Program Detail
Program: Johnson Intern Program
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Directors: Tricia Lindley (Director), Susan Gladin (Intern Formation)
Web Site: www.johnsoninternship.org 		 
The Johnson Intern Program, based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina blends social ministry, intellectual inquiry, and intentional community into a year that enables young adults to explore their spiritual lives within the context of intentional living. Each year eight young adult men and women are recruited for an eleven-month hands-on service placement with Partner Organizations, Servant Leadership training, and spiritual formation. A house, a community food allowance, health insurance and a modest stipend are provided. The goal is to live simply in alliance with the poor. The Orange County Rape Crisis Center, Freedom House Recovery Center, Club Nova, Family Violence and Prevention Center, The Seymour Senior Center, and The Women’s Center are examples of social justice organizations that partner with the Johnson Intern Program to provide placements.
Photos:


2011-12 Interns on ropes course
2011-12 Interns' service project
2010-11 Interns on Opening Retreat

2010-11 Interns on Year End Retreat
Core Training
09-10 Interns

08-09 Interns with Gordon Cosby in DC
07-08 Interns interpret the Last Supper



Intern Story
Word of Mouth
by Stephen Nobles

I was first told about the JIP last September by a good friend of mine, who is also a past JIP intern, Daniel Cenci. Daniel was a parish intern at my church and we became good friends. He is going into the Episcopal priesthood, as I also want to do, and he gave me his definite recommendation to apply for the JIP. In our church’s ordination process, a year of service before seminary is not required but preferred as a part of our discernment. It’s especially encouraged for young single people who have the time and freedom to do so. After hearing about the JIP, I couldn’t think of a better service internship to apply to. When I visited the interns in the Spring and talked to them about their experience in the program I was glad I applied.

The JIP really appealed to me, because it combined intentional community living with spiritual growth and enabled interns to work in placements of social justice and community service. I knew that the program would help me learn how to live out my faith in practical worthwhile ways and give me time to realize if a life of service and ministry was what I truly wanted to pursue.

So far I love my placement at a local senior citizen center. I’m learning so much there. Also, intentional community living with seven other people has been challenging to say the least. However, it’s been rewarding and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The friends I make here will, hopefully, be with me for life. I’ve learned so much from each of them already and I know we will continue to grow together throughout the rest of our internship. Last, but not least, I have fell in love with the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area. It feels more like home everyday.


Intern Story
Servant Leadership – On the Outside
by Amey Victoria Adkins

Service is trendy. It is a good thing to serve others, and really, it’s all the rave. Celebrities link their names and faces with charities. College graduates look away from well-paid opportunities, at least for while, to serve I programs like Teach for America, or the Johnson Intern Program. Working adults make regular commitments to serve in their churches and neighborhoods. And, don’t get me wrong, this is great. But, the reality is, service is trendy. It’s the thing to do. It makes us feel good and it helps other people.

Well, as I reflect on my uber-trendy college resume-on-steroids (seriously), I recall how many service oriented activities I was involved in, and how I was really committed to none of them. That’s right – none. I was a kind of service-addict. Do a little here. Help a little there. Fix a bit here. Many of those activities I begrudgingly attended. I knew there was some sort of connection that I was supposed to be making, but it just wasn’t happening.

So, when I came to JIP, I was looking for something more. I, too, had turned down some of those well-paid possibilities, but not because I was dedicated to service. Instead I was searching for a formative experience that would re-orient my priorities in life. I knew if I didn’t take some time to do it right, that I would be swept up, yet again, into a world of façade-like service, where my personal commitments didn’t have to be held accountable by those whom I sought to serve.

And I’m forever grateful to that year in JIP. It was here that I began the long journey to learning, and I mean really learning, that our “service” does not manifest itself in moments of conspicuous charity. True service, rather, is a lifestyle, and a difficult one. It’s a personal commitment -- a deep facet of what it means to call oneself a Christian. And, it is perpetual – something that we are always attempting to live into, something that we are always messing up, something that we are always trying again to get right.

Servant leadership radically changed the way that we, the interns, saw each other, as well as the world. We are held accountable to our choices – personal, relational, financial – by one another, and by our friends and neighbors in our service placements. We were called to look at this experience, or at life, not as something that we would “get” something out of, but as something to give to. We were moved to look at life as a place where we could share of ourselves and bless others. A place we could serve.

And, it is these lessons of service as a lifestyle, not as a trend, that I have carried with me as I still learn and live what it means to be a servant leader. It is the consistent, day-to-day choices that tell the story – studying less in order to help a friend in need. Buying green products, even if they’re pricier. Mowing the lawn for a neighbor.

