Career Opportunities

  • Associate Pastor
  • Author
  • Chaplaincy
  • Counselor
  • Evangelist
  • Family Ministry
  • Lead Pastor
  • Ministry Leader
  • Outreach Ministry
  • Parachurch Ministries
  • Professor
  • Teacher
  • Social Media Ministry
  • Youth /Young Adult Ministry Leader

What to Expect

Travel/Global Trips

  • Honduras Global Ministry and Benevolence Global Trip  
  • Israel Study Abroad  
  • Selected students are invited to travel to Chicago in the summer for a three-week inner-city immersion experience supported by the Scholl Foundation. 

Club/Social

  • Theta Alpha Kappa 
  • Pi Alpha Sigma (Koine Greek) 
  • TAK - STM Honor Society 

Awards/Honors

  • STM Award – pending faculty vote 
  • Discipline Award – by nomination of PASM Discipline Coordinator  

Service

Service learning is embedded in several courses. Art students have many service opportunities in graphic design, teaching art lessons, painting murals, and creating portraits for people in undeserved communities.

Capstone

The Capstone course is designed to help graduating students integrate their faith with the academic knowledge they have gained throughout their studies. It is regarded as the final reflection of the essential Core Values of Lee University. All STM majors take a capstone class just prior to graduation (RELG 495). 

Home/Location

Students spend the majority of their time in the STM Building and STM Commons area. 

Internships/Practicum

Required 8 week/150 hours after completion of all pre-requisites typically at 60+ academic hours. 

Want a Scholarship?

Lee University offers a wide variety of scholarships for all our schools and programs.

See Scholarships

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore

Internships in the School of Theology & Ministry are well-designed, guided, learning field experiences within a church, ministry, or other previously approved site under the direction of trained faculty and experienced staff members at the internship site.  The primary focus is “hands on training” in the area of the student’s major.  While some internships might be for the student a “watch us while we do”, our internship models are designed to give you actual training in your area of major, utilizing your classroom academic training.   It is the “best of both worlds”; it is “theory” + “practice”.  We call this “Praxis”, the integration of theory and practice. Typical internships are eight to ten weeks in duration. Forms for students to apply for an internship or for churches to submit an application to host an internship are located among the resources at the bottom of this page.

LAB Churches

These are a small select group of churches in the Cleveland, TN area that have entered into partnership with Lee STM, to provide a great internship experience locally.

HUB Churches/Ministries

These are churches/ministries outside the Cleveland area where substantive partnerships have been arranged. It is possible the student can spend as little as 8 weeks or an entire semester at one of these “hubs”, depending on the student’s internship goals. There are no differences in a “Lab Church” internship and “Hub” internship other than location.

Resources

Student Application

All students are required to complete/submit this application one semester prior to the intended internship date.View Student Application

Church Application

Church applications are completed by the local church/ministry and available for the student to scan sites to narrow their choices of internship locations. View Church Application

Internship Manual

A manual designed primarily for churches to address the core issues and questions of a student’s internship. View Internship Manual

STMN390

To find your syllabus for STMN390 CLICK HERE

Student Appeals for Internships

If you would like to make an appeal to the STM Leadership team regarding the location of your internship, please complete this document.

Mentoring

The School of Theology & Ministry Peer Mentoring Program was an idea developed by President Mark Walker when he was the Vice President for Ministerial Development and chair of the Christian Ministries Department.  Dr. Walker’s desire was to see incoming STM students make a meaningful connection with their STM peers who recently journeyed where they are.

Mentor Next is a Peer Mentoring program designed to provide ongoing support to incoming School of Theology & Ministry students, both freshmen and transfer, by matching them with a peer mentor, also from the School of Theology & Ministry.  Peer mentors are trained and encouraged to make a quick connection with their mentees and to provide consistent spiritual encouragement, care and guidance.  Peer Mentors seek to accomplish this by building relationships through meeting, listening, praying, and answering questions.  Mentor Next is a 2-year program utilizing Freshmen/Sophomores as mentees and Juniors/Seniors as mentors.

For more information, contact the Mentor Next Coordinator, Dr. Kevin Nordby

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore

The School of Theology & Ministry exists to teach ministers and leaders to learn biblical and theological content as well as ministry skills; to love God with their minds and hearts and their neighbors as themselves; to lead others in the cause of Christ in the church and world in order to be agents of God’s transforming work in the power of the Spirit.

