes. What are some failures you’ve experienced in your work/ministry life? If you could rewind the clock, what would you do differently?
24. What circumstances are contributing to you leaving your current position?
25. Have you led a small group before? Did it multiply into another group? Did you have an apprentice?
26. What are your long-term goals in ministry? Do you want to be a senior pastor someday? When?
27. Describe the most difficult time you ever had in ministry. What made this an awful time for you?
28. What do you view as some of the opportunities as well as some of the risks and disadvantages in joining our team at Verve?
29. Please list and briefly describe your core values (5 or less)
30. Describe some of the strongest influences on your life and ministry (philosophy/style/etc.) What books have really impacted you? Speakers? Churches? Mentors? Conferences?
31. Please give us short statements on your beliefs regarding the following issues/beliefs:
a. The Trinity
b. The Church (define, mission of, etc.)
c. The Bible
d. The Divinity of Jesus Christ
e. Jesus as the “only way” to Heaven
f. Charismatic Spiritual Gifts
g. Women serving as elders and senior pastors in the church
h. Universalism (i.e. “Will Buddhists in Pakistan go to Heaven without accepting Christ?”
i. Homosexuality
j. Abortion
k. School prayer
32. Take a moment and describe your personal life.
a. What are the last five books you read?
b. The last five movies you’ve seen?
c. Your favorite TV shows?
d. Your hobbies?
e. Your last five vacations?
f. Favorite foods?
g. Favorite restaurant?
h. Favorite secular music groups?
i. Favorite Christian music groups?
j. What radio stations do you listen to and what kind of music do they play?
k. What kind of car do you drive?
l. Favorite sports teams?
m. Your ideal “night out”?
n. Favorite internet sites?
33. Briefly explain how you would handle the following situations:
a. You discover that a non-Christian couple who attend the small group you lead are not married but living together.
b. You discover that a Christian couple who attend the small group you lead are not married but living together.
c. You’re at the church office when you receive a phone call. The person explains that he/she is gay, and wondering if he/she will be accepted at your church.
d. A person approaches you and asks for you to explain how to become a Christian.
e. After getting to know your neighbor you invite him or her to church. He/she explains to you that they do believe in God, but don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.
f. You discover that a person who serves in an influential position in a ministry you lead is planning on divorcing his/her spouse.
g. A person in the church, of the opposite sex, has called and e-mailed you several times. They now tell you that they have a problem they have to discuss, and ask if you can get together for lunch with them.
h. A person in the church explains to you that he/she is a Christian but has never been baptized and does not need to be.
34. Please list at least six references, with their phone number and e-mail addresses, from a mix of different types of people (Pastors, lay people, Professors, etc.)