XL Ministries exists to provide leadership training materials, structure, and support to the local church as it endeavours to train elders, pastors, and missionaries.
~2 Timothy 2:2~
We are excited about our 2026 Conference! The theme will be “Discipling the Saints: Connecting the Head and the Heart.” We are looking forward to a wonderful time of teaching, singing, and fellowship focused on discipleship within the local church. Join our newsletter to receive more details as it gets closer and to be updated when registration opens.
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XL’s founders believe that the church is absolutely the best place to train men for ministry. Because of this, in 1992 XL Ministries was formed with the intent of developing internships that could be accomplished within the context of the local church.
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What We Believe
We believe in glorifying God. We accomplish this by guiding churches towards the training and equipping of their own members to be leaders in their local church. We believe that, by the Lord’s grace, He will raise up qualified leaders to perform the work of the gospel in the church.
“Churches can easily fall into the habit of praying that God will raise up elders for the benefit of the church, as though the responsibility falls completely on God. The truth is that it is the church’s responsibility to train godly men to become elders.”
Rocky Wyatt, President, XL Ministries
Chris Riser, Senior Pastor of Grace Community Church in Maryville, Tennessee
Board Member of XL Ministries
What We Do
We Train Lay Leaders
Using ‘Becoming A Biblical Leader’ to train lay leaders, both men and women, through out the church
We Train Pastors
2-3 year internship for men to prepare to be a pastor or youth pastor in their local church
We Train Elders
Using ‘Becoming A Biblical Elder’ to develop and train local church elders
We Train Missionaries
2 year internship for men, women, or couples to be missionaries and be sent from their local church
XL Ministries Internships
We don’t bring people to us for the internship. We provide the curriculum, the structure, and the support for the local pastor or church leader to intern potential pastors, youth pastors, and missionaries in their own church. Hands-on training for ministry is most effective when supervised by an experienced church leader. In this way interns can be exposed to the rigors, failures, and triumphs of ministry in an environment that is protective of both the interns and those with whom they work. To that end, we work to equip and empower the local church to train its own leaders (2 Timothy 2:2; Ephesians 4:11-13). In line with this, the internships faciliated by XL Ministries set up a tested, thoughtful, faithful, and proven way for such biblical discipleship and training to take place. XL internships are accomlished in like-minded churches, large or small, and incorporate both theological training as well as practical training, because both are essential for a man to succeed in ministry.
About the Internships
XL offers two internship programs: Pastoral and Missions. Our pastoral internship can be focused towards either the lead/associate pastoral role or the youth pastoral role. All our programs have Bible knowledge, systematic theology, and practical theology. Though some might expect missions and pastoral internships to be vastly different, they are actually similar in many aspects. The missions internship includes the same Bible knowledge and theological training as the pastoral internship, because missionaries need to be as qualified as any church elder. The Missions Internship is open to both men, women, or married couples and will focus on specific areas for them to be sent to plant churches in all the natioins where Christ’s name has not yet been heard. Each internship is a combination of theological and practical training done in their local church, incorporating a series of assignments over the course of 24-months. If an intern is in seminary during the internship, their schedule will be modified and extend to either 30-months or 36-months, to accommodate the rigors of seminary study. Each intern will study under the supervision of their local pastor and complete monthly assignments.
PASTORAL
INTERNSHIP
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MISSIONS
INTERNSHIP
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