It’s the small moments that reflect the voice of God in our lives – that are what servant leadership is about. In a momentous year spent with JIP, the memories I cherish the most are ones no else would have noticed. That cup of coffee with Justin. That walk through the park with Erika. That spontaneous dance party with Angelique. These moments were the ones in which we allowed ourselves to know and be known; to love and be loved. These were the moments where we let our guard down to serve our hearts.

These are the moments when I realized that I, too, servant-leader-in-training, was actually the one who desperately needed to allow myself to be served. And these moments are what still allow me to be my authentic self, broken and all, and offer myself to God and to others in service.

It’s much harder to remember that, now I’m on the “outside.” But what I remember on the inside is the way that JIP sought to love and serve me (and still does!) – a gracious gift that gives me the strength and empowerment to continue seeking to love and serve the world.


Intern Story
JIP, Take Two
by Will Owen

I chose to take a second year as a Johnson Intern for the same reasons that I pursued a first year: I couldn’t not do so. Taken from the range of possibilities, both choices seemed unlikely. In the first case, I was coming from an elite college in New England. What could North Carolina offer me? In the second case, I’d already spent a year living intentionally. Wouldn’t I stagnate if I stayed in the same place?

E.L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” The same could be said for life. In March of 2008 my headlights pointed towards the JIP and North Carolina; in March of 2009 they still did. Since the JIP doesn’t currently offer a third-year position, I trust that in March of 2010 those lights will point somewhere else!

The Johnson Intern Program has helped me find the self I had lost among the anxieties and pressures of eight years of elite academic life. As cliché as this may seem, coming to North Carolina felt like coming home, internally as well as externally. Servant Leadership, intentional living, Club Nova, and North Carolina have all provided a space for me to explore and discover who am I in all my messy aliveness. I feel freer than ever before to play, laugh, cry, write, and pray.

My first year with the program, those changes were rapid and broad. With every new concept I encountered an entire world opened to me. My second year with the program is allowing me to grow deeper in those discoveries, to pursue many of them beyond the surface level, to explore more of the subtleties of my own inner life. Both of these experiences are helping me find wholeness, a wholeness I trust I can, because of JIP, help others find.


Intern Story
Maybe all we really need is love
by Katie Thompson

One recent Wednesday morning I received an email from Susan with the subject line: write? She requested that I contribute to this year-end booklet, expressing, “…the idea is to write about what you have taken from your year here into your life outside the program.”

I systematically considered aspects from the Johnson Intern Program in which I am still involved. Just one week prior, on the third Wednesday of the month, I had gathered as a member of the JIP Board to consider the sustainability and organic growth of the program. Just minutes later, I would start my car and drive to the Habitat for Humanity of Orange County office, where I serve as the Development Coordinator, a position offered to me after my internship at Habitat last year. Just one day later, I would reunite with Abigail Lee (‘07-08 JIP) after not seeing her in almost two weeks (a week is a long while in JIP time!)

It struck me - I don’t have a life outside the program! My recent life has evolved so wholly out of my experiences as an intern living in intentional community that I struggle to find a piece of myself or my life left untouched. The word that comes to mind when I reflect back on my time in the JIP that has carried me forward is simple and pure: love.

I should clarify that love in our intentional community was not defined by a plainly easy, happy tenure. We understood suffering both individually and as a community, allowing challenges at our Partner Organizations and in the house to incite pain and expose weaknesses. My community challenged my safe, measured rhythm of life, inspired my faith journey, and reminded me that we are one body in Christ. We engaged in heated discussions on faith, relationships, communal food, household responsibilities, and…the noise from community members returning home after 25¢ drafts on Franklin Street! But, when tensions cooled, only one thing remained: love rooted in God.

I am in awe of the seven devoted folks with whom I lived last year. Abigail, Daniel, Jesse, Karen, Kelly, Matt, and Matthew shared love through their life passions and daily activities. I witnessed yoga lessons, paintings on paper bags, music floating from guitars and a bass, meals consisting of 99% peanut butter, long walks and conversations, smiles, and…maybe most important of all, the willingness to sit and “be” with each other.

So what have I taken from my year in the JIP to my “life” outside the program? Abundant love. The compassion and grace have allowed me to open my heart to more fully recognize, receive, and share God’s love. This love motivates my hope when relationships are tough, my continued commitment to the JIP, and my service to low-income families through Habitat. I thank you all for nurturing me when I was an intern and while I have continued to grow in love.



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