Vocational Services

Your time at London School of Theology is a gateway to your future and not an end in itself. Practical placements ensure that our graduates are equipped to integrate theology and practice into whatever context God calls them to serve.

Vocational Services will walk alongside you throughout your journey at London School of Theology, helping you keep your studies relevant to the whole of life. 

I have grown to love the Lord deeper through my educational journey at LST which has taught me more about God, Scripture, and it’s application in my life than I knew before.

Meagan Lord, LST graduate

UNDERGRADUATE PLACEMENTS

Embedded in core modules for many students in first and second years of their undergraduate studies, practical placements offer the opportunity to identify and develop your gifts and skills, to grow in Christian character as you serve and to explore your leadership potential in each field.

Placement roles can include anything from pastoral care to preaching, from leading worship to serving coffee, from helping in the youth group to live streaming services. Online and nonresidential students are often based in their home church and residential students in one of our carefully selected partner churches. It’s thrilling to see how many placement churches become a student’s church family while at LST and even beyond!

Watch this short video, where our students share about the placements they were involved with and the reflections that came with it. 

We help you to discern your vocational path after LST and as you study at LST, you will gain a deepening understanding of yourself, your God given gifts and the value of your theology-based LST qualification. We will support you in being equipped for your vocational future after graduation. We do this in several ways:

Practical Placement in your first year

Core modules for most programmes in your first year involve a weekly, church-based placement throughout the academic year.

We will work with you individually to ensure the placement is a good match for you (allocating residential students to a local church partner and working with home churches for non-res/online students).

This gives you the chance, in a church family context, both to apply what you’re learning at LST to the ‘real world’ AND to identify, develop and pass on your gifts and skills. You will grow in Christian character, whilst exploring leadership potential and being shaped for your future life and ministry. 

Placement Guide

Practical Placement in your second year

Placement can be carried out ‘for credit’ or ‘informally’ in second year – either intensively through the summer months, or weekly across the academic year.

This time placement is about listening to God and testing your vocational call – so it is as unique to you as your thumbprint! You might choose chaplaincy in a hospital or school context, internship in a theatre company, beach mission in Mallorca, placement in an anti-trafficking charity or in the business world (all recent placements) or you might continue in a church context, or get experience in an area that God has already given you a passion to serve him. 

These experiences are invaluable for your CV, nurturing in you those essential transferable skills that employers seek.

VOCATIONAL SUPPORT FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Some postgraduate students are already established on a vocational pathway by the time you join our Masters programme. Many are also open to consider fresh, or additional, vocational pathways. LST’s Vocational Services provide support, guidance and resources to help you prayerfully consider your options, while you pursue your research.

We do this in various ways: 

  • Postgraduate employability seminar, run in partnership with NGO Christians for Impact, which can open pathways you might not previously have considered and equip you to pursue them
  • Vocations event (open to under- and post-graduate students), inviting a range of Christian (and non-) organisations to share their vision and to have ‘seedbed’ conversations  
  • CV review, where we will help you make your CV all it can be, for every application 
  • Almabase: LST’s alumni website and virtual jobs board, where a range of Christian jobs are regularly posted. 

This is what our postgraduate students are saying about the support:

I found it really encouraging to have these resources provided as I appreciate how much the school thinks of us wholistically and not just as current students. I have never been in such an encouraging and nurturing environment and I am grateful for that.
Lucy Khonizer MATS-2PT
The CV review has been incredibly valuable and effective in helping me prepare for my job applications. I also find the job portal on the LST Alumni website to be extremely useful. It is consistently updated, and the information provided is both detailed and comprehensive.
Joyce CheeMATS-FT-OL, graduated
The careers fair on campus for all students was especially helpful for meeting organisations and hearing different practical options.
Olusakin Isaacs-Sodeye MATS-FT
We see time and time again how God uses placements to shape students for future life and ministry. Even if it is not part of the formal curriculum, you can pursue these opportunities informally, as work experience, in your specific vocational interest. There is considerable flexibility to cater for the great diversity of students from all ages, denominations and life experiences.
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Planning to Serve

The Vocational Services team arranges a range of events throughout the academic year. We host an annual vocations fair, inviting a wide range of organisations onto campus, so that students can understand the opportunities out there, both for work experience and employment.

Through workshops and 1-1 support, CV writing workshops and mock interview practice, we help students discern where they will thrive vocationally and be equipped to reach their goals. In short, we do all we can to enable students to hear and respond to God’s call on their life – then go and put their Theology into practice, to the ends of the earth!