Word and World Internship Program

Work and Study

The same impetus behind the creation of Word and World’s week-long schools—a need for seminary education that seriously engages questions of theological formation but still encourages on-the-ground grassroots activism and organizing—led to the Word and World Internship Program. Currently this arrangement enables two young movement activists to pursue study in theology, history, social analysis, scripture, and literature while remaining accountable to—and immersed in— work for social transformation in the community. (Photo above features former interns Kate Foran, Christina Repoley, Zac Moon, and Steve Borla with Ched Myers).

Current interns Nicole and Kyle Lambelet (pictured below) share three days a week of work running the Word and World office, and two days a week of self-directed study aided by a Mentoring Committee of Bible scholars and movement theologians, poets, authors, and pastors. The unique social location of Greensboro, North Carolina, shapes the program of work and study.

In keeping with Word and World’s theological and pedagogical understanding that faithful discipleship requires “proximity to the periphery” of empire, the Word and World office and the home of the interns are located on the Southeast side of Greensboro, a few blocks from the Beloved Community Center’s Homeless Hospitality House.  Nearness to the Beloved Community Center also allows us to share in the groundbreaking organizing work that has formed Greensboro since the early days of the

African-American Freedom Struggle (see the report on the Greensboro school for more details).  Interns have been able to witness the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation process unfold (see the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project and the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission pages for more information), participating in the Local Task Force and assisting the Commission in statement taking.  Christina is applying her Spanish speaking skills to help with cross-racial organizing for improved public schools through the BCC’s “community dialogue on education” group and with organizing for better housing with the Greensboro Housing Coalition.   We are able to sit at the feet of veteran organizers for racia l and economic justice, including Nelson Johnson, Joyce Johnson, Ed Whitfield, Lewis Brandon, Willena Cannon and Alma Purvis—key figures in Word and World’s Greensboro School.  We are learning how to put ourselves at the service of an African-American and poor people’s agenda.

Divisions between life, work, and study in Greensboro collapse as we grapple with questions of how to engage in theological reflection that remains responsive to the urgency of the moment, or how to struggle with the often ambivalent inheritance of our own traditions and culture.

The Internship Program also provides opportunities for travel. In addition to recommending texts, mentors on the committee suggest events and activities that aid in our formation. In November of 2005 Zac and Christina attended the School of the Americas protest ( pictured at left). Steve and Kate traveled to Chicago last February to participate in Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s class on urban Powers and Principalities at the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education, and Christina participated in the SCUPE Congress on Urban Ministry in Chicago this past March. All four traveled to Massachusetts in September 2005 for a visit to the community-supported Wilder Brook Farm, where we engaged in action (harvesting potatoes, and eating them!) and reflection (scripture study on environmental stewardship) with Ched Myers, along with Kate Stevens and John Hoffman (resident farmers and cooks extraordinaire), all from the Bartimaeus Covenant Investor Community. In January 2006 we had the opportunity to study for two days with Hebrew Bible scholar Norman Gottwald at his home in Berkeley, CA, joined by mentor Laurel Dykstra and Word and World friend Matt Colwell (see below for a complete list of travel and events, as well as a report on our visit with Gottwald).

Click here to learn more about our Mentoring Committee.

To support the work of the internship program, please send your tax-deductible donation to:
PO Box 1623, Greensboro, NC 27406.