We cannot truly love what we do not know rightly. Everything we do in the STM revolves around that principle. Our highly trained faculty are deeply committed to the Lordship of Christ and life in the church. Our low student-teacher ratio means that our students receive a high level of care, attention, and mentorship inside and outside of the classroom. Students who study with us acquire the vocabulary to express and explain their beliefs and religious experiences, which are continually enriched through living and learning together.

God desires to redeem the world through Jesus Christ and has commissioned the church as His Spirit-filled witnesses to fulfill this mission in the earth. The future of the church depends on educated and equipped servant leaders; therefore, we believe that spiritually empowered, academically informed, and practically trained graduates are imperative to the mission of God's redeeming work in the world.

 

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore

The phrase “complex world” is a common one used to describe the contemporary environment in which the Christian church is called to minister. This phrase is true on so many levels—the complexity of information swirling on media and social media, the complexity of pluralism in our national settings, the complexity of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who have little interest, the complexity of navigating the rapid shift of cultural movements while listening to the voice of God’s Spirit. All these complexities point toward a need for future ministers to be educated in a variety of topics and methods for best serving the advancement of the Kingdom of God in this world.

Training future ministers for service in this complex world is precisely why the School of Theology & Ministry at Lee University exists.

  • Students engage in learning various methods for sharing the Gospel in today’s world, for training disciples of Christ, for leading the local church toward effective ministry.
  • They learn how to interpret the Bible and communicate the truths found there to their churches and the world.
  • They explore what it means to be a Christian in today’s world within a community of professors and other students who share a common goal—learning how best to represent Jesus Christ in this complex world.
  • Our professors in the School of Theology & Ministry have over three-hundred years of ministry experience, hold degrees from prized universities and seminaries, and stand ready to share from their depth of experience in scholarship and ministry with you.

A “complex world” requires a thorough preparation for ministry in such contexts. We believe that the training you receive here in the School of Theology & Ministry will advance you well along toward that goal.

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore

The religion core courses operate at the center of the liberal arts enterprise. These foundational courses in Bible, theology and ethics promote a thoughtful appropriation of historic Christian faith that catalyzes a Christ-centered study of all the disciplines in the university, nurtures faithful discipleship within the Church, cultivates a sensitivity to the activity of the Spirit of God in the world, and encourages human responses to that action.

Faculty from the School of Theology & Ministry (STM) are engaged in delivering the Religion Core to majors from across the university. 

The Religion Core comprises coursework in:

  • Message of the Old Testament
  • Message of the New Testament
  • Introduction to Theology
  • Introduction to Christian Ethics

For students majoring in the STM, the religion core consists of:

  • Old Testament Survey
  • New Testament Survey
  • Systematic Theology 1
  • Systematic Theology 2
  • Christian Ethics: (NOTE:  there is a specific STM Ethics course that must be completed which is different than the standard Christian Ethics.   It is still THEO231, but STM specific and only offered in the Fall semester).
  • RELG495 Capstone

Majors in the disciplines within Christian Ministries (listed below) have been designed to allow the student to choose any 18-hour minor on campus.  Adjustments to the requirements for these majors are made so that the addition of the minor can be made without extending the time required to complete the degree program.  For example, a youth major might add a music minor (18 hours); a pastoral ministry major might add a theology minor (18 hours) and still graduate with the normal 120 hour degree requirements.     

The following majors have accompanying vocational tracks:

Similar vocational tracks are also available within the discipline of theology.

Theological Studies, Bi-Vocational Track (THSBV.BA)
Theological Studies, Bi-Vocational Track (THSBV.BS)

This is a double major option wherein a streamlined version of the Biblical and Theological Studies major is coupled with a second major of the student’s choice from any department at Lee. There are two iterations of this track.

Theological and Professional Studies (THSPS.BS)

In this track, instead of a dual major, students combine the streamlined theology major with two minors from academic departments across the university. This program does not require foreign language study.


Youth Ministry prepares students to work with adolescents in local church and para-church ministries. The program includes elements of both the discipleship ministry and pastoral ministry programs, while incorporating courses designed to specifically address the problems faced by youth ministers.


The vocational track includes the minor of the student’s choice, to simultaneously prepare for non-ministerial vocations.

