"Intern."

The word itself makes me cringe. And it's one that I've been putting off for (nearly) the entirety of my college career. 

Well, up to this point. This year, my last year, I have taken a position as a Communications intern. Being a Journalism and Strategic Communications major, that makes sense. After receiving emails and newsletters and lectures about the importance of an internship on my resume, I gave in. 

But this feels so much different than what I was expecting. No one has asked me to get them coffee yet. I haven't even gotten yelled at. In fact, there's an abundance of free coffee, and my bosses sit down with me to talk about how I'm doing, as a person, not just an employee. 

I'm interning at Blackhawk Church. And honestly, I still struggle with the fact that I'm a church intern. I'm not at a big agency in New York or Chicago or writing for a widely read newspaper. I don't have to wear business clothes. My office is right under the sanctuary in Middleton, WI. 

Sometimes, those things make my internship feel invalid, like I need to justify and argue for myself after I tell someone I'm a communications intern...at a church. 

"But it's a MASSIVE church. There's multiple sites and thousands of attenders. And their communications and marketing stuff is really well-done. It doesn't look like it comes from a church at all. Plus, the women on the comm team are just phenomenal."

At the end of the day, I didn't seek out this internship to impress others, even though that's the point of building a resume. I wanted to intern at my church because I believe that communication can serve a bigger, much bigger, purpose than selling things we don't need or twisting words to make a company look better than it is. 

Here, I'm learning how to communicate the Gospel, in a professional setting, to a very large and diverse body of people. This is something my professors could never teach me, even if they wanted to. 

And maybe you don't believe in the same things as me. That's okay. But don't disregard what I'm doing. Because in this environment, my bosses are letting me get my hands on big projects. I'm learning about website development and video production. I get to write and have my voice heard in planning meetings. I'm being trained in self-awareness and time-management, skills that reach far beyond these church walls. 

This internship is equipping me. To communicate effectively with passion about an important mission, to streamline ideas for a wide body of people, to speak up in meetings despite the fact that I'm obviously the new girl, to manage the heck out of my time. 

Yes, I'm an intern, at a church. And yes, it's where I need to be.