The economic crisis in Lebanon continues to deepen. The global church must act fast to raise up and support the local church and indigenous believers. To achieve this goal, Horizons' Middle East Center (MEC) has launched a variety of paid internships for local church members, training up a new generation of leaders. This opportunity allows interns to gain valuable career skills, support their families, and build up their churches.

WHAT INTERNSHIPS ARE AVAILABLE?

Horizons recruits and trains interns from among its local partner churches, involving them in ministry activities, and mentoring them in Christ-like character. The interns gain specialized ministry skills such as Worship Arts, Media, Graphic Design, Coding, Children’s Ministry, Administration, Evangelism, and Discipleship. The training in these ministry activities takes place in and through our various MEC cohorts and Horizons ministry centers.

Current internships include:

  • Leading others to relationship with Christ through personal guidance

  • Creating photo and video content for web and social media formats

  • Learning to code for websites and IT infrastructure, to help churches improve their online presence

  • Producing professional-quality design work to support churches’ growing needs

  • Developing musical abilities, forming new music groups, coordinating worship events.

Connecting with churches

Evangelism and discipleship are at the core of Horizons’ ministry, and we endeavor to carry them out in ways that bless and encourage the efforts of local churches to do the same. By integrating our evangelism and discipleship activities into those of local churches, we find that our impact is greater, as well as being more scalable and sustainable.

We recruit staff who are members of local churches with whom we maintain positive and fruitful relationships. This dynamic is not only crucial to our healthy organizational life but also represents incredible opportunities to increase our impact through partnering with these churches by coming alongside their vision and striving to support what God is doing through them. Working with interns from these churches is a key part of our integration.

the Impact

It is a challenge for local believers to remain in Lebanon through the ongoing crises. Due to a lack of employment, many are no longer able to support their families and churches, and are at risk of being forced to emigrate to foreign countries. Historically, when Christians move away, they rarely return to the region. We believe that a strong indigenous Christian presence in Muslim-majority areas is of utmost strategic importance to the Great Commission.

At this time of economic collapse in Lebanon, any employment opportunity for believers is a blessing and helps them to provide for their families in a time of extreme need. The internship program is a critical part of our strategy to help the local churches survive and continue to maintain their presence in Lebanon. Without these opportunities, many believers would be forced to leave the country. Not only does this internship program put food on the tables of believers, but it also provides them with the opportunity to develop themselves and their skills, and also to use their time in productive Kingdom work that will help their churches expand their impact in the community.

missional business Outsourcing

The MEC is developing dynamic relationships with businesses and ministries around the world to facilitate outsourcing solutions that support the interns and staff. We are building teams of believing professionals who can offer a wide range of services to businesses and ministries around the world. In our close partnerships with over 90 churches in Lebanon, we have met so many believers who are well-educated, talented, and enthusiastic professionals with skills in numerous areas of business including media, technology, accounting, and marketing.

By providing virtual job opportunities through the MEC we enable believers to stay and be salt and light in their communities in the Middle East. In turn, these believers can add great value to businesses worldwide by providing cost-effective work. This is an incredible opportunity to make an impact for the Kingdom in the Middle East by supporting them to continue serving the Lord, both through their churches and Horizons. This is a crucial time for the future of the Church in Lebanon - a time full of opportunities for your business or ministry to make a difference in the lives of local believers. 

Read the Executive Summary or the brochure to find out more.