Career Opportunities

  • Youth Ministry
  • Author
  • Children/Youth Non-Profit Leader/Director
  • Children/Youth Camping Ministry Leader/Director
  • Counselor
  • Family Ministry Pastor
  • Ministry Leader
  • Pastor
  • Professor
  • Teacher
  • Social Media Director/Coordinator
  • Youth/Young Adult Pastor

What to Expect

Weekend Sunday Shadowing

Weekend Sunday Shadowing, or WSS, is a weekend experience offered one time every semester where faculty and students visit a church, typically within a one-hour drive of Cleveland. The students and faculty visit on Saturday to interact with the church staff, do Q & A sessions, and have lunch. The day typically lasts from 9 a.m. – noon. Then on Sunday, the group returns to the church to “job shadow” respective staff members. Pastoral majors “shadow” the pastor, youth majors “shadow” the youth ministry, and so on, to see how the church functions “behind the scenes” during a service. Both the Saturday morning and Sunday morning components are required to receive credit for that weekend, in addition to a short post-event questionnaire. Students are required to complete four of these events during their four years at Lee.

Travel/Global Trips

  • Honduras Global Ministry and Benevolence Global Trip
  • Israel Study Abroad
  • Selected students are invited to travel to Chicago in the summer for a three-week inner-city immersion experience supported by the Scholl Foundation.

Club/Social

  • Theta Alpha Kappa
  • Pi Alpha Sigma (Koine Greek)
  • TAK - STM Honor Society

Awards/Honors

  • STM Award – pending faculty vote
  • Discipline Award – by nomination of YTHM Discipline Coordinator

Capstone

The Capstone course is designed to help graduating students integrate their faith with the academic knowledge they have gained throughout their studies. It is regarded as the final reflection of the essential Core Values of Lee University. All STM majors take a capstone class just prior to graduation (RELG 495).

Home/Location

Students spend the majority of their time in the STM Building and STM Commons area.

Internships/Practicum

Required 8 week/150 hours after completion of all pre-requisites typically at 60+ academic hours.

Want a Scholarship?

Lee University offers a wide variety of scholarships for all our schools and programs.

See Scholarships

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore


Pastoral Ministry prepares students to serve as lead, associate, or assistant pastors by teaching them to develop ministry principles based on biblical guidelines. Courses cover topics such as preaching, worship, theology, leadership, counseling, and ministry.

The vocational track includes the minor of the student’s choice, to simultaneously prepare for non-ministerial vocations.

Career Opportunities

  • Associate Pastor
  • Author
  • Chaplaincy
  • Counselor
  • Evangelist
  • Family Ministry
  • Lead Pastor
  • Ministry Leader
  • Outreach Ministry
  • Parachurch Ministries
  • Professor
  • Teacher
  • Social Media Ministry
  • Youth /Young Adult Ministry Leader

What to Expect

Weekend Sunday Shadowing

Weekend Sunday Shadowing, or WSS, is a weekend experience offered one time every semester where faculty and students visit a church, typically within a one-hour drive of Cleveland. The students and faculty visit on Saturday to interact with the church staff, do Q & A sessions, and have lunch. The day typically lasts from 9 a.m. – noon. Then on Sunday, the group returns to the church to “job shadow” respective staff members. Pastoral majors “shadow” the pastor, youth majors “shadow” the youth ministry, and so on, to see how the church functions “behind the scenes” during a service. Both the Saturday morning and Sunday morning components are required to receive credit for that weekend, in addition to a short post-event questionnaire. Students are required to complete four of these events during their four years at Lee.

Travel/Global Trips

  • Honduras Global Ministry and Benevolence Global Trip  
  • Israel Study Abroad  
  • Selected students are invited to travel to Chicago in the summer for a three-week inner-city immersion experience supported by the Scholl Foundation. 

Club/Social

  • Theta Alpha Kappa 
  • Pi Alpha Sigma (Koine Greek) 
  • TAK - STM Honor Society 

Awards/Honors

  • STM Award – pending faculty vote 
  • Discipline Award – by nomination of PASM Discipline Coordinator  

Service

Service learning is embedded in several courses. Art students have many service opportunities in graphic design, teaching art lessons, painting murals, and creating portraits for people in undeserved communities.

Capstone

The Capstone course is designed to help graduating students integrate their faith with the academic knowledge they have gained throughout their studies. It is regarded as the final reflection of the essential Core Values of Lee University. All STM majors take a capstone class just prior to graduation (RELG 495). 

