Josh Tomlinson is a Senior Pastoral Studies major who is finishing his internship at Lawson Bible Church on Dec 23. “This internship has been such an incredible experience,” said Tomlinson. “I am so grateful that God chose to send me here to serve.”
He has been serving at the church since August 29. His tasks have included working with the youth group on Wednesday nights, serving on the worship team, and doing a little preaching. He has had the opportunity to learn a lot by joining their worship team and playing bass guitar on a weekly basis. He is grateful for how God has challenged him while working in all three capacities. He can see that these opportunities have helped prepare him as he is about to graduate and look for his own ministry in the near future.
Recently he had the opportunity to preach on John 17. Josh has come to the realization that each time he preaches, the word of God impacts him just as much or more as the people in the congregation. He is grateful for each preaching or teaching opportunity he gets because he can see himself maturing and he can also see his teaching and preaching style is being molded.
This specific internship is very special because of the mentoring relationship that has begun to develop between him and Dr. Skip Hessel who is a professor at Calvary. Dr. Hessel is also part of the leadership at Lawson Bible Church. They agreed to get together on Thursdays some time ago to begin talking about the possibility of an internship, but as time has gone by they have started a mentoring relationship that has surpassed just the internship. Now they both take opportunities to truly challenge each other in critical areas when they meet weekly. Josh is grateful for Skip and how he has been impacted personally by him to think deeper and more practically. He is always challenged through the experiences Skip shares.
Overall because of an experience like this, Josh is more confident in who God made him as a person to go and impact the world. We are so grateful to see students like Josh come to Calvary and go through classes, projects, and internships, while they are building relationships that sharpen them as they seek to impact the world for Jesus Christ.