Home/Location

Students spend the majority of their time in the STM Building and STM Commons area. 

Internships/Practicum

Required 8 week/150 hours after completion of all pre-requisites typically at 60+ academic hours. 

Want a Scholarship?

Lee University offers a wide variety of scholarships for all our schools and programs.

See Scholarships

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore

This program is designed to help students serve in cross-cultural communities as agents of transformation. They will be equipped with the tools to design and implement mission methodologies, holistic models of ministry, effective strategies to communicate gospel truth, and knowledge to grasp and engage difficult global issues.

This program is designed to help students serve in cross-cultural communities as agents of transformation. They will be equipped with the tools to design and implement mission methodologies, holistic models of ministry, effective strategies to communicate gospel truth, and knowledge to grasp and engage difficult global issues. This vocational track allows students to incorporate a minor of their choice with their Global Transformation Track. Popular choices are Spanish, Non-Profits, Counseling, etc.

This program is designed to prepare students to fulfill their calling as culturally sensitive advocates of the gospel and teachers of English language learners in cross-cultural settings whether in the USA or around the world. Students will study mission methodologies, holistic models of ministry, effective strategies to communicate gospel truth, and knowledge to grasp and engage difficult global issues while also studying courses in the TESOL degree to become effective ESL teachers.

Career Opportunities

  • Author
  • Chaplaincy
  • Community Development
  • Crisis Relief
  • Domestic/International Nonprofit (NGO’s)
  • Foreign Service Diplomat
  • Government Work
  • Humanitarian Aid
  • International Development
  • Missionary
  • Overseas Business
  • Professor
  • Refugee Resettlement Work
  • Rescue Missions Leader
  • Social Media Ministry
  • Teacher
  • Urban Ministry

What to Expect

Weekend Sunday Shadowing

Weekend Sunday Shadowing, or WSS, is a weekend experience offered one time every semester where faculty and students visit a church, typically within a one-hour drive of Cleveland. The students and faculty visit on Saturday to interact with the church staff, do Q & A sessions, and have lunch. The day typically lasts from 9 a.m. – noon. Then on Sunday, the group returns to the church to “job shadow” respective staff members. Pastoral majors “shadow” the pastor, youth majors “shadow” the youth ministry, and so on, to see how the church functions “behind the scenes” during a service. Both the Saturday morning and Sunday morning components are required to receive credit for that weekend, in addition to a short post-event questionnaire. Students are required to complete four of these events during their four years at Lee.

Travel/Global Trips

  • Micro-Internships which are comprised of a 2-to-3-week immersion experience either in the USA or overseas.
  • Required 10-week international internship. (This is usually taken in the summer of your junior year.)
  • Israel Study Abroad (Optional Trip)

Club/Social

  • Theta Alpha Kappa 
  • Pi Alpha Sigma (Koine Greek) 
  • TAK - STM Honor Society 
  • Missions Alive is the Intercultural Studies Ministry club 

Awards/Honors

  • STM Award – pending faculty vote  
  • Discipline Award – by nomination of ICSP Discipline Coordinator  
  • Intercultural Studies does not have a unique honors society; however, students are invited to join the TAK Honors society for STM Majors 
  • Intercultural Studies Majors compete for the three university awards annually: Charles Paul Conn Award; F. J. Lee Award; Zeno C. Tharp Award.

Service

  • Service projects are embedded in several Intercultural Studies courses during the course of a four-year study program. Some of these trips necessitate overnight stays.
  • The Contemporary World Religions class requires a mandatory one-day trip to select religious sites in the course each school year.
  • Multiple opportunities are provided to engage and serve marginalized communities.

Capstone

The Capstone course is designed to help graduating students integrate their faith with the academic knowledge they have gained throughout their studies. It is regarded as the final reflection of the essential Core Values of Lee University. All STM majors take a capstone class just prior to graduation (RELG 495). 

Home/Location

Students spend the majority of their time in the STM Building and STM Commons area. 

Internships/Practicum

Intercultural Studies Majors are required to complete a 10-week cross-cultural Internship at the end of the junior year in the summer in a context different from their own. Usually this experience takes place in a foreign country outside of the USA. 

Want a Scholarship?

Lee University offers a wide variety of scholarships for all our schools and programs.

See Scholarships

Explore The Campus Through
Our Interactive 3D Map

